Massive Moth scores big with its creepy music video and ever-changing sound.

Massive Moth drummer Sean Ireland (left) attended Carmel High, where he ran with local rocker Rushad Eggleston. Now Ireland calls Oregon home.

Massive Moth scores big with its creepy music video and ever-changing sound.

By Adam Joseph

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Salem, Ore.-based Massive Moth’s brand-spanking new video for “Patrons of Wanderer’s Way” – from its sophomore album More Scenery Than Man – begins with a disturbing shot of a whimpering woman in tattered clothes struggling to break free from twine that binds her feet and hands.  

Massive Moth- "Patrons of Wanderer's Way" (official music video)

What proceeds is equally uncomfortable: stop-motion animated flies getting their heads chopped off under a microscope by a miniature guillotine; a rat boy creeping around in the dark; and the band members getting soaked with some kind of an embryonic fluid. 

“They said that they were going to pour this orange carrot goo over [our] heads,” says drummer and Carmel Valley native Sean Ireland. “We gave [the filmmakers] complete freedom and didn’t want to hinder their vision; we were dumbfounded by how amazing it is.” 

The music backing up all the surreal imagery is equally striking: It’s unobtrusive and whimsical, with airy guitar and soft vocals, but also has shades of a darker otherness below the surface. It will fill Jose’s Underground Lounge Saturday night. 

“When people ask what we sound like, we’re never able to tell them,” Ireland says. “We have swing songs, garage rock songs and then we have some political songs that are kind of dub. It turns out really well because we all have different musical roots.”  

That’s apparent in the short-and-sweet opening track of the album “House on Holiday Hill,” which starts things off with a flavor that tastes like a crossbreed between the Stray Cats and the Clash.  

It’s the kind of sound that has Ireland loving where the group is going. 

“I’ve been drumming for 13 years,” he says. “[Massive Moth] is probably the most satisfying music project I’ve ever been involved with.”  