What To Do have a new video for their track “Viri Magni” off the Chicago-based group’s 2020 debut EP “My Very Own Real Life Porno.” The band reports they were just getting their “shit together” when the pandemic hit last year. Indeed, the EP offers compelling evidence that the weird and amalgamated world of What To Do (maybe short for “what to do with your newfound animosity for the world as you wade through the sea of sin”) was, in fact, coming together in most unexpected ways.
“Viri Magni” kicks off the band’s debut. The track’s warped indie-pop is dusted with the vintage allure of faded AM gold, but conditions of growing discontent eventually explode it through the looking glass into noise and chaos. While the video for the song looks fairly straightforward, its star, the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist Jesse Tijerina recently explained to us that it was actually a harrowing affair. After the video embed below, you can read our interview with the musician as he discusses the video’s making and What To Do’s future plans.
LETV: “Viri Magni” explodes all of a sudden around the 2:00 mark where I feel like your most unique sounds as a band come through. It’s mathy and jazzy, but with what seems like some nods to early post-punk bands, like Gang of Four. It’s really cool and chaotic, and seems definitive of the band’s sound altogether. Did you have an intention when setting out to make this band or did this sound just happen naturally?
JT: There was never really any specific intention when setting out to write for this project. From its conception our main goal has just to be relatively formless, genre-hop, explore every direction, and experiment. Gang of Four is a pretty good band, but the band are huge fans specifically of Talking Heads and The B52s.
LETV: From what I can tell the video for “Viri Magni” is about conflict or chaos, and how we’re being forced through our daily lives, often against our own will. I’m I getting this right?
JT: That’s about right. A huge conceptual influence in the lyric writing for these songs has been sheer boredom with convention and routine. Boredom and disdain with a 9-5 lifestyle, but an intense feeling of helplessness in its institutional presence, I guess. It’s damn near unavoidable, but no one likes it, save for the fleeting sense of security it provides, and all the vices we latch onto in between.
LETV: The end of the video is pretty striking visually, just staring at the camera, there’s some tension, almost the feeling of giving up, in that moment. Was that a happy accident, performed, or directed?
JT: I honestly did not really enjoy making the video that night. I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind, and I don’t normally like to be touched as I was during the filming. So the look I was giving at the end of the video was genuine. I didn’t know the camera was still going, and I was sort of non-verbally communicating, “Did I do good? Did I act right? Is the music video done now?” It’s not so glamorous, but ultimately I’m glad I did it. In retrospect, my mood that evening plays in pretty well with the overall meaning of the video, the character I was playing.
LETV: Your newest album “My Very Own Real Life Porno”… where did the title come from? On first listen, these tracks are an awesome fusion of metal, jam, melody, and long excursions. How has it been received so far and how has it been to start a band during covid?
JT: The title is basically a phrase meant to satirize the concept of adopting unrealistic expectations and toxic behaviors accrued through media. I ultimately kept the title for the song because of how ridiculous it is. The band has a collective love for absurdism and satire, and that was the main intention in keeping the title as well as making it the title of the album.
So far people and media outlets have been pretty nice to us. I’m not super concerned with media reception as much as I am growing as a band right now. And What To Do has been a band long before the pandemic, we just didn’t really have our shit together incidentally up until around when the pandemic initially hit, and at that point, obviously, getting together to work on material was difficult, and rehearsing existing material for live shows was all but futile (and still is, foreseeably). But the support from DIY advocates has been pretty reassuring.
LETV: Last question; what’s next? What can we expect from the band?
JT: We’ve been writing lots of material since the release of Porno, experimenting with different genres and influences and songwriting techniques. It’s hard to say exactly what direction we’ll be going in right now. It’ll become more apparent as we flesh out the larger body of work that will be our first full-length record.
