Robbie Robertson Shares ‘Once Were Brothers’ Video

Robbie Robertson released a video for the song “Once Were Brothers” from his 2019 album Sinematic. Iconic grunge music video director Kevin Kerslake (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth) helmed the video, Robertson’s first in over two decades.

The song “Once Were Brothers” inspired the name of the new documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band. “Writing ‘Once Were Brothers’ for my album Sinematic hurt inside sometimes, but it was a rewarding experience as it allowed me to think back about the extraordinary brotherhood of The Band,” Robertson said in a statement.

“When the filmmakers heard the song, they were deeply moved and not only wanted to use it in the movie but decided to call the film Once Were Brothers. For the video we wanted to go in a different direction. Director Kevin Kerslake came on board with an abundance of imagination and style. We had a brilliant time working together.”

Kerslake also spoke about working with Robertson and the process he employed to make the video:

I’ve admired Robbie for a long time and he never really hits a sour note. We talked a while ago, probably about 25 years ago about doing a music video but that didn’t end up happening. It’s nice that it came back around. For the video, we mimicked a process that was invented in the late 1800s by photographer/filmmaker/inventor Eadweard Muybridge who did motion studies, which is sort of a combination of still photography and motion pictures. The process involved shooting things at a very high speed, basically a bunch of different stills. We then made prints of everything that we shot, put them in a drum like a zoetrope which is an old antiquated viewing device that when the drum goes around and around you see all these sorts of loops almost like a picture book. There’s a very antique, historic sensibility that fuels this video that is based on that work.

Watch the video for “Once Were Brothers,” premiered by Rolling Stone, below: