“I’m In Love With My Life” New Music By Warner Bros. Electro-Pop Group PHASES. Newly signed to Warner Bros. Records, electro-pop group PHASES, consisting of Los Angeles-based quartet of friends Z Berg (The Like), Jason Boesel (Rilo Kiley/Bright Eyes), Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet), and songwriter Michael Runion, debut a video for single, “I’m In Love With My Life” today with NYLON, directed by award-winning film, television, commercial and music video director Ethan Tobman. Watch HERE. The band, also release two brand-new tracks, “Betty Blue,” which premiered on Idolator, and “Cooler,” which premiered on Collide.
Tobman has production designed and consulted on Super Bowl shows, album covers, and music videos for Madonna and Beyoncé, as well as for Lady Gaga, Eminem, OK Go, MGMT, Taylor Swift, Jay Z, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and Daft Punk. He recently designed the videos for Beyoncé and Jay Z’s On The Run Tour. He is currently production designing the upcoming films Room, based on the best-selling book, and Wilson, based on the graphic novel.
“When I first heard ‘I’m In Love With My Life,'” Tobman said, “it put me in such an unashamedly optimistic mood. I immediately thought of trying to do something in reverse. The idea was that PHASES would be moving forward, nonchalantly, while the world around them inverts complexity in a way that brings us joy.”
“The car crash was one of the last shots we did. We bought the Datsun on Craigslist and the last thing the owner said was, ‘take care of my girl! Don’t let anybody hit her.’ Jason had the amazing idea of Z doing her lipstick while everything was happening, as though she is the only person in the shot, which perfectly captured her sexy, nonchalant energy while mayhem breaks loose behind her. I love collaborating with artists who have a strong sense of identity and a sense of humor about it. Despite all the rehearsing, it was luck, really, that all the timing worked out so well.”
The band added, “This is the kind of video we’d always dreamed of making without knowing how; it’s the simplest ideas that blow our minds the most. In the name of serving Ethan’s brilliant vision and superhuman energy, everyone got injured on set at least once, doing handstands and backbends, jumping over cars, and flying into the air on cranes. Mike even sliced his finger on a disco ball! Ethan figured out how to put images to the wild world we created in this song, so waking up with “I’m In Love With My Life” stuck in our heads backwards every morning for a months and a couple of bloody bandaids were definitely worth it!”
After over a decade of intertwined pasts making music, the members of PHASES first began playing together under the name JJAMZ in 2009, releasing an album in 2012. After returning from tour uncertain of their next step, Greenwald, Runion and Boesel continued to carry on writing songs, upbeat sounds heavily influenced by Greenwald’s experimental solo recordings made in his Laurel Canyon living room on an outdated version of GarageBand. They made their way to Berg, who had felt displaced for the first time in LA and had been thinking of moving to Nashville. “It sounded like weird, future spaceship music, from a very old spaceship. I thought, ‘Alright, whatever happens, let’s at least work on this and make songs for fun, without thinking where they go or who they’re for.”
These newly collaborative sessions yielded six new songs, creating a weird world unique to itself, blending decades and influences from each member in equal part. “We wanted the songs to be fun, danceable, and engaging,” says Greenwald. “That’s how the tracks started, and then in the studio the things we added had to maintain that level of excitement.”
PHASES is currently putting the finishing touches on their full-length debut album, which will release in late summer.
