Vampire Weekend may have gotten the world to accept them as the band who plays accessible Afro-pop music, but it’s still hard for them to shake that Ivy League label most critics have slapped onto their personalities. We’re also somewhat guilty of doing that here, but can you blame us when they flaunt their love for Polo T-shirts so willingly?
Their sophomore album, Contra, was fairly impressive considering they had to follow up such a hyped up debut. Although we can’t forgive them for using auto-tune on “California English,” it’s difficult to deny the catchy rhythms of “Cousins” and “Giving Up the Gun.” Vampire Weekend will be premiering their video for the latter tomorrow on Spinner and from what we’ve heard about the treatment, it sounds like they’re tired of being stereotyped.
According to an Anthem interview with Emmett Malloy (via Pitchfork), the video will have an array of characters as stars. The cast of the video for “Giving Up the Gun” includes rappers RZA and Lil Jon, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and Jonas Brothers’ Joe Jonas. Malloy, who is also responsible for directing The White Stripes‘ documentary Under Great White Northern Lights, serves as co-director for the video where all the cameos will take part in some sort of “bizarre-o tennis match.”
Sure, there are plenty of teenage girls who would kill to play tennis with a Jonas Brother but, surprisingly, this is one match we’d like to be a part of as well! Malloy goes on:
“We lit shit on fire. We had RZA presiding over the tennis match. Lil Jon came down to give some tennis tips. Jake Gyllenhaal drank himself out of the competition; Joe Jonas tried, but did not succeed. There was a lot of rigorous competition, pyrotechnics, and a little bit of milk to cap it all off.”
We like how Joe Jonas must abide by RZA’s rules, but how many of us have ever pondered taking tennis lessons from Lil John? (He’d probably tell you to get real low.) This should be an interesting watch, to say the least! Our friends, Spinner, will be premiering the video tomorrow and you can bet we’ll give you an update with our thoughts!
