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Premiere: Golden Idols’s “Nobody Else”

Release date: September 13th, 2019

Dan Ray September 13, 2019
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Premiere: Golden Idols’s “Nobody Else” September 13, 2019

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Photo courtesy of Golden Idols

Golden Idols, a spooky-pop quartet out of Seattle, released their Uneasy EP back in June. The EP centers around tracks about real-life love: the ever-moving puzzle of communication, the fear of rejection, and infidelity. Now, the band is dropping a new music video for “Nobody Else,” the third track on the five-track EP.

The pop-rock bop of “Nobody Else” is filled with fast-driving, cascading drums, soothingly spooky backup vocals, and lightly pulsating guitars that could just as easily match a day at the carnival or a day staring at the washing machines at the laundromat as the actual story of abuse it tells: “you always told me / if you couldn’t have me / I couldn’t have nobody else.”

The video features frontman Patrick Broz posing stoically with his abuser (Brandt Symons) for a photo shoot. While Symons plays up the relationship — pawing over Broz, kissing him, and, once, applying lipstick on him — Broz stares into space, looking more like a lifeless doll than a human, while the photographer (Kendra Berry) continues to pose and cheer on the “happy couple.”

As the video moves forward, Symons’s violations of Broz grow increasingly uncomfortable. The video never gets graphic, but what starts as light touches and precise placements from the photographer develops into sloppy kisses and progressively forceful positioning from Symons.

While the main story of the video shows this outward presentation of a seemingly happy relationship, cut scenes (overlaid with a red filter) show what goes on behind closed doors. Symons gleefully teases Broz with knives and ropes, violently keeping him in check — “I have to admit / I never saw it coming / the crowbar to the back of the head” — all the while the guitars continue to bop happily along, unaware of the evil yearning lurking inside of Symons.

“Nobody Else” quite perfectly captures the dichotomy of an abusive relationship. Even as you watch Broz laying in a pool of his own blood during the bridge of the track, the hold Symons has over Broz and the video as a whole still permeates. Having just watched Symons dance like Santa on meth, you’re left feeling like Broz will be okay because Symons “took me from the floor / put me in a chair / straightened up my tie / cleaned my bloody hair,” even though, seemingly, Symons is the one who put Broz on the floor in the first place.

Take a look at the video below, and remember that help is always available. If you or someone you know is being abused, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1800-799-7233.

 

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).