Readers may remember a while back we put out an appeal by Isle of Wight band CHAMPS asking swimming pool owners in the area to allow them to be filmed diving in.
Well, as you’d expect, Ventnor came up trumps and the said video was made.
Today it has been premièred on the Guardian Website and it looks mighty fine!
Shot in Ventnor
The video sees the Champion lads, Michael and David, running through Ventnor town, up on the Downs and jumping into a number of swimming pools around Ventnor (see if you recognise any of them).
The video and track are excellent.
Michael Cragg from the Guardian said
It’s probably safe to assume it didn’t take brothers Michael and David Champion long to come up with their band name, CHAMPS. Thankfully their lack of imagination when it comes to a moniker isn’t reflected in their songs, which manage to capture a lovelorn sense of melancholia, specifically on the breezy, sun-dappled chorus that anchors new single My Spirit Is Broken (“Don’t be the reason why there’s cold in my heart,” they coo).
Apparently the brothers first decided music might be a good vocation after their dad brought a battered old guitar home from a charity shop and the pair started composing a new song straight away. While that song didn’t make it onto their début EP – called Spirit Is Broken – there’s a definite sense that this songwriting lark comes naturally, with melodies and hooks tumbling over themselves.
Although My Spirit Is Broken is being given away as a free download from their official site, they have still made a video, which is handy because it’s really very good. Filmed in their home town of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, it follows the brothers as they run through the town performing the popular local past time of “pool jumping”, which, as the name implies, involves jumping in people’s swimming pools (usually drunk). It looks like a lot of fun
Find out more about CHAMPS and download the début single for free from their official website. If you’re in London on Monday 29th July you can see them at Servant Jazz Quarters.
