Given the clip’s theme, the timing on the arrival of a new video from Sleeping Pills couldn’t be stranger.
“Before he was caught it was quite eerie, thinking we might be targeting ourselves,” Phil Taylor, frontman for the Tampa rock outfit told CL over email.
Taylor, 27, is talking about the person behind a string of murders that had Bay area neighborhood Seminole Heights on edge for more than 50 days. Our exchange happened just days before Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren announced that a grand jury indicted Howell Donaldson III on four charges of premeditated murder in the Seminole Heights shootings.
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Video Premiere: Sleeping Pills shares a clip for “Forever” from new LP, A Maze In A Wave
The Andrew Petersson-directed short for “Time To Go” (the final track on Sleeping Pills’ new album, A Maze In A Wave, released in October) depicts a serial killer, played by Damon Koontz, moving around downtown Tampa, the port and Ybor City picking off members of the band in violent fashion. One-by-one, multi-instrumentalist Zack Strickland, bassist Joseph Rodriguez and drummer Nate Irizarry go down by knife, baseball bat and brick.
The killer ends up in a movie theater (set in the now defunct Florida Avalon Theatre in Seminole Heights) where Taylor is watching a movie. Onscreen is what appears to be the actual the killings being played back.
“Yes the killer was hallucinating by seeing himself on the screen,” Taylor explains. You can guess what happens next.
Taylor says the band came up with the thriller concept coincidentally and way before the Seminole Heights killing even began. He’s aware that the topic is sensitive, but “like most of the people in Seminole Heights we didn't let him stop us from what we already set out to do.”
Have a look at the video below, and call your local record store to see if it's carrying the release.
SeeCL’s premiere of Sleeping Pills’ last video here.
You can order the album and listen to it online via Hidden Eye Magazine.
