“Pills” appears on White Reaper’s debut full-length album, White Reaper Does It Again. The garage rock outfit White Reaper has built a reputation this year with their unhinged sound. Their recently released album, White Reaper Does It Again, solidified the punks as a turbulent force of guitars and otherworldly keyboards. Now they’re giving a visual accompaniment to their brilliant madness with the music video for “Pills”.
“So basically Tony [Esposito] is an escapee of a mental institution and he’s gone too long without his pills,” the band explains of the video . “He sustained head injuries, crashed a pool party, and dug a huge hole — all in a day’s work. The video was at first inspired by a few different horror movies but it turned out to be more like a mix of Encino Man / CKY2K than anything else.”
According to directors Cooper Burton and Eli Kleinsmith, the shooting was just as turbulent as the finished product, adding, “We all got a little sick making the video you’re about to see. Shooting provided an outlet for sadism; luckily, Tony, the lead singer, was a total masochist. We made him spit up bile, faceplant a plate of scrambled eggs (multiple times) — he even dug his own grave.”
While full of gruesome antics, the video balances it all out with campy fun. The band traverses with Esposito as he moves aimlessly through diners and fields of flowers, wearing bloody bandages the entire time. Throughout, the video also cuts to scenes of the band playing with pills coming out of their mouths and covering their instruments. It’s enough to make the likes of Sam Raimi and Wes Craven proud.
The Fat Angel Sings 