King Dude Shares his Elegant and Ambiguous Video for “Velvet Rope”

Following his last supper in the video for “Time To Go To War” King Dude TJ Cowgill is sharing with us the video for the next track heralding his new LP Music To Make War To.

The song, Velvet Rope is a captivating guitar riff wrapped in an graceful piano motif, seemingly auditory representations of  leading man, and elegant older woman of whom an ambiguous relationship is on display within an old soviet era flat in Kiev, Ukraine.

On the video’s amazing cinematography and setting TJ Cowgill explains:

“I wanted to visit Kiev again after playing there last October for the first time. There’s just so
much life there I felt like I had to go back. I think it has a lot to do with them winning the
revolutionary war against their government in 2014. There’s a certain intangible energy to
Ukraine and to the all the wonderful people that I’ve met there—they seem ecstatic to be alive,
finally free from a corrupt government. It struck me as the perfect place to make a music video
for a song on Music To Make War To. It just so happened that one of the few people I knew in
Kiev, my friend and concert promoter Nastya also works for one of the best film companies in
Ukraine as a producer. So I followed the signs, boarded a plane for Kiev, and this video for
‘Velvet Rope’ became the result.”

Director Vlad Protsenko’s vision for the song could be more beautifully realized, evaluating the visuals to such that an assortment of various films or novels could be worked around the mysterious chemistry between TJ and his older muse.

Protsenko explains:

“When I first heard the song I instantly thought, ‘OK, this is definitely about an older woman
dancing in a Soviet-era apartment.’ Eventually only five seconds of that part made it to the final
cut. The song gave me this sense of despair, a taste of a strained and restrained relationship
that is hard to get out of. I figured it would be cool to develop this relationship between an older
woman and a younger guy, which will also be reminiscent of a mother/son relationship, and we
won’t tell the viewer who they really are to each other, leaving them guessing and making their
own assumptions. We all have seen King Dude drinking whiskey, casually strolling across
cemetery, cutting raw meat, and generally being this infernal character in his videos. I wanted to
show him making bed, serving tea, being bored, trapped in some kind of trivial life conditions. I
wanted him to be frustrated and completely not cool. The latter never actually worked out,
because look at him. He looks cool even licking a teaspoon!”

Vampiric love story or Satanic Harold and Maude? Ultimately, the video is open to interpretation.

Music to Make War To, is out August 24th via Van Records. (See European Tour dates in support of the record below)

Tour Dates: (With Kælan Mikla)

• September 20th, Berlin, DE
• September 21st, Leipzig, DE
• September 22nd, Poznan, PO
• September 23rd, Krakow, PO
• September 24th, Budapest, HU
• September 25th, Vienna, AT
• September 26th, Munich, DE
• September 27th, Martigny, FR
• September 28th, Langres, FR
• September 29th, Nantes, FR
• September 30th, Paris, FR
• October 1st, London, UK
• October 2nd, Sint Niklass, BE
• October 3rd, The Hague, NL
• October 4th, Den Bosch, NL
• October 5th, Oberhausen, DE
• October 6th, Wurzburg, DE