Wintersleep ruled the Best of Music poll this year, nabbing five categories that highlight not only their music, but also their album artwork (created by James Mejia) and super slick video for “Danse Macabre” (directed by Sean Wainsteim of Ghostmilk Studios, who also made “Sore”), which just happened to contain a couple of visual similarities (when the band members weren’t running around a hospital with dancing skeletons).
“The album artwork was created long before the video,” says bassist Jud Haynes. “James actually created a couple of custom pieces to use in the video, though—the brain, tree and even a custom street scene that isn’t the same one used on the CD.” As for the video itself, drummer Loel Campbell says that he enjoyed the experience more the second time around.
“‘Danse Macabre’ feels a lot more natural,” he says. “We had a lot more input and acted out the main parts ourselves. It was much more fun to shoot, for sure, however, it was a 16-hour day in a hospital that was shut down...except for the psych ward. That really made things...interesting.”
While the band spent the bulk of 2005 on the road and has filmed three of their videos to date in Ontario, don’t expect them to relocate to Toronto anytime soon. “We’re on the road enough as it is,” says Campbell. “We don’t really need all that time in the big cities. We can be in Toronto in a few days, and we’re up there every few months. It’s not an issue right now.”
“It’s way more convenient being close to home,” adds Haynes. “That way, we finish a tour and everybody goes home and sees their folks. If we were living in one of those bigger centres, we wouldn’t get to do that.”
Runners-up: Shameless, Matt Mays & El Torpedo
