Gooseberry’s “Gnash” Video Rejects The Content Playbook

I spend a lot of time thinking about how artists can get more attention on their music, and I’ll be the first to admit that some of the advice out there is getting pretty ridiculous. Apparently, releasing a good song is only half the job now; the other half is knowing how to edit videos, chase social media trends, and convince an algorithm you’re worth showing to someone.

I’m not going to pretend those things aren’t important, because they are, but I can understand why musicians get tired of spending so much time making content when they’d rather be making music.

Brooklyn-based alternative rock trio Gooseberry have taken that frustration and turned it into a pretty funny concept for the music video accompanying “Gnash,” a track from their sophomore album Simple Sucker. The song itself is an aggressive, guitar-heavy piece of rock music about a character who believes that life is a competition where getting ahead means taking advantage of everyone around you. It’s the kind of attitude that feels increasingly common in a world where practically everything has become transactional, and Gooseberry aren’t particularly interested in pretending they’re immune to that way of thinking either.

What’s interesting is how they’ve chosen to present the song visually, because instead of making something equally frantic to match the music, they’ve deliberately made a video where practically nothing happens.

There are no carefully timed hooks, elaborate editing tricks, or obvious attempts to keep viewers watching for another five seconds, which is particularly amusing considering how much modern music promotion depends on exactly those things. It’s a pretty effective way to poke fun at the exhausting expectations placed on musicians today, while also playing into the broader ideas about ambition, arrogance, and human foolishness that run across Simple Sucker.

We caught up with Gooseberry to talk about the thinking behind “Gnash,” why they’ve grown so tired of the content machine, and how their observations about modern society became the basis for an album that seems just as willing to laugh at its creators as it is at everybody else.

Interview With Gooseberry

On “Gnash,” you explore the perspective of someone who believes it’s a “dog-eat-dog world,” where getting ahead means taking advantage of others. Across Simple Sucker, you examine what it means to be the perfect fool in today’s society. What inspired the perspective behind “Gnash,” and how does it connect to the album’s broader themes?

Maybe the world has always been this way and I’ve just spent the better part of my time here as something other than an adult, but coming of age in adulthood in the past decade has felt a lot like witnessing the supercharging of the basest instincts of society.

Social media paved the roads for every interaction to become innately transactional. Covid’s isolation fomented the distrust and misinformation that now dominate our politics and dinner tables. At least here in America, everything has become a zero-sum game. Just now you can also bet on it.

You need tricksters and fools to net that out, and each one is sure of who is which. “Gnash” is a representation of all of that. Or at least an attempt.

You’ve described the “Gnash” video as an “anti-video,” deliberately rejecting quick cuts, manufactured hooks, and the increasingly curated nature of online content. What inspired this approach, and what did you hope to communicate by making a video where, as you put it, “nothing happens”?

I think exhaustion, mainly.

Is it cool that I now know how to do advanced video editing as a skill? Sure. Do I like the fact that the current state of being a musician means needing to also be a director, video editor, programmatic marketer, trend analyzer, etc., etc.? Not particularly.

We’ve reached a point now where so much of the content you see on your feed is formulaic, it’s homogenized, it all blends together.

So we thought something completely on the other end of that spectrum is more exciting, albeit ironically. Even more so since this song is upbeat and frenetic.

Across Simple Sucker, you explore different forms of foolishness, from arrogance and bigotry to nostalgia and a longing for the past. How did these themes shape the album as a whole, and how do you balance poking fun at human behavior with examining the forces that drive these patterns?

I’m not sure you ever strike a true balance between these forces. More so you get beaten back towards one extreme before being thrown towards the other.

I suppose the process is a lot more passive than I’d like to admit. But that’s the fun of creation, of making music. You stick your net out and hope to catch something worth a damn.

And for us, this multi-dimensional character of the fool happened to be our way of expressing all these different ideas.

You also can’t take this life so seriously. Everything is a bit tongue in cheek because it needs to be. We’d self-combust otherwise.