Idled by virus, Everett’s Ludovico releases 2 music videos

Published 1:30 am Thursday, April 23, 2020

The Everett band Ludovico has released two music videos back-to-back for fans to watch while quarantined at home.

The alternative band made the videos for “Persian Rug” and “The Friend Song” in the nick of time, before the stay-at-home order shut down their recording session for a new album.

“Everyone is sitting at home, looking at their phones,” Ludovico lead singer Conrad Gruener said. “It really lit a fire in me to get the videos for our music released because every day is a new record for internet traffic. We needed to get this music out.”

Ludovico was formed by brothers Hans and Conrad Gruener about 15 years ago. After testing out a few drummers over the years, Hans, on bass, and Conrad, on guitar, invited Jay Sheeler to become their third member. Sheeler has been with the band for seven years.

The band’s influences span from metal to country, so their sound is rightfully alternative. While all three members have listened to and played in metal bands, the Gruener brothers also have a fondness for country.

“We can be as diverse as we want because we listen to all sorts of different music,” said Sheeler, who works at Boeing. “If you lock yourself into one category, you trap yourself as an artist. But we’re able to branch off and explore. We listen with open ears and appreciate music for what it is.”

“Persian Rug,” released March 1, was filmed at Studio X in Seattle. The song, which has an alternative-rock sound, borrows a few of its lines from “Amazing Grace,” so it’s fitting that the video was recorded in a former church. In addition to guitar, Conrad plays the piano for the song.

Although this isn’t a country song, the band is dressed in Western wear for the video.

Conrad said the attire lends some approachability to the band. Whenever they don cowboy hats for a show, the audience gets a kick out of it.

“They heckle and jeer at us and yell stuff like, ‘Yeehaw!’ and “Hey, Tex!’” said Conrad Gruener, a carpenter. “They watch more attentively. The girls tell us we’re good-lookin’ cowboys.”

The band’s video for “The Friend Song” was released on April 6. That video was filmed on top of a building in Sedro-Woolley that houses the Sedro-Woolley Family Dental Center, where Hans and Conrad’s father works as a dentist.

“They were looking for a more open, airy feeling to go with our current times,” their father, Hansrolf Gruener, said. “The lyrics are somewhat prescient, as this song was written a while ago.”

“The Friend Song” also seems to have its roots in alternative rock but adds country twang by way of the violin and pedal steel guitar.

Hans is learning the pedal steel guitar and the fiddle — the violin he practices on was his great-grandmother’s — but he didn’t feel like he was ready play them for the album. So the band had some musicians from Tennessee lend their talents to the recording.

“That’s a hard one,” said Hans Gruener, who works in construction, of learning to play the fiddle. “You have to put up with yourself sounding really bad. I don’t practice it as much as I should.”

Both music videos were directed by Marysville native Kyle Olthoff of Forever Cinema. Sheeler had worked with Olthoff on a video when he was with the band Sky Divide, and recommended him when Ludovico was in the market for a videographer.

The band has two albums to its name, “Four Hymns for Humility’s Funeral” and the self-titled “Ludovico.” Both of the Gruener brothers sing on the first record. The trio was in the middle of recording its third album when the coronavirus put a stop to it. “Greatest Hits!” will feature seven tracks, including “Persian Rug” and “The Friend Song,” but whether the songs are Ludovico’s best will be up to the fans to decide.

The yet-to-be-released album’s tongue-in-cheek title references the photo they’ve picked out for the cover. The Gruener brothers have a childhood photograph of their uncle falling off a cow at their grandfather’s ranch in Bow. He’s about to hit the ground.

Hans and Conrad are fans of the 1971 dystopian film “A Clockwork Orange,” so they originally named the band The Ludovico Treatment, after the infamous scene in which Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell) is submitted to the aversion therapy tactics of the fictional Ludovico Technique. They shortened it to Ludovico about five years ago.

With the governor’s stay-at-home order, Hans Gruener, 28, hasn’t been able to practice with the band. Steeler, 31, is happy to have more time to play the drums. Conrad Gruener, 25, has been posting videos of himself playing country covers on Facebook.

All three of them are impatiently waiting to get back into the recording studio.

“We aren’t able to complete the album until (the virus) goes away,” Sheeler said. “Hopefully soon. This pandemic has been crazy.”

Watch the music videos for Ludovico’s “Persian Rug” and “The Friend Song” on YouTube.