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The band wrote, directed and produced the video, and it adds more of the ’80s vibe, said Justin.
The band 3rd Borough is doing a lot of things with their new release, “Blood Like Yours.” First and foremost is a rockin’ love song with blood, vampires and some great guitar licks. Another is that it is the first release from their upcoming album The Human Quest.
And yet another is that it is the star of a fun video and a documentary on the making of the video.
The fact that it is releasing during Halloween season is incidental.
“We call it a love song dressed in a Halloween costume,” said Justin Werner, one of the founders of the band and one of the two lead vocalists and songwriters, with cofounder Apaulo8. They bill their specialty as indie pop rock with a hip-hop vibe.
“Instead of saying the word ‘love’ we say ‘blood,’ and it pretty much makes sense. Ultimately, I think, it puts the idea across that love is very passionate, and there’s a bit of obsession in there. We created these characters — we made vampires out of them — and it’s this age-old love story that we tried to paint for people.”
“If I had a song to compare it to, I would say Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’” said Apaulo8. “We’ve got a kind of similar energy in ‘Blood Like Yours.’ It’s very Halloween, definitely a good sound. I would say it’s a new age, hip-hop version.”
Ibo, the band’s bassist and engineer, was a key element in bringing the song back from its 2015 origins. He was a member of the band before, as the engineer, but moved out of state. He rejoined the band about a year ago.
“They showed me a bunch of songs, and one that stood out was ‘Blood Like Yours.’ I was like, ‘Wow! This song is really neat.’ So, we produced it, and we did a video for it that pays a little tribute to the movie The Lost Boys, from the ’80s. That goes with the vibe of the song.”
“That’s the essence of it,” he said. “We went for something like that, that’ll sound similar from that era, but modern.”
Apaulo8 says that “Blood Like Yours” inspired them to start finishing The Human Quest, but that Ibo, who he calls the “glue” that holds them together, was also a huge factor, not only in finishing the album but also in reconstituting the band. Now Ibo is the bass player as well as the engineer.
“I loved it when I was just mixing for them. The cats that they have brought into play — they are awesome. I’m pretty thrilled to be taking part now as a musician. It’s a really great opportunity to make music with my friends that I admire and respect.”
“We have 30 songs done,” said Apaulo8, who is known in the band as “Paulie.” “The ones we really want to put on the album we’ll reproduce with the whole band and make it a solid 10- to 15-track album with a lot of hits on it.”
The band wrote, directed and produced the video, and it adds more of the ’80s vibe, said Justin. It ends with a poster of Justin and Paulie in their younger selves and dressed in ’30s style, “kind of putting that idea across that we go way back.”
“We put a lot of love and attention into that,” he said. “We scripted it ourselves. We pulled all of the resources together. Costume design — that was us. We did have a makeup artist come in for makeup and hair, but the lighting and whatnot, that was us. We had to rent a warehouse up in Los Angeles, and we set that up.”
The music video is hugely entertaining with very high production values. They put it together from their various locations. The band was originally formed in 2010 in San Diego, but Justin now lives in North Carolina and wrote the script there, Paulie was in California gathering people and materials, and Ibo lives in Florida.
“We have fire dancers coming in,” said Justin. “We really put a lot of love and attention into the music video, and we’re very proud of what we created.”
They also created another video, a documentary of making the music video. It is as entertaining as the video it documents.
The plan is to release a song a month until The Human Quest drops sometime in the spring. The target date is April 28, Paulie’s birthday.
The single, the videos and the album are all part of a larger vision of bringing the human touch back to the art of music. The Human Quest in that way is symbolic.
For instance, the singles will have “a vibe for every season” says Justin, one for November, one for December, January and so on, and the album will deal with various aspects of humanity. The one tentatively planned for November is titled “Controlling the Fire.”
Another side of the vision is in their business model. They are focusing on releasing their music first through their website, but the purpose is not limited to business. It is also, Paulie says, the experience of music.
Justin elaborates, recalling the feeling of buying an album, cassette or even a CD in the in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s.
“There’s this whole thing where you open it up, and you look inside, and there’s this little booklet, and the sleeve, and the whole thing that makes it like you get a chance to spend time with the band. You know?”
Their business and creative models also make room for human connection through vinyl and live performances, as difficult as that might be because of the distances between band members.
The release of the album will be an occasion for several events, which include filming and releasing a documentary of a live, 3rd Borough album concert with the whole band. In addition to Justin, Apaulo8 and Ibo, the band has Mark Boyce on keyboards, Arhkota on drums, and Dono Fox on lead guitar.
“Right now,” said Justin, “there’s this wave of old meets new going on. I think people are getting tired of just sticking their face in a phone or watching a screen, and they want it there. I think people are hungry for that interaction again, that real human connection. Hence, The Human Quest.”
Join the quest and connect to 3rd Borough on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
“Blood Like Yours,” music video
“Blood Like Yours,” documentary
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