There's a version of this story that starts with two kids skateboarding around Seattle. It ends with a scythe made of cardboard, a miniature Las Vegas built by hand, and one of the most unhinged, catchy songs we've heard all year. We got to be part of the middle.
Today, Evil Island release the video for "King Death," the newest single off their debut album Terraform The Afterlife, out August 14 via Blowed Out Records. We built the world they tore through to make it, and we sat down with them for a Cardboard Session while we were at it. More on that at the end. First, the video.
How We Got Here
Signal's Dave Lee and Ryan Crase have been friends since they were 15, skating together in Seattle. Ryan later crossed paths with Autry Fulbright (OFF!, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead) and invited him out to see a Cardboard Session in action. Autry was floored, not just by the concept, but by how legit the instruments actually held up.
A second Cardboard Session at the Troubadour brought Autry back around, this time with Cody Votolato in tow to meet Dave and Marc Wierenga. Not long after, Autry and Cody linked up with Mark Gajadhar, Johnny Whitney, and Todd Weinstock to form Evil Island. Somewhere in those early conversations, the idea surfaced: do a Cardboard Session, and build a music video around it for the new song "King Death." Everyone said yes immediately.
It's the kind of connection that makes sense once you hear it: skateboarding leads to music, music leads to a shared creative language, and that language happens to run straight through cardboard.
"Creativity, DIY, community. This project has it all. The Signal crew that films music projects all grew up in these worlds."
Building the World
The band and our crew showed up to Studio One at EastWest Studios in LA, the same room where Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, and Adele have recorded, to shoot both the Cardboard Session and the "King Death" video back to back, session first, video second. Production designer Krystall Schott and director Chelsea Debo led the build, working with Ernest Packaging Solutions to construct a full cardboard set and backdrop standing in for the video's real setting: a handmade, cardboard version of Las Vegas, loaded with symbols of excess and vice for Johnny Whitney to move through, cardboard scythe in hand, as the rest of the band appears as cutout characters throughout the miniature city.
Once cameras rolled, the band did the rest.
"The energy is feral, theatrical and completely unpredictable. Underneath the chaos, everything is incredibly deliberate. They built a cardboard world that felt handmade, unstable and slightly dangerous, then let the band tear through it. The cardboard instruments matched the entire energy perfectly."
The set was built to feel handmade, unstable, and slightly dangerous, and the band leaned all the way into that. The cardboard instruments got put through their paces right alongside it. Everything survived.
The Song
"King Death" is built on pummeling drums, serrated riffs, and Whitney's searing vocals: three minutes of pure catharsis that pushes the band's sound into more adventurous territory than earlier singles "Tiger Baby" and "Animal."
"'King Death' is a really simple story about a woman who skips bail and is on the run. Someone who fights back with absolutely no leverage against the certainty of being turned into chum. It's about nihilism, recognizing you have no chance at survival but choosing to fight anyway. It's an ode to everyone living in their car, bleaching their roots in a truck stop bathroom, refusing to disappear quietly."
— Johnny Whitney
The song is one of thirteen tracks on Terraform The Afterlife, Evil Island's debut album, produced by Ross Robinson and due August 14 via Blowed Out Records. The record features guest appearances from Alexis Krauss (Sleigh Bells), Michael Gatto (XCOMM), Jordan Blilie (The Blood Brothers), and Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), whose feature on "T-Hexx" marks his first recorded vocal performance since The Argument in 2001.
Why Evil Island, Why This
Evil Island isn't a reunion project and it isn't a side project. It's a group of musicians who've spent decades shaping underground music, choosing to keep pushing. That's exactly the kind of energy that fits a Cardboard Session: ripping musicians, real creative instinct, and zero hesitation about putting a cardboard instrument through the ringer to see what it can do.
"Ripping musicians, incredible humans, the best energy, and just love all around for creative ideas."
One line in the official press release says it better than we could: the cardboard instruments, courtesy of Signal EXP and Ernest Packaging, are proof that "even the disposable can refuse to disappear quietly." That's the same phrase Whitney uses to describe the people "King Death" is written for. Some things just line up.
Watch "King Death" now, and keep an eye out, the Evil Island Cardboard Session drops soon.
