Rising stars Greg Stainer and MC Olly Wood are all set to release the video for their chart-topping debut single, ‘I Don’t Want It To End’ this week.
The duo, known as Hollaphonic, grabbed the No.1 spot in the iTunes UAE singles charts within 24 hours of their track’s release last month.
However, unlike with PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ - which they ousted from top spot - there wasn’t a dodgy dance video in sight.
“We didn’t want a random video of guys dancing and showing off,” said Stainer at his video shoot inside Dubai’s Zinc nightclub.
Hollaphonic have big plans for being more than one-hit wonders and that has influenced their choice of video style. Stainer explained: “We wanted to make our videos episodic so they are something fans will want to wait for and get excited about.”
Wood chipped in: “In this case there’s a story about a guy and a girl who are sort of having this perfect night out, which is why it’s a feeling of ‘I Don’t Want It To End’.
“Their storyline will continue in our next single, ‘Found you’ with Dia (Juliana Down).”
While the electronic dance-music duo had the idea of how they wanted their videos and tracks to progress, they admitted that they agreed to stay away from the detail and let the video director call the shots. Their only instruction was for him to listen to the song and recreate whatever scene it inspired in his mind.
Stainer said: “We told our video director: ‘Create the moment you see with this song’.”
He added: “When you’re listening to the song in the car, whatever comes into your head - we wanted to create that moment.”
Asked what role the duo played in the video, Wood laughed and said: “If we could have avoided being in it we would have… we were trying to be like taxi drivers, or at a bus stop… we just tried to be on the periphery of the video.”
While the video features many of the duo’s friends, Wood said getting them on board had been an amusing process.
He added: “It’s hilarious… we asked people, ‘You want to be in a music video? It’s going to go on MTV, HTC are sponsoring it [the last video HTC had was Rihanna] and it’s going global?’ and they’re going like ‘oh but American Idol’s on’. That is just sooo Dubai!”
Stainer added gleefully: “Now we want to make our video even more successful, to make these people realise they should have been in our video when they had the chance!”
