As an award-winning photographer and videographer, the Phoenix-based Jim Louvau has worked with rock icons including Chester Benington, Maynard James Keenan, Corey Taylor and Josh Homme, and shot for publications including Revolver. As a musician, he helms the industrial-metal band There Is No Us.
The group, which also features Louvau's longtime friend and collaborator Andy Gerold (a former touring member of A Perfect Circle bandleader Billy Howerdel's solo project Ashes Divide), recently dropped a new single, fittingly titled "Lunatic," and today (December 15th), they've offered up its animated music video.
Watch above.
"'Lunatic' is a direct result of a toxic society where expectations are too high and are often unattainable and people reach a breaking point when they've had enough and there is no coming back," Louvau tells Revolver. "The video tells the story of a character we've constructed named Sorry Charlie. He's become our mascot of sorts, and this is how he slowly loses his mind.
"From childhood trauma and domestic violence at home, to being an outsider at school, he's struggled to find his place. That's until he realizes he has nothing to lose and he takes matters into his own hands that's really when his character develops. Charlie finally stands up for himself and takes control of his narrative, and he goes from being weak and unsure to powerful and pissed. He recruits an army of misfits who seek to get revenge on those who have wronged them in the most explosive way possible.
"I wrote this story with the intention of it being an animated video, so we could get away with making it darker and more disturbing. This likely won't be the last time people hear from Charlie in the future — he's just getting started."