Back in 2011, David Lynch and Interpol had unexpected but perspicuous collaboration, when the filmmaker’s animated short I Touch A Red Button Man was the visual backdrop for Interpol’s song “Lights.” A video of the short soundtracked by the Interpol song then made rounds on the internet.
A decade later, it is happening again.
Interpol re-recorded “Lights” for a fresh project with Lynch, pairing newly recorded versions of the song with the auteur’s animation. But there’s an unfortunate catch: this time, the collaboration is a series of eight limited edition NFTs. That’s right—not even someone of Lynch’s artistry is immune to the NFT game.
The site for the NFT series reads:
In 2008, members of the band Interpol sat down with filmmaker David Lynch to discuss working together on a future project.
In 2010, collaborative talks resumed with plans for Lynch to produce visuals for Interpol’s performance at the 2011 Coachella Festival. The outcome was Lynch’s famous animated short film “I Touch a Red Button Man” accompanied by Interpol’s song “Lights”.
Skipping ahead to present day, Interpol has taken inspiration from Lynch to reimagine sections of “Lights”, their song inspired by the film. Together, Lynch and Interpol are now memorializing their collaboration through a series of seven pieces that will live in the infinite digital realm forever.
In an interview with Forbes about the project, Interpol frontman Paul Banks says, “The marriage of music and visual is an age-old tradition, and Lynch is a musician himself and has a love for music so it was a pretty organic way for artists from two separate media to come together.” He adds, “From our standpoint, we are all crazy about Lynch so it was amazing that our work was paired with his.”
But even those who are just as “crazy” about Lynch as Interpol aren’t thrilled about the filmmaker—who recently complained about people watching movies on their phones—buying into such a silly internet craze.
If you do actually want to own one of these NFTs, there’s still a major downside. The way NFTs work is that they’re exclusive, so you’ll have to compete with tons of other fans willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money to have a unique piece of Lynchian art. The auction begins today.