Bon Iver workout video is real, spectacular
The folksy, flannel-clad, and gym-going corners of the Internet were set abuzz Wednesday when a trailer for a Bon Iver workout video bubbled to the surface. Was the painfully earnest clip—which features Justin Vernon and his Bon Iver cohorts doing, among other things, squat-thrusts in the great outdoors—the real deal, or a bizarre, elaborate hoax? Luckily, MTV Hive tracked down the director of the video, Dan Huiting, and confirmed that yes, the video is real. According to Huiting:
“It’s a legit workout DVD. Straight up, for real. [It’s] 45, 50 minutes. Literally, you can work out to it and have music from all the bands we like: Bon Iver, S. Carey, Megafaun, We Are The Willows, and a couple others that escape me. It’s like a workout mixtape. You can workout to cool music instead of something stupid.”
Vernon, who is described in the clip by personal trainer Jeff Rogers as a “pretty in-shape guy,” apparently suffers from sciatica, and sought out Rogers’ help after a chance meeting at a YMCA. The video also features plenty of backstage-exercising action, as Vernon and his band spend some pre-show downtime doing wind sprints up and down a flight of stairs. The full video is expected to drop in a month or so, so don’t pack away your old Cindy Crawford exercise tapes just yet.
On the road DVD Trailer from Rogcity Fitness on Vimeo.
In slightly less surreal Bon Iver news, Vernon joined The National last night for a performance of “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” at CBC Radio’s “Q” show in Toronto. According to Pitchfork, he also gave an interview in which he stood by his Grammys dis, defended his involvement in an ad campaign for whiskey, and sided with pal Kanye West in that whole Taylor Swift thing. Timely!
