Q&A: Chipped Nail Polish Explore the Early Twenties Experience in Their New Video For “Shakin’ in Yer Boots”
YOUR EARLY TWENTIES ARE OVERWHELMING — but it's one thing to be told that, and another entirely to actually experience it. As college ends and friends go from down the hall to across the country, the scale of the world can feel daunting. Often early twenty-somethings are in new cities with new jobs, surrounded by new people. Everything around them is happening so quickly, uncertainty surrounds them, but there is some comfort in knowing that everyone goes through it. Portland band Chipped Nail Polish confronts this feeling of learning to be okay with the unknown with their single “Shakin’ in Yer Boots,” off their new EP, Bottom Feeder.
Lead singer Jill Sullivan screams through the song’s first drop, “We’re all just shakin’ in our boots / because we don’t know what to do.” The track is a quick two-minute rush through how it feels to be in this stage of your life. Starting with a quiet ukulele intro, the song quickly drops into a fuzzy pop-rock explosion.
The band premiered a music video for the track today, featuring a puppet specially designed to look like Sullivan. The video captures how massive the world feels when you are in a new place, as the small puppet rides on buses and sits on benches around New York City.
Luna got the chance to sit down with Sullivan and talk about where the idea for the video came from and the process of its creation. Read the interview below.
LUNA: Hi! First of all, I have to say I really love the song — congrats on the whole EP, it's great!
SULLIVAN: Thank you so much!
LUNA: So where did the idea for this video come from? Was it something you thought of or was it you and the director?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, so it's funny, I am not a visual person. I know there's a lot of artists that have a specific idea for a music video or a visual to pair with a song, but for “Shakin’ in Yer Boots,” specifically, I was like, I honestly have no idea. It could go so many different ways — there's so many different things that we can do to communicate the vision. So I met John Osment, who directed and produced the video — through TikTok, actually. He saw one of my videos on TikTok a couple years ago and messaged and followed me, then we just became internet friends. But I live in Portland, Oregon and he lives in NYC so we just had this funny little internet friendship for a while. And he works in video production as his full-time gig, and does freelancing as well. Then last fall, I was back in New York for work and I was like, “Oh my gosh, let's go get coffee or lunch or something.” And we did. And then he was like, “If you ever need any visuals and stuff, let me know.” And I was like, “Yeah, I mean, I have an EP coming out soon. So you can listen, and if there's a song that jumps out and that you want to create something to, let's do it.”
LUNA: That’s so cool!
SULLIVAN: Yeah! We just got along really well. Once I’d met him, I realized he has a lot of skills, he knows what he’s doing — he was already coming up with some really cool ideas on the spot. How Chipped Nail Polish operates is that I write the songs and then I have a lot of helping hands making the vision possible. I really like creating an opportunity for other creative people to do what they love to do and what they're best at because I'd have no idea about video production, and those ideas don't really come to me.
So I was very hands off with it — [John] chose the idea. Obviously I was like, “I'm not flying back to New York anytime soon and you're probably not gonna fly to Portland, so I'm probably not going to be in it.” Which I was fine with, because I did another music video — it turned out amazing, it was really great — but being in front of the camera is not my favorite thing. So we were trying to come up with a concept of what we could do separately from me that would still look cool and be interesting. And then somehow he came up with the idea of doing a puppet show of some sort.
LUNA: The puppet idea is so fun! Did he make that puppet?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, one of his friends from a long time ago, Erica Runyon, made the puppet. Then once they made the puppet I got to choose what I wanted the skin tone to be and what kind of yarn I wanted my hair to be. They picked out the clothes. So yeah, it was just a little fun friendship — there were a lot of fun little connections that were made through this video.
LUNA: The puppet really captures the feeling of being lost, because the surroundings all seem so big. Was that kind of what you guys were going for?
SULLIVAN: The whole EP is very much exploring early twenties confusion as to like, “What? What is life? What are we doing?” I mean, for me, I went to college and then I graduated. And I was like, “What now?” Working a full-time job, especially working from home, plus COVID. I'm just like, “Wow, being an adult is sitting in my pajamas for, like, eight hours a day on a screen, and it's just really bizarre.” Also just wanting to still fulfill that childhood dream of being a rock star or doing something creative.
“Shakin’ in Yer Boots” demonstrates that concept really well. Having no idea what the future is or what we're really doing but just trying to be okay with the unknown. It's also kind of funny because the video was shot in New York, which is where my job is actually based, but then we went remote during the pandemic. So for, like, a year I thought I was going to move to New York, and then that just never happened because I really fell in love with Portland. But I think it's fun that it's filmed in New York because it’s this place that always felt like a bit of a dream, something that I was grasping towards, especially at the time that I was writing “Shakin’ in Yer Boots.” And thinking that I was going to move there and then never actually making it.
LUNA: Honestly, I would’ve thought it was intentionally shot in New York if I hadn’t heard the story! Well, congrats on the video release again! Was there anything else you wanted to touch on? I saw you have a live show coming up.
SULLIVAN: I do, yeah, March 17. I have a show in Portland. It's with Novacane, which is another band that's based out here. It's their single release, actually. Then … my friends, Los Gondos, is another band who's playing. Their front person also plays in my band as well. So it's like another family affair.
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