Watch David Lynch's Animation For Interpol's Coachella Set [Video]

Photo by Peter Sutherland

The first time the boys from Interpol met David Lynch, it was (not surprisingly) over coffee. It wasn’t until a few years later that they contacted the filmmaker on the premise of realizing some sort of audiovisual collaboration. At their second meeting, Lynch showed the band a drawing of his character “I Touch A Red Button Man” that he thought would be the perfect (in that abstruse Lynchian way of course) asset to their sound.

By this time, Interpol was already working with Andi Watson and HPX to develop their Coachella visuals and the voyeuristic video backchannels that would come to define their performance, aptly entitled Under Surveillance. So they decided to premiere Lynch’s animation alongside their set.

Lynch choreographed his shrouded, red-button-pushing, Pinocchio-like character to Interpol’s “Lights” (which, coincidentally, they usually perform under red lights). While anyone who didn’t watch Interpol’s Coachella set missed this odd little animation, it’s now being released online so we can all ruminate on the Sisyphus-esque journey of Lynch’s spooky figure at the foreground of Interpol’s intoxicating “Lights.”

Lynch’s short film is certainly memorable, as Lynch films are wont to be, but we also really enjoyed the official music video for “Lights,” which was shot by acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Charlie White—a different sort of masterpiece entirely.