Visualized spotlights visual artists in the music world.

In this edition, Ian Stanley chats with Sean Stout of Terroreyes.tv. Sean is a prolific videographer and photographer who has worked with the likes of Trash Talk, Le1f, Chelsea Wolfe, Death Grips, and clipping. (among others). Check out our entire interview below, wherein we chat with him about his many works, throwing molotov cocktails during a Trash Talk video shoot, curious propositions from homeless men (also at said Trash Talk video shoot), and shooting a documentary in Africa.

First of all, Sean, can you tell us a little about the man behind the madness that is Terroreyes?

I just turned 24, live in Brooklyn as of six months ago. I moved here from LA after leaving an awesome job at Sargent House to try my luck at being a freelancer for a while. I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA which, I guess is what shaped my musical taste…

So how did you get into videography and photography? And how did Terroreyes come to be?

I got into making videos through skateboarding. I grew up skating and we would always film each other and make strange little edits on janky VCR setups. When I was around 16 I moved into a house of musicians and artists and we would have basement shows any given night of the weeks so I started shooting music, just because it was in front of me. Terroreyes started in 2009 when I was going to school in Portland, and was originally just a website to showcase my weird videos, photos, and art I was making at the time. Over time it evolved into what it is now, but the focus originally wasn’t solely on music. I’ve always been interested in photography but only recently have I been experimenting more with it and taking it a bit more seriously.

I really like the site because there is an element of music blogginess to it, but it’s pretty obvious that the focus is on your video work. Is the blog element just an added perk?

Totally. I actually have a really hard time with my writing and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. I don’t consider myself a ‘blogger’ by any means, even though I guess technically, I am. The blog is—in essence—a by-product of me just wanting to share music that I am interested in when there isn’t another way to present it. Like, if I can’t film it or document it myself, I’ll write about it just to share it. Sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes it feels like work, it goes in waves… Although, I do like interviewing bands and I like that it can be an outlet for other people’s ideas other than my own should anyone choose to contribute to it.

The artists you’ve chosen as subjects make up a pretty diverse group. How do you go about choosing who to shoot? And do you intentionally gravitate towards outsider-type artists?

I just make videos with musicians and artists that I like and think are genuine in what they’re doing. I like all sorts of music so I don’t like to limit myself to one specific genre. For instance, I’ve been on a pretty heavy hip-hop kick as of recently so a bunch of the videos I have been doing have been with those sorts of artists. I like to keep it unrestricted in that way because it makes the experience of making the videos so diverse. You get to meet all types of awesome, creative people and hear all sorts of stories which is what I enjoy most. I would love to start doing videos with heavier bands and am working to set a bunch of those shoots up now. As for gravitating towards outsider artists, I just find it more interesting to document and share the music and stories of artists that people may not otherwise hear of. I don’t only shoot bizarre stuff, but I certainly find it the most interesting. And, I dunno, Twin Shadow doesn’t need another live video and interview you know? It’s more fun to hear stories and sounds you haven’t heard before, I guess.

So when you are shooting your live videos, is it just you? Do you have a crew that helps? I know lugging around camera junk can get tiresome.

It’s just me. My setup is super simple and can fit comfortably into a backpack so it works out well… I’ve had people help on shoots before but about 99% of them are just me.

Switching focus to your music videos, they must take a lot more prep work. How do those come about? Do you conceptualize with the individual artists? Or do you approach them with a concept?

Most of them I work on the concept with the band or artist, which I have been fortunate enough to be able to do. They do take a bit more prep work but it’s always fun and never really feels tedious. Most of the past music videos I have done have been with friends of mine so it’s a pretty mutual thing. Recently, I have started making videos for bands that I like, but don’t know, which is a completely different process but I can’t say I like one more than the other.

How often are you shooting something?

I try to be shooting something at least two days a week at the very least. If I don’t, I end up feeling stagnant… But it varies, I guess. Sometimes I’ll spend only one day shooting and the rest of the week editing… I just like to stay busy.

You’ve shot some pretty crazy subjects. Who has been the absolute craziest? And any stories to accompany?

Totally! The Trash Talk music video was hands-down the craziest shoot. There wasn’t a budget, at all, so we actually had to just go do all that stuff and cross our fingers that we would get away with it. The last shot with the molotov cocktail was really crazy and I had to cut it early in the edit for fear of getting caught, but who knew that a gerber bottle filled with gas could make such a huge explosion? Lucky we only had to deal with cops once and it was a fairly tame encounter. For live videos I can’t really think of anything too crazy. Obviously a few of those subjects are a trip to be around but nothing too crazy. The Death Grips video was a bit hectic because we had to shoot it all at night, and Sacramento (where we shot) isn’t the most skateboard friendly or safest town.

OH! Okay, hands down craziest / sketchiest thing to happen while filming. It was the last day of filming the Trash Talk video, we were downtown at four in the morning and ran into the guy who is in the beginning of the video, ranting the intro. He talked for about 5 minutes and had two sketchy lurkers with him, and when we were finally like, “Alright dude, later, have a good night” his friend came up being all “Film this homie, film this” and pulled surgical gloves out of his pocket. He started to get all aggro when we (obviously) started backing away from him (crazy bum guy with surgical gloves at 4am? No thanks, bud) and finally he blurted out “Let me show you muthafuckas why I carry these!” and then we ran off. That was the scariest thing.

So are you currently working on anything new? Maybe in the beginning stages?

Yeah, I recently went to Africa to work on a documentary and got all sparked on the idea of making my own long-form documentary so I’ve started planning that a bit… I have a few photo series that I want to try to do this summer.

Can you tell us a bit about the documentary you shot in Africa?

Yeah it was with La Blogotheque and Invisible Children‘s music dept. documenting The Very Best and The Polyphonic Spree collaborating with local musicians. We shot it in Gulu, Uganda over the course of about 13 days. It’s going to be fairly ‘Take Away Show’-esque. It was really fun, Uganda is incredible. And Gulu is like, exactly what you would picture Africa to look like as a kid, which was awesome. Unlike Johannesburg which is a city this was real Wild Thornberry’s style. Pretty eye-opening actually. We have it pretty good in the states. Even if the tweets sometimes read otherwise.

When can we expect this documentary?

You know, I’m not exactly sure. All of the footage is in Paris now being edited but there wasn’t a definitive time frame.

Cool. Well, just before we wrap up, what have been some of your favorite releases so far this year? You’ve got pretty interesting taste so I’d be curious to hear.

Deafheaven, Locrian, Majical Cloudz, the new Fuck Buttons LP, Run The Jewels has been on constant repeat, Young Fathers, Fat Tony… This has been a pretty great year so far!