BOTHELL — Picture a neighborhood tavern. Pool tables, dim lights, crushed peanut shells underfoot, TVs with football playing in the background, the heavy stomping of a local rock band. Bothell’s Bert’s Tavern is the quintessential American bar.
It’s also the location of a new music video by a Bothell band.
Colossal Boss recently released their debut single, “Thinkin’ and Drinkin.’”
The song is a mixture of hard rock, classic rock, soul and “just a touch of country,” according to lead singer Steve Antonsen.
The hard rock band first formed in 2004 under the name Midstokke (pronounced “mid-stock”) and released three albums. Now known as Colossal Boss, the band released its self-titled EP in 2015, followed by their first single in November.
Colossal Boss is made up of four lifelong friends: Antonsen on vocals, Ted Norris on guitar, Fraser Midstokke on bass and Corey Olsen on drums.
“The idea for the song originally came from Ted, and we worked together to write the music and lyrics,” Antonsen said.
“Thinkin’ and Drinkin’,” tells the story of how one shy guy tries to muster up the courage to talk to the prettiest girl at the bar, and keeps “thinkin’ and drinkin’” about her. All four band members play the shy guy at one point in the video.
“The idea is, we’ve all (been) the ‘shy guy’ at least once in our lives,” Antonsen said.
After filming the band playing the song in the desert (in Vantage, population 74), the idea was to find a dive bar east of the mountains in which to film the bar scenes. But then Antonsen visited Bert’s, which has been the band’s watering hole for years.
It was the perfect spot.
“It’s a great little neighborhood dive,” he said. “It felt like a natural fit for the video.”
The band hopes the release of the music video — directed by Everett’s A.K. Romero — will draw more fans and lead to more shows. The plan is to make two more music videos sometime next year with Romero. (A.K. Romero is the stage and film name of Ben Shumski, a Marysville Pilchuck High School alum.)
“We decided to make this music video to get where our audience is — on their phones,” Olsen said. “Everyone’s listening to music on their phones, and we want to break through that matrix.”
Watch Colossal Boss’ “Thinkin’ and Drinkin’” music video on YouTube.
Herald features editor Sara Bruestle contributed to this report.
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