Under his new alias, Ben Morsberger releases a new album, JUICED, on WEDIDIT records. Juice Jackal is Ben’s debut solo project following a series of collaborations with Dev Hynes, Corbin, and his last duo project, Cable.

Ben’s friend, Eliel Ford, directed the music video for his single off the album, “Atone.” Eliel’s use of light and motion juxtaposed to Ben’s heart aching lyrics create a dreamy world of its own.

Nick Meledandri of WEDIDIT asks Ben and Eliel a few questions about the making of the video…

NM: When we first started talking about doing a music video with you for this project, you had already chosen Atone as the track you felt drawn to. What was it about this song specifically that inspired you to create a visual?

EF: Early on when Ben was writing a lot of the music that eventually became JUICED he sent me a little snippet of him playing the organ. Immediately I was drawn to this little chord progression which eventually became Atone, so when it was time to make a video I kind of knew that was the one I wanted to do. It’s definitely the slower song on the album but I felt as though it lent itself to a visual accompaniment even more so because of that.

NM: Although it’s shot in LA the only thing that I feel gives away the location is the palm tree horizon line we see at the second shot in the video. Was there an intention to make the location feel somewhat anonymous?

EF:I wouldn’t call it an intention but now that you say that I do see that in the video. In a way that point could speak to the fact that Los Angeles as a city is fairly anonymous without the tell of something as iconic as a palm tree. But at the same time a certain blandness was something that was sought after when I was seeking out these locations. Partially this was because I wanted to contrast the muted quality of the location with what the actor was wearing or doing, but a lot of it was just subconscious.

NM:You had mentioned to me the inspiration for this video was based on a Philip Lorca Dicorcia project, how did you want to incorporate that collection of stills into this series of moving images?

EF: Yeah his Hustler series is one of my favorites. Those images to me are just immensely sad and heart wrenchingly beautiful. The organ throughout Atone always felt to me like this drifting somber theme that in my mind matched up with the feeling I got from those photographs. The Hustler pictures definitely played a heavy role in providing some visual inspiration for this video.

NM: The casting for this video was obviously crucial to the message it communicated, how did you gather them? What was the deal with the Rick Owens looking Karate man? And the old woman young man couple? Craigslist greatest hits??

EF: Oh man, we got so lucky with casting on this project. Most of the people came from Craigslist or this stunt person casting website Stunt Players, which is an invaluable resource. The karate man was an actor named John Wallbank who was actually in Twin Peaks. Those moves were just his thing. I didn’t ask him to do them at all he just started busting them out in between takes so we kept the camera rolling and got lucky. The older couple I found through Craigslist – Laurie and Joe Bass. Los Angeles Craigslist is a holy place filled with very special people.

NM: One of my favorite parts of the whole video is how unstable the stripper pole is. When she’s dancing on it, its like ripping the ceiling apart. Was that intentional?

EF: No. I wish it was. Took a lot of searching to find a pole that wouldn’t have to be drilled into the ceiling because that ceiling is just basically blocks of foam and drywall. When we finally found one it still was too tall for the room so we had to punch a hole in the ceiling to fit it in there.