The Cold Start Capture The Essence Of Growing Up And Elegantly Display ‘The City Beautiful’ | “Chrysalis” Video Premier

by Mitch Foster • October 2, 2014

The Cold Start released their new video for “Chrysalis” today, serving as the first single from their forthcoming record, III. For me, the video really captures what it’s like being in that transitional phase when you’re dancing around the age of thirty, and you feel forced to get a real job in order to pay your debts and obligated to stop going out, getting shit-faced with your friends, multiple nights a week.

If you’re not familiar with The Cold Start, they are a band transplanted from England and currently residing in Orlando. I caught their live performance here exactly one year ago.

“The song itself is about a fresh start. Like a rebirth.” (hence the track name) Lead singer Lloyd Williams begins, during our brief phone interview earlier today. Instead of taking the video down a super positive route, Williams explained that he wanted the video to be more realistic, like a coming-of-age. “It’s essentially about me leaving a group of mates and going out to get a proper job to, well, ‘grow up.'” Williams explains.

The video was directed by Nick Floyd, who presented the band with three different concepts. “Out of the three, we picked the one that felt most like James Dean’s character in Rebel Without A Cause .” says Williams.

The sunshine lit video prominently features the band riding bicycles throughout Orlando (The City Beautiful), including many familiar scenes in the downtown Orlando area. Being an Orlando resident, this video really hit home for me. I personally used to ride my bike around downtown Orlando a lot when I first moved here, while listening to music and thinking. I often did this to clear my head and sort my shit out, much like Williams appears to do in the video. The irony, or perhaps intention, is that the song is a really fucking good song to ride your bike to.

It’s a feel-good tune that progressively bleeds through the annual seasons, holding on tight to the end of summer. It’s gives me a tingling sense of nostalgia watching it. Particularly the part where Williams is singing “How can a face change so much, in such little time” while he painfully walks away from a bar where my ex used to work. It’s not often that I identify with so many aspects of a music video, like I do this one.

At one point the band is in a field smashing a television with a baseball bat. Smashing a TV could easily be represented as the frustration you often experience during a difficult transitional period in your life.

The video even offers a hand of comic relief when the band is on a dock by a lake and drummer, Adam Cardy, attempts to hit a piece of cinder block with a baseball bat, giving it all he’s got, and laughably misses. Which in itself is a metaphor–even if you give it all you got, you may strike out–the best you can ever do is try. Meanwhile, guitarist Nick Taylor pulverizes an identical block just seconds before.

And in the end, yes, you may get beat down, as Williams does by bassist Dan Smith in the video, but giving up is not an option. You move forward. You progress. You emerge from your chrysalis and you fucking flourish.

Here’s the video premier for “Chrysalis” by The Cold Start. Lyrics are below.

The Cold Start – Chrysalis (Lyrics by Lloyd Williams)

if you saw me now, would you look twice?

now in time i’ve found something inside

you didn’t know what i would realize

and in the mirror I couldn’t recognize

how can a face change so much in such little time?

I took it as a sign with my own eyes

when you walked away I felt the tides about to change

and from the fire burned ashes bright

and i learned to live in overtime

if you saw me now, you’d look twice

now with time I’ve found wings open wide

watch me as I fly, with this this open mind

when you walked away i felt the tides about to change

and in my soul i felt the sounds of beating drums that held me down

but no more.

Watch me, this open mind.