RB Exclusive Interview: Talking “Numbers” with Black Tiger Sex Machine

Just a couple weeks ago, Black Tiger Sex Machine dropped an epic new video for the track “Numbers” off of their debut LP Welcome to Our Church. “Numbers” was one of the most popular tracks off of their new album, so what better song to kick off the music videos? “‘Numbers’ is one of our tracks that always gets a great response when we play it live, so it was definitely among the top choices for a video.” But that wasn’t the only reason that “Numbers” got the video treatment first; the song just corresponded well with what the trio was looking to create, “the idea we had for the video really worked well with the song. ‘Numbers’ has these really aggressive bass lines that remind us of  a vampire tearing someone’s neck off.”

Check out the video for “Numbers” here:

Black Tiger Sex Machine – Numbers (Official Video)

The approach that they have taken with this video is to tell a full fledged story with some impressive production and quality editing. “We love videos that aren’t just a series of scenes or images without any link. We feel that videos with a narrative are more effective. When they have a story you get drawn into, they can really bring you into another world. A lot of our earlier videos are like this, and it’s also the objective we have in mind when planning our live shows. We make sure the visuals and the music come together to tell a story.”

This particular video is highly reminiscent of the 90’s vampire flick, Blade, particularly the opening vampire club scene. In fact, the guys drew from the film for inspiration on the video, “Blade was one of those action movies that we loved back then. It’s a bit over-the-top, but the visuals and actions scenes are so bad-ass. I mean, what’s better than Wesley Snipes in his prime killing vampires with a Katana, dressed in all black leather?” It really doesn’t get much better than that.

From a production aspect, this was definitely BTSM’s most ambitious project to date, “we had a great team and an amazing director so the production process went pretty smoothly. We needed a lot of extras since it’s a party scene so we put the word out on social media and a bunch of our Montreal fans came out.” Fans got to take part in the creation of this trio’s massive endeavor, but the role of the DJ was a bit more difficult to cast. Knowing that they wanted someone who could play the part believably, BTSM decided to throw their very own, Julien, in front of the camera to take on the familiar role of DJ: “Julien had more of  the feral, dirty look we were going for for that character, with his long hair and the beard.” Well played, Julien.

We wrapped up questions on the video by asking if these new videos following the release of Welcome to Our Church might follow a singular story line, building upon the characters that they have already created within the Kannibalen Universe. To that, BTSM had this to say: “That’s definitely something we’d like to do in the future. It’s just a matter of having the right tracks and treatments. But we’ve got so many talented artists on the label, each with their own particular style; we’ll for sure have more exciting videos coming out soon.”

Stay tuned for more videos from BTSM, hopefully they are all as ambitious and engaging as the video for “Numbers.” In the meantime, be on the lookout for Black Tiger Sex Machine’s Welcome to Our Church remix LP which will feature remixes of the entire album by artists on their Kannibalen label. “The LP is looking awesome…Each track on the album has been remade and the styles are really all over the place. We think fans will really be surprised by the quality of these remixes.”

If you missed BTSM at Phoenix Lights last month, you are undoubtedly going to want to purchase your tickets to their intimate show at Monarch Theatre on June 4th!!

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