Usually, songs that are at least a few months old appear at the top of the Czech radio charts, but in the case of Chinaski, the programmers hurried up. In November, shortly after the release of the new album Frihet, the single “Should I take my shoes off” reached the first place after four rounds and soon became a big hit. Now the band has made a music video for it. Director Pavel Nosek, who combined the nudes of two girls in the video with interesting Czech architecture and shots of Chinaski playing, says the main line of the clip is a multi-layered dialogue.
“What attracted me to this song was its poetic lyrics. It was clear from the first moment that I didn’t want to make a narrative video, so I started looking for a metaphor that would capture the mood of the song,” says director Nosek. In the end, he approached actress Hana Kusnjerová. He knew that she and her friend had shot a series of nudes with a beautiful atmosphere.
“And I was looking for exactly that kind of action for our shoot. For me, the whole clip is about dialogue. A dialogue between an all-male band and a couple of girlfriends. Between a singer and an actress. And finally between me as director and the actress, who I try to capture not as an object of desire, but as an autonomous and free being. She is who she really is,” concludes the director, who also filmed the clip in the historic building of the Czech Radio.
The song was created by chance. When the singer Michal Malátný flew to Egypt with his family, he discovered that his passport had been forfeited and he had to return home. “I waved to my family and was desperate. It was October 28th, a public holiday, so the offices were closed, the Egyptian embassy was closed, there was nothing to do. I went back to my empty apartment and thought I had to do something. But there was nothing to do. All I could do was take off my shoes and put my feet up on the table. I wrote the lyrics from that feeling,” says the singer. He immediately sent the words of the new song to bandleader and guitarist František Táborský, who wrote a beautiful melody for it by the next day. “He immediately sensed what the lyrics needed. So sometimes even stupid coincidences can contribute to the creation of a song,” Malátný concludes.
I Should Take My Shoes Off is the second single from Frihet’s album. Chinaski recorded it on the shores of the Norwegian Sea, in a stylish wooden studio near Ålesund. The production was handled by Brit Greg Haver, the man behind the previous successful albums Rockfield and Not for Us to Cry. According to the musicians themselves, this is the first purely band recording. Each member has at least two songs on it. Jiří Suchý also appears as a guest on the record. The release is announced by the radio single I Should Take My Shoes Off. The album will be presented live on the band’s summer tour OPEN AIR SUMMER ´23. The band will stop in Prague, Příbram, Český Krumlov, Litoměřice, Potštejn, Olomouc, Sušice, Vranov, Kutná Hora, Sychrov, Boskovice, Čeladná, Litomyšl, Loket and Plzeň. Pre-sale is available at TicketLIVE.
