Crave is proud to premiere the new video from Boston alt-rockers Thousand Days, a performance clip interspersed with a wild-boy narrative for “Turkana Boy,” the title-track single from their latest album (iTunes).
Founded in 2003 by singer Pardis Sabeti and guitarist Bob Katsiaficas and later joined by drummer Matt Hayden, Thousand Days has worked with a number of luminary producers, including Neil McLellan (NIN, Prodigy), Anthony Resta (Collective Soul), and Matt Tahaney (Dropkick Murphys, Mighty Mighty Bosstones).Turkana Boy features socially conscious songs like “Neda,” which was inspired by Sabeti’s Iranian-American heritage, drawing from influences from Liz Phair, Hole and 10,000 Maniacs.
Sabeti is living a double life as a rocker with a career as a world-renowned researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School. She was recently named as one of Time’s Top 100 Influential People. In addition to rocking it out with the band, she’s one of the lead geneticists that was tracking and taming Ebola.
“I had been thinking for a long time that I would want a video of Turkana Boy roaming the streets of a modern city, trying to understand the chaos, and sending us warnings for our future,” explains Sabeti of the Crave-premiered clip. “Bob found the talented Adio Ash from his amazing videos online, and we were thrilled he agreed to work with us. From there the video is Adio’s vision. He found Brandon Worby, the remarkable young actor who embodied Turkana Boy, and together they ran through New York capturing beautiful and playful imagery. I loved the whole video, but my favorite part was in Time Square as the fantastical characters circled around Turkana Boy. I didn’t get to be there for that part of the filming sadly, but when I first saw the shot, I just smiled wide.”
Catch it for yourself below, exclusively on Crave:
Below, the band tells the tale of Turkana Boy, and why the album is named after him:
“Turkana Boy is a boy, believed to be 7 to 15 year-olds, who lived roughly 1.5 million years ago. His nearly full skeleton was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya, and it is one of the best-preserved relics of our ancient ancestors. I remember first reading about him as a graduate student studying human evolution in England. I found him fascinating, and the name great. I also love that there had been questions as to whether he was a boy or a girl and his exact age. It made it feel like he defines everyone’s youth, struggle, and journey on this earth. I later wrote the song ‘Turkana Boy’ from this boy’s perspective, how he lived, what he might think of our modern world, and what he might want to say to us. The chorus says “While your arms are trying to define me, I am unanswerable, insatiable, I am crawling out of time, what those of us are willing to climb, I am Turkana Boy, in your world, struggling for life”.
“We named the album after Turkana Boy because he is a force and energy I feel is in all of us. That, and I just think the name is awesome.”
Grab Turkana Boy on iTunes, and keep up with the band at the following:
