Want to be in Will Black's music video?

FRIDAY, OCT. 5: Bermuda’s party people are invited to feature in pop rocker Will Black’s new music video being filmed at Hog Penny tonight.

The Canadian performer will be playing his upcoming single Pretty Garden with his band Hogfish and local videographer Milton Raposo will be there to capture the performance and the crowd on camera.

Footage from the night will be included in the final video which is due be released along with the single at Hog Penny on November 1. The final video will be used to help promote a bigger album project Black has in the works. 

Known for his high energy rock and pop covers as well as some original songs, Black told the Bermuda Sun: “This will be my promotional tool for the next six to nine months so we want to get as many high energy people there as we can. It’s going to be a busy night, absolutely.

“The whole night’s going to be filmed and we will play the song probably three or four times as well as other music. It is a live event — it’s a party, it’s not a music shoot where we have to start and stop everything.

“I will give the crowd lots of cues when we’re going through stuff, the song is not difficult so they will pick up on it right away even if they just following the chorus.

“We are just asking people to have fun and if they want to be in a video it’s a great opportunity to be there.”

The show starts at 10:30pm and ends at 1pm. Another section of the video is to be shot at an undisclosed location.

Black is also calling on his fans to help him to release a full album through UK-based crowd sourcing company Pledgemusic.com. It enables fans to donate money towards the album project in return for exclusive rewards. Benefits range from free music and limited edition T-shirts and a book of gig photos for the smaller contributions, to a song custom-written for the donor by Black himself, and CD credits. Contributors will also have early access to the release.

Black’s ultimate goal is for the album, Dangerously Close, to include up to 13 songs as well as a separate promotional video but that all depends on the support he gets from his fans.

He explained: “Pledgemusic.com is a really effective tool for independent artists like me to get in touch with fans directly one on one. It’s about giving back to fans at the very beginning of the album creation process right through to the delivery of the final album it is a really handy tool.

“With Dangerously Close — the number of songs depends on the strength of the campaign — it would be anywhere from five to 13 songs.”

All the songs on the album have been written by Black with the exception of two songs which were co-written with Ohio guitarist Chris Steberal. Black  describes the music as “new classic rock” which is influenced by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp and Bryan Adams.

Black hopes to record the rest of the album at Metalworks Studios in Toronto but if the resources become available would like to incorporate some local musicians including Tony Brannon, Neil Burnie and Tony Cox.

Black first came to Bermuda in 2005 for his nightly show at Hog Penny, and took a year off in 2009 to return to his native Toronto.  He returned to Bermuda two years ago and evolved his entertainment schedule to include theme nights, guest musicans and a spare microphone for anyone to join him on stage.

This will be Black’s second album — his debut was Dancing With The Dead released in 2008. The title track was nominated Best Rock Song at the 2008 Ontario Independent Music Awards.