by / Erica Russell
photo /Samm Milburn
Since 2010, lo-fi Los Angeles indie-rockers of Verona have been crafting the kind of cool melodic synth-laden rock perfect for vibing out to at dark, late night basement parties.
Premiering today exclusively on LADYGUNN, the video for the band’s latest electro-pop single, “Dark In My Imagination,” is a hazy, hypnotic look inside vocalist Mandi Perkin’s cerebral psyche. In celebration of the trippy release, we spoke to Mandi about the video, the music, and what’s coming up.
Your music is a really interesting mix of different genres and musical vibes. What are some of your inspirations, musically?
We’re definitely influenced by the late 60’s and 70’s … Both of us grew up on Bowie, Queen, Pink Floyd and Zeppelin. But we are big fans of artists from all eras, acts like Bjork, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack and Radiohead. We really dig artists who are slightly left of center while still being melodic. We’re also into more contemporary bands such as: Muse, Florence + Machine and Kasabian.  Kasabian’s first album was really ahead of its time and its influence is still being heard in a lot of new acts today.
Can you tell us a little about filming the new video?
It was directed and edited by JungleGe0rge, a dope Brazilian artist. We wanted something sexy, dark and trippy for this video, and that is certainly his vibe, so we thought he would be perfect for this.
We filmed the video at the new Swing House Studios space in the Atwater Village area of Los Angeles. Jungle shot the whole thing on a Harinezumi 2 retro style mini camera, which helped give the video a lot of its feel. We collaborated during the shoot on interesting shots to take that could later be super imposed to create a haunting visual effect. JungleGe0rge then did a great job of adding a lot of those visual graphic elements in post.
What sort of vibe did you have in mind when you started coming up with the creative concept of the video?
The song Dark In My Imagination is about all the thoughts that go on in your mind when the person you’re with is away; You can’t stop imagining what they are doing and who they are doing it with. More often than not, what’s happening in your imagination is much worse than what is actually happening, but you just can’t stop yourself from thinking about it. The song is a bit of a head-trip so we wanted the video to have a bit of a dirty/pretty sporadic feel to it. There was no styling, hair or special makeup used either because we wanted to juxtapose reality (what I usually look like) with the fantastical darkly edged elements of your imagination. It’s a very honest song, so we hope the video represents how easy it is to get carried away in your own thoughts.
If you could crack open your imagination for the public, what would it look like?
Can I say a super cute French Bulldog, floating on silver clouds, in a velvet blue sky? That sounds pretty nice.  In actuality, it probably looks pretty dark in there for sure. Not too crazy or anything, but I do have an extremely active imagination. I’m hoping people would think it was cool, interesting and original.
What’s next for of Verona?
The popularity of Dark In My Imagination has continued to grow, so we wanted to do a proper music video for it. I think the album version of Dark already has over 740,000 plays on SoundCloud alone. We’ve never done any sort of marketing or radio campaign around the song so it has really been organic.  We’re really fortunate that our music has been finding its own audience. If you’ve been listening to us, its not because someone spoon fed you our vibe six times a day. It’s genuine because it’s finding its own home. It takes longer like this, but in the end, I think it’ll be better because the listeners chose us first. It’s never a good idea to chase down a prom date.
We’re also excited to release the brand new music that we just finished recording, especially our next single, which should be out sometime early March. We’ll also be performing at SXSW this year so come check us out if you’ll be in Austin!
Premiering today exclusively on LADYGUNN, the video for the band’s latest electro-pop single, “Dark In My Imagination,” is a hazy, hypnotic look inside vocalist Mandi Perkin’s cerebral psyche. In celebration of the trippy release, we spoke to Mandi about the video, the music, and what’s coming up.
Your music is a really interesting mix of different genres and musical vibes. What are some of your inspirations, musically?
We’re definitely influenced by the late 60’s and 70’s … Both of us grew up on Bowie, Queen, Pink Floyd and Zeppelin. But we are big fans of artists from all eras, acts like Bjork, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack and Radiohead. We really dig artists who are slightly left of center while still being melodic. We’re also into more contemporary bands such as: Muse, Florence + Machine and Kasabian.  Kasabian’s first album was really ahead of its time and its influence is still being heard in a lot of new acts today.
Can you tell us a little about filming the new video?
It was directed and edited by JungleGe0rge, a dope Brazilian artist. We wanted something sexy, dark and trippy for this video, and that is certainly his vibe, so we thought he would be perfect for this.
We filmed the video at the new Swing House Studios space in the Atwater Village area of Los Angeles. Jungle shot the whole thing on a Harinezumi 2 retro style mini camera, which helped give the video a lot of its feel. We collaborated during the shoot on interesting shots to take that could later be super imposed to create a haunting visual effect. JungleGe0rge then did a great job of adding a lot of those visual graphic elements in post.
What sort of vibe did you have in mind when you started coming up with the creative concept of the video?
The song Dark In My Imagination is about all the thoughts that go on in your mind when the person you’re with is away; You can’t stop imagining what they are doing and who they are doing it with. More often than not, what’s happening in your imagination is much worse than what is actually happening, but you just can’t stop yourself from thinking about it. The song is a bit of a head-trip so we wanted the video to have a bit of a dirty/pretty sporadic feel to it. There was no styling, hair or special makeup used either because we wanted to juxtapose reality (what I usually look like) with the fantastical darkly edged elements of your imagination. It’s a very honest song, so we hope the video represents how easy it is to get carried away in your own thoughts.
If you could crack open your imagination for the public, what would it look like?
Can I say a super cute French Bulldog, floating on silver clouds, in a velvet blue sky? That sounds pretty nice.  In actuality, it probably looks pretty dark in there for sure. Not too crazy or anything, but I do have an extremely active imagination. I’m hoping people would think it was cool, interesting and original.
What’s next for of Verona?
The popularity of Dark In My Imagination has continued to grow, so we wanted to do a proper music video for it. I think the album version of Dark already has over 740,000 plays on SoundCloud alone. We’ve never done any sort of marketing or radio campaign around the song so it has really been organic.  We’re really fortunate that our music has been finding its own audience. If you’ve been listening to us, its not because someone spoon fed you our vibe six times a day. It’s genuine because it’s finding its own home. It takes longer like this, but in the end, I think it’ll be better because the listeners chose us first. It’s never a good idea to chase down a prom date.
We’re also excited to release the brand new music that we just finished recording, especially our next single, which should be out sometime early March. We’ll also be performing at SXSW this year so come check us out if you’ll be in Austin!
