Artist: Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Song: Hide
Based: United States
Stands out: Emotional mini-documentary accompaniment and an inspiring coming out story
With the release of North Carolina-based indie rock band Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s hotly anticipated new album “How to: Friend, Love, Freefall” comes the release fo the moving video accompaniment for their track ‘Hide’.
The video follows the lives of four drag queens in New Orleans in a style quite unlike your average music video, adopting a micro-documentary style. Although upbeat in its nature, the heavy subject matter of coming out is a story which resonates with the band’s frontman Sam Melo.
In his own words:
In the summer of 2015, I had simply stopped writing. I’d always been pretty prolific, but, without that outlet, an unfamiliar feeling began to register with me. Digging for a couple days, I came to recognize that I was attracted to someone. It’s a guy. “Oh shit…I’m gay.”
I was so emotional because it was so taboo growing up in the Dominican Republic, a real man’s man kind of place. The few out kids I knew all got beat up for being gay. Somehow I recognized early on, that whatever I was, I was like them.
All of those thoughts rushed back to me when I discovered this attraction, and the first words I wrote in weeks were “I got some radio wires soldered to my heart; you’re the only thing that’s coming in.” That single line would grow into “Hide.”
I exploded and cried. Three days of, “what is happening?!” The waves of emotion were intense for me and I was really nervous to tell the band. At our next practice, I came out to them. Their response? “You’re a dance major who wears a pea coat, dress shoes, and smokes Djarum Blacks. We know, it’s cool.” Despite the anti-climactic reaction, they were the reason this song came to life in the studio nearly two years later.
No longer hidden, this video is a celebration of that process – reconciling who and what you love with the people you love.
A fantastically moving and inspiring piece, a real creation to behold.