Jesse Gimbel | photo courtesy of the artist.
PREMIERE: Jesse Gimbel faces his fears with “Move or Move On”
Philadelphia singer/songwriter Jesse Gimbel might have fears, but one of them isn’t addressing heavy concepts in his music. He’s releasing a video for the second single off of his album Decathect, “Move or Move On”.
Gimbel, after tackling a challenging film project for his last single, “Don’t Get Comfortable”, wanted something more simple. For his new video, he settled on addressing one of his greatest fears: death by driving a car off a bridge.
He’s not sure how the fear started. “It’s not something that plagues me, just something I’ve thought about now and then,” he says. The idea actually came from a conversation with his live keyboardist/percussionist Christian Bitto, of September Call-Up:
“He told me about a story where a couple got lost deep in the woods on a hiking trip and were certain they wouldn’t make it out alive. After hours they finally found their trail and made it back to their car and followed their GPS to get out, which directed them to turn – and they drove right into a lake and couldn’t escape the car.”
To film the video, Gimbel constructed a model of a car dashboard. He then drove around with the model in a real car to simulate the feeling of a dashboard camera. In the final shot, he threw the model off a bridge into a lake.
To retrieve the model, he tied two nylon boating ropes to it and held onto the ends as it sank to the floor of the lake. He added in CGI effects to the dash later to make the “ride” feel more realistic.
Despite his craftiness, Gimbel doesn’t have any formal training in woodworking or video editing. He’s been working with many mediums for a number of years on the side. He enjoys woodworking, photography and video, watercolor, letterform design, and graphic design.
When writing the song, he explored the concept that many people struggle with daily: feeling fulfilled.
“The song follows three things I was thinking about a lot while writing the album, all of which are related to making a decision to turn down being simply comfortable in exchange for being happy and really fulfilled – turning down easier comforts of following societal norms, making shallower, uninspired music, or remaining in a stifling but familiar relationship.”
Lately, he’s been keeping busy producing, recording, mixing, and mastering work for various bands around the area. He’s also working on plans for Make Music Philly, as well as toying around with some new material.
You can download Decathect for pay-what-you-wish here, and catch Jesse Gimbel with Sick Panda and Stars Apart at the Boot and Saddle on May 27th.