Eric Krasno Shares Animated Video For ‘On The Rise’

We’re just a few weeks away from the July 8th release of Blood From A Stone, the new solo album from founding Soulive and Lettuce guitarist Eric Krasno. Blood From A Stone is Kraz’s first release to feature his own vocals. For his new album’s second single, “On The Rise,” Krasno brought onboard Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist Curtis Peel to direct the song’s accompanying video.

Peel has a resume almost as long as Krasno’s as Curtis fronted the band Futurist, cofounded the Burning Man theme camp and community, Camp Rock Star and has collaborated with artists including Dani Barbieri, Maxine Nienow, April Kidwell, Dawn of Man Productions, DMZL, and the Brooklyn bands Kylian, Turkuaz and Dopapod. Here’s what Peel had to say about illustrating the video for “On The Rise”:

When I first heard the track, I loved it instantly! I found it to be groovy and laid back with these sugary, psychedelic choruses; a sound somewhere triangulated in between Tame Impala, Beck, and James Brown on the style spectrum. So, I knew I wanted it to be really colorful, but I actually didn’t go into the project with much foresight regarding content or story line, which was kind of a departure from most of my other music videos.

Essentially, I just started off illustrating the obvious lyrical imagery (mountains, moon, starlight, etc.) and just let the story develop in a stream of consciousness kind of way after that. Here’s this beautiful sunrise, now who is watching it? The observer became this cyclops monk and then his purpose grew out of that. Add in some mushroom tea, mountain top meditation and psychic flashbacks of a human civilization now buried beneath the ocean, he now had found his calling, to plant the seeds for a new population on the rise.

Eric Krasno added, “This is one of my favorite songs on the record. We set out to create a psychedelic landscape with sounds and lyrics. Curtis Peel did an amazing job bringing that to life in the video. I knew I wanted an animated video for this song. When I spoke to Curtis and played the song for him, he got it right away and ran with it.”

Watch the animated video for Eric Krasno’s “On The Rise”:

Eric Krasno will take his new solo band on tour throughout the U.S. this summer and fall.