behind the video with Telehealth ("Donor Country (A gOoD cAuSe)")
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I grew up watching a great deal of televised talent shows and reality competition shows—you are reading the blog of a person who cast votes for season one of American Idol via LANDLINE. (I was a Tamyra Gray girl until she was eliminated, then fell in line and joined Team Kelly Clarkson.) There's a been certain angle to the produced narratives of these kind of shows over the years; whether Chopped or The Voice or America's Got Talent, in addition to being good at the thing you're displaying, you've also got to have some kind of backstory that makes people sympathize with you, makes them feel like you deserve to win. It's never enough to just have talent—talent is worthless without some kind of emotional affinity, and you might spend just as much time cultivating that affinity as you do practicing your talent.
That kind of thinking—empathic individualism?—spills over into many aspects of American life. I'm thinking of how our healthcare system is held together with spit, tape, and a zillion GoFundMes. I'm thinking of how bands are now required to be just as good at social media as they are at music, even though social media and music are two completely different things. And I think the Seattle band Telehealth is tapped into this odd mood.
Everan
The Seattle band's album Green World Image gets into plenty of contemporary absurdities: 9-5 jobs becoming 8-13 jobs, millennials in debt to their eyeballs getting scolded for eating avocado toast, the strange melding of therapy speak and reality show babble that infiltrates all of our feeds ("I'm recognizing your emotions / I'm conflicting the avoidance...You know I'm doing the work!" Kendra Cox shouts on "Villain Era"). But Telehealth aren't dour cynics, sneering and looking down their respective noses. No. They make catchy New Wave-y shout-y dance-y bops! Because a spoonful of analog synth makes the medicine go down real easy.
The excellent video for Telehealth's song "Donor Country (A gOoD cAuSe)" features the fictional Telehealth Top Talent competition, which means its got one of my favorite things a music video can have: hijinks. Shenanigans. Tomfoolery. It's a zany delight, and a perfect pairing with the vigorous post-punk song. And I got to ask the band a few questions about how the video got made..
[Molly Mary O'Brien] How did you come up with the general concept for the video? / was anything in particular on the 'moodboard'?
[Telehealth] We were really inspired by reality television and shows in the Bravo universe. There's something fascinating about how our culture has slowly started to feel less like reality and more like reality TV, where everyday life is filtered through performance, spectacle, and personal branding. That idea connects closely to the themes of the song, which explores what people, including artists, are willing to do for attention, opportunity, money, or fame. The mood board pulled heavily from early Y2K competition shows, mixed with the chaotic energy of John Waters films and the absurdist humor of Tim Robinson and Conner O'Malley. We wanted it to feel familiar and entertaining on the surface, while also carrying a slightly unsettling feeling underneath.
In general, what is your relationship to the kinds of televised talent competitions that Telehealth™ Top Talent is spoofing?
Honestly, we love them!! The video isn't coming from a place of cynicism so much as fascination. Reality TV shows like that are genuinely entertaining, but they're also these strange cultural machines that package ambition, vulnerability, culture, personal tragedy, identity politics, and performance into a form of mass entertainment. They're simultaneously inspiring, ridiculous, heartwarming, and a little dystopian.
I think a lot of Telehealth's music lives in the same universe within that tension. We're interested in these sloppy and imperfect systems that people willingly/forcibly participate in because they're one of the few available paths to human connection, stability, recognition, or success. Garbage TV is a perfect example of that. People are chasing a dream, but they're also navigating a fake environment that's designed for spectacle. We weren't really interested in making fun of the contestants as much as exploring the weirdness of the format itself and what it can reveal about contemporary culture.
What was it like working with Eleanor Petry as the director?
Eleanor was incredible to work with. She immediately understood the tone we were chasing, which lives somewhere between genuine reality television, public-access chaos, genuine vulnerability, and a complete psychological breakdown. She brought a ton of ideas to the table while also creating space for everybody involved to improvise and contribute, so a lot of the funniest moments came out of people just running with an idea and seeing where it went.
The whole thing felt very collaborative and surprisingly ambitious considering how ridiculous the premise was. Eleanor has a great instinct for finding the line between comedy and sincerity, which is a huge part of what makes the video work. She helped turn what could have just been a funny spoof into something that feels a little stranger and more human. Eleanor is an absolute gem.
This video has a large cast of contestants/judges! Anything in particular to note about who's in the video other than the band?
Almost everyone in the video is a friend, family member, or someone who's been part of our community over the years. One of the things we loved about this concept was that it gave us an excuse to bring a lot of those people into the project and let them become part of the weird little universe of the video.
Telehealth has always been the result of a much larger community of people supporting us, whether that's helping us book shows, giving us places to stay on tour, making art, playing in bands, or simply showing up. So beyond parodying talent competitions, we also wanted the video to function as a celebration of the people who've helped us get where we are. It ended up feeling a bit like a community variety show, which made it even more special for us.
How did the shoot day go? Were there any surprises or needs for improvisation / changes? Any good behind the scenes tidbits to share?
The shoot ended up being a lot more improvisational than we originally expected. We filmed it at the Sub Pop offices, specifically in a section that had largely been unused since the pandemic. A lot of the staff works remotely now, and when we saw this mostly abandoned office space, we immediately realized it looked exactly like the setting for a slightly forgotten reality competition show. It ended up fitting the tone of the video far better than anything we could have built ourselves.
One of the biggest surprises was how good all of the contestant footage turned out. We had originally written a much larger storyline for my character as this bitter, washed-up rock star figure, but once we started reviewing footage it became obvious that the contestants were stealing every scene they were in. We ended up cutting back a lot of that narrative and letting their performances take center stage, which was definitely the right decision.
A lot of the funniest moments in the final video weren't things we planned in advance. We had a loose structure, but many of the contestants and judges came up with ideas on the spot that were funnier and stranger than anything we could have scripted. By the end, it felt less like we were directing people and more like we were trying to keep up with them.
Lastly, what's your favorite music video (any/all band members can answer this of course)?
A lot of our favorite music videos are the ones that feel like they exist in their own complete universe, and the Viagra Boys videos were a huge inspiration while we were making this one. In particular, "Ain't Nice" and "Ain't No Thief" were both references we kept coming back to. They're funny, chaotic, low-stakes on the surface, but also incredibly well-observed and specific. They feel less like traditional music videos and more like short films populated by unforgettable characters.
ed. note: this video is so good
What we love about those videos is that they're never just illustrating the song. They're expanding the world around it. That was definitely something we were trying to channel with Telehealth Top Talent.
Thank you Telehealth! Listen to Green World Image, out on Sub Pop now, and check out their link aggregation.
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