Max and The Martians Get Colourful with Their “All the Same” Music Video [Premiere]

Are you ready to infuse a little bit of vibrancy into your day? Let’s wipe away all that black and white and add some much-needed colour with Max and The Martians’ new music video for the single “All the Same.” In an era of mundane videos, they have created something really rich and flashy featuring each of the band members performing the song while the colours and shades constantly change, creating a sort of psychedelic effect that harkens back to the ‘60s which is oh so appropriate given the band’s sound, rooted in ‘60s rock and pop.

The fearless leader of the Martians, Max Bien-Kahn, wanted to shoot a video that was both familiar but surreal with a dash of a Dr. Seuss influence. Each take of “All the Same” was performed with different coloured lighting and then tied together, giving the video a stop-motion effect like we used to see in Hollywood films before computer graphics were innovated.

With some words about the song, Max said, “‘All the Same’ tells the story of the whole record. It’s a reckoning of all the forces in my life, some within my control and some much bigger than me. In this song, I’m drifting unaware of what will come to me. I’m living in a burning building. Inside, I’m dreaming of the past, recalling old lovers and heartbreak. I simultaneously feel love, nostalgia and regret. In the end, the house burns to the ground, and what’s left is all the same.”

Regarding the music video, he added, “Sarrah Danziger, the director, came up with the concept for the video. The idea was to make something that is both familiar and surreal. Sarrah designed and built an elaborate set. It felt like being inside a Dr. Seuss subtropical dream world. Each take was spliced together by Nisa East (camera, edit) to give it that stop-motion effect. The video, like the song, carries a static energy that is steady and unchanging, yet feels like it is about to burst at the seams.”

Based in New Orleans, Max and The Martians is the stage name for Max Bien-Kahn who created the project to fulfill his desire to create a danceable, feel-good, country meets garage rock type sound. There’s a certain levity contained within the music that works well with Bien-Kahn’s disposition for the country storytelling common of the 1950s and 1960s. “All the Same” will act as the title track to his brand new album, due out in March on Perpetual Doom.

The album will feature a collection of jangly, upbeat, dreamy songs focused on love, loss, and change. Featuring a number of different contributors, Bien-Kahn worked primarily with Ross Farbe of the New Orleans indie band Video Age who recorded the album and also contributed some of the instrumentation. Besides Max and The Martians, Bien-Kahn is also a member of the traditional jazz band Tuba Skinny as well as Esther Rose’s band. Multi-talented with just the right amount of quirk, Max and The Martians have arrived to make your listening tastes a little more eccentric.

Artwork for ‘All The Same’ by Max and the Martians