Jacuzzi Boys - Smells Dead from John McSwain on Vimeo.
Although McSwain currently resides in Brooklyn (of course), he's actually a Florida native and a longtime friend of Jacuzzi Boys bassist Danny Gonzalez. It was he that approached the band to shoot last December, when the Boys were slated to play the temporary Art Basel incarnation of Max Fish. It's from there that the swirling, lo-fi psychedelic live shots in the video are taken.
Where things get trippier, though, is in the more recent footage, taken mostly of the band wandering around Bill Baggs State Park in Key Biscayne. "[The director] wanted to go for a dark, creepy kind of vibe, so we spent the day fucking around and taking shots of us dressed all spooky, hanging out at the park," says Jacuzzi Boys frontman Gabriel Alcala.
The location wasn't chosen randomly. Gonzalez lives on the state park property (his parents run restaurants on the grounds), and the band practices at his home. And sure, the lyrics of "Smells Dead" can sound sort of abstract and mystical: "No matter what I do or what I try / These walls keep haunting me." But actually, they're inspired by something much more prosaic from the house/practice space.
"The song is actually about dead animals," says Alcala, "or, actually, animals that crawl into Danny's house. It's a trailer home, so they come up through the bottom and die in the walls and stink up the whole house." Well, we like a band that says what it means.
The Jacuzzi Boys play a tour kick-off show with Feathers on Friday, April 30 at Bar, 28 NE 14th St. Show starts at 8 p.m., age 21 and up. 305-633-9345; 28ne14st.com
