Premiere: Perth's Lincoln MacKinnon travels through time with the video for I Won't Lie

21 July 2021 | 7:00 pm | Hayden Davies
Originally Appeared In

Often recognisable alongside his band The Wrecking Train, Lincoln MacKinnon steps forward with a richly nostalgic alt-blues blend..

There's a good chance that at some point over the last few years, you've run into Lincoln MacKinnon & The Wrecking Train on a Perth/Fremantle line-up somewhere. Led by the band's frontman and namesake Lincoln Mackinnon, the project has become a sure winner thanks to its rich discography of bluesy alt-rock and country, and how as a live band, they're able to turn records such as 2019's Sparks Will Fly to life on the main stage, in a way full of the charisma and energy the band have become known for over the last few years.

The band's flavourful, genre-fleeting sound is something that was very front and centre of their last record in 2019, and now two years later, we're stoked to see that it's something continuing to find a presence as the band deeper explore some of the key moments of the record and bring them to life through visuals. Take the video for I Won't Lie, for example, which with its premiere on Pilerats today, gives the album track a new edge, while solidifying the romanticism and infatuation that underlies its lyrics and themes.

The video clip for I Won't Lie is a self-directed time warp through the decades, using gear lent by other Perth heavyweights such as POND's Shiny Joe Ryan and The Floors to build a time machine that then takes you on a long-winding story through the years, full of the twists and turns you'd expect. "For me, the music video completes 'the artwork' of the song. Being a filmmaker myself, when I'm creating the music, I'm also thinking about each song visually. In my mind, each song on the album needs a visual story to feel whole," Lincoln says on the video.

"Creating this clip was a truly epic process. I had to build a time machine, dig ten graves and source costumes for characters from the 1880s through to the 1950s." The video clip for I Won't Lie proves that the hard work was worth it; the end result being a visual journey that brings the single to life with the same grandness - yet detail - that sits within Lincoln MacKinnon's musical output too.

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As he continues to explain, the video clip is an extension on the one for I'm Bled, with I Won't Lie's video clip seeing him reunite with past collaborator Daniel Holiday for the video. "Dan, a media teacher, approached me to see if I would be interested in working with his year 10 students to create a music clip for our band as part of their media course," he says. "The idea was to team me up with a student so I could mentor them through the process, while other members of 2D film's mentored the other students. Filmed over two nights in the freezing cold in Roleystone, this clip was a truly epic process. From costume design, set design, location scouting and more, it was a great process for both the students and myself."

The final video is one hell of a time, and you can take a dive into it now as it premieres on Pilerats below:

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