The Breakdown: "Bathroom Culture" - AVAVA
If you're at all familiar with Oh, Rose then you should immediately recognize the vocalist of AVAVA. This is the side project of Oh, Rose's Olivia Rose, and as she explains it all came together rather quickly. Speed certainly plays no factor in the beauty of it all though, as this is one very special video and track, but then again we wouldn't expect anything less.
“For me AVAVA is a pseudonym for any current and/or future artistic project (primarily music and video work) besides Oh, Rose. Whereas Oh, Rose is now solidified as a live four-piece band, AVAVA is myself as well as anyone I choose to collaborate with. The best part about it is it has no specific form beyond myself; it exists simply to motivate me to keep creating and collaborating outside of Oh, Rose, with no timelines or formula for releasing any of the material. Bathroom Culture came about from a new passion for making music videos, especially after finishing the video for SEVEN. To put it simply there was show happening at The Guest House in Olympia and I was using the bathroom. The thought came to mind that I wanted to film a music video in that exact bathroom, a place I have spent a lot of time in over the last few years (hah). I literally began recording the melody and lyrics to Bathroom Culture while sitting on the toilet. After some time (and other people banging on the bathroom door) I got so excited that I ran up to my friend Rivers room and started hashing it out on guitar. The show ended downstairs and River found me in his room writing and then he started playing along on a midi keyboard. Before we knew it it was 4am and we had written an entire song that I felt embodied a video I had been envisioning only hours before.
After that night the rest happened pretty fast. Composing the song to filming the video spanned less than a week. The greatest part about the Olympia community is that whenever anyone presents an idea they are really excited about there are always people who are equally excited about making it actualized. It’s pretty amazing, really. My friends Brooke, Will and Sam have a lot of experience doing video work and they were behind the camera, taking turns filming different shots while five ladies drank bottles of wine and let their freak flags fly. It was cramped and sweaty and hilarious from start to finish. I took the footage we had shot and stayed up one night editing it all together. It was my first time editing anything by myself, and I gotta say I’m hooked.
The title Bathroom Culture pretty much sums up what the song is trying to convey. A bathroom can be a space, maybe the only space, for complete and total privacy. Or, it can be a space, particularly for women, to step into, together. My question and what interests me about bathroom culture is what lies beyond the bathroom door, what or who you are getting ready for, when do you step out? The music video is creating a little world inside of that bathroom; a place where you have no intention of opening that door for anyone but yourself or your closest girlfriend. It’s a mantra for looking, really looking at yourself in a mirror and knowing that somewhere, maybe even right beside you, another woman is looking, too.
Who do you see?
Who sees you?”
The Grey Estates