The Avalanches Address Love and Loss in ‘Running Red Lights’ Featuring Rivers Cuomo

The Avalanches have unveiled their video for new song “Running Red Lights,” which features Rivers Cuomo and rapper Pink Siifu. The clip is dedicated to the late David Berman and stars dancer Erik Cavanaugh, a former contestant from America’s Got Talent, and a cameo from Los Angeles billboard icon Angelyne.

“Running Red Lights” addresses love and loss and the Greg Brunkalla-directed visual opens with Cavanaugh being told by a psychic that “You are coming full circle.” Feeling inspired, he leaves the psychic and dances down the street as he heads to the object of his affection’s apartment, only to be stopped in his tracks as he observes his love with another.

“I’m a thundercloud, ready to burst,” Cuomo sings. “Running, running red lights to get to you.” That seemingly hopeful sentiment is contrasted with Pink Siifu reciting David Berman’s lyrics from his Purple Mountains song, “Darkness and Cold.”

“‘Running Red Lights’ didn’t start out as a defining moment; ‘a single’ as it were. But Rivers responded to our fuzzed-out Spacemen 3 inspired jam with such open heartedness, that we soon dropped all pretense and got down to the heart of the matter… loss,” the Avalanches’ Robbie Chatter said in a statement. “We love that wide eyed, elated, almost evangelical Los Angeles sense of possibility that he tapped into. He captures that feeling that comes on the other side of the abyss, when you have lost everything and so then, there is nothing more to lose.

“The way life is so beautiful and overwhelming and heartbreaking all at the same time. Rivers, like us, is always chasing the melancholy, that space … between the notes,” Chatter continued. “David had agreed to share his words with us for the middle 8 a few years back. It’s a strange feeling releasing this now, six months after his passing, but we are so glad he got to hear the music, and it means a lot to us that he really liked it. David wrote to me often through some dark, dark years and really pulled me through … ‘Running Red Lights’ … is about such times.”

Featured via: Rollingstone