PREMIERE: ELLIOT SHARES INTIMATE NEW VIDEO FOR ‘TRADE BURGERS 4 LOVE’

Who doesn’t love a good meme? I’m personally a big fan. Originating in online message boards in the early days of the internet, ‘meme culture’ has evolved beyond joke sharing and become a part of the cultural zeitgeist, particularly amongst millennial internet users. Now memes are so ubiquitous that companies are beginning to use them as a marketing tool, arising from personal situations, pop culture, and social interaction; the memes themselves evolve rapidly through self referential humour and parody, giving them a short lifespan. It’s rapid entertainment, as easy as swiping your thumb across your phone, the fast food of the internet. And how many of us consume actual fast food whilst scrolling through Instagram or Facebook in the pursuit of new internet funnies? Well, we know at least that Elliot does. A Swedish lo-fi musician inspired by the LA experimental pop scene and his own late night periods of self reflection, he released ‘Trade Burgers 4 Love‘ a couple of weeks ago, and has seen support from the likes of Ja Ja Ja and the Line Of Best Fit. Serving up an existential order of depression with self-loathing on the side, the song blends early Ty Segall with lo-fi blues of Dirty Beaches. The repetitive nature of the song might leave you feeling like Sad Keanu, but you’ll be hungry for more of Elliot’s Fast Food Musik (out early 2018) – in the mean time you can check out the exclusive premiere of the new video below:

We spoke to Elliot about the new single, filming the video, and late night existential crises:

KM: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the track?

 

E: I was sitting in my underpants at home and I felt really awful, both on an existential and physical level. It’s that trivial, unnerving Sunday reminder that I smell bad and say really dumb things. That’s usually what gets me sitting down by my couch studio. At the time I was also trying to convince people how interesting it would be to describe my character flaws and embarrassing needs by using fast food as a storytelling device. Those two things went into a love song where a guy has to choose between his burger and his woman.

KM: A difficult choice indeed. Did you enjoy filming the video?

E: Yes. We green screened it in my friend Love’s boxy student apartment. I bought 20 pounds worth of McDonalds and ate most of it in 3 minutes, and my father is now apathetic towards the direction in which my life is heading. I got a surreal headache and I’m thinking of visiting some place to rehabilitate my stomach flora. It’s not a far cry from the activities that usually take place at Love’s place and that’s why I felt safe there.

KM: What is your favourite kind of fast food?

E: Lately I’ve been getting in to the Mega Gyros Pita close to an internet café I go to sometimes. I actually re-defined fast food when I was living in Berlin and earned 400 euros a month, which was to buy 1 liter of milk and have it together with a bag of Bacon Pep, which totaled a sum of 1,30 euros. If you can, please also redirect your readers to my appreciation society page for Bacon Pep.

KM: As a committed vegetarian I am torn, but I will allow it this once. You’re a big fan of memes. Can you share your favourite meme of the moment?

E: Yes, they are nice to look at. People, I guess with the new Curb Your Enthusiasm season, rebooted the Curb Your Blank meme, before it was centered around someone who looked dead inside and queuing the outro song, but it has become more refined to very specific and sometimes meta-level instances where some public figure fucks up. It’s one accessible meme that still holds water, to me anyway.

KM: I get the sense that you’re an existential kind of guy. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about life’s great questions whilst tucking into a burger?

E: I’m no different from any other 23 year old male. I’ve been uncomfortable  since I was 8, there was always some itch of some sort or maybe my tongue was dry and also, perhaps most importantly, the infantile insight that most things I thought were worth aspiring to just turned out as grey, 3.a.m. burger versions of what they were marketed as in the first place.