WeTheConspiritors

If you follow the musical output of any of the Leicester music scene, it’s inevitable that eventually you’ll come across a video from enigmatic production house We The Conspirators. The brainchild of Ross and Fraser West, they describe it as ‘an environment of experimentation and collaboration’ and they’ve produced videos for Codex Leicester, Maybeshewill, Charlie and the Martyrs, Dark Dark Horse and Buenos Aires – amongst many others.

You’re very much part of the fabric of the Leicester music scene, though neither of you are in bands. That is a pretty unique position to be in. How do you feel about that perception of you?
It feels good that bands, or people in general, think of us as part of the Leicester music scene – it’s something that we really like to be around. It’s pretty cool getting some front row seats for all the bands we like. There’s a lot of musicians doing some really commendable things right now and being able to photograph or film them in our local venues is great. It’s probably been said in previous issues, but Leicester does have a great scene with some quality bands and it’s exciting for us to be apart of it.

You work very closely with Codex Leicester — why is that, and is it challenging or terrifying having such creative control over everything about the way the band is perceived, aside from the music?
We work closely with Codex Leicester and before that Death of London as we’re either related to them, have grown up with them or worked with them as individuals on other projects. The whole “brand” surrounding Codex Leicester has been built upon from both sides and everything we produce whether if it’s a tee, a video or piece of artwork, is a conversation between the both of us. They bring their idea and we work on it to get it to a place we’re all happy with it.

Your work with Paolo Vandini shoes has involved a lot of Leicester musicians (both on screen and through the soundtracks to the ads) — was that a conscious decision?
Our relationship with Paolo Vandini started around four years ago when they decided to produce a series of videos called “Vandini On Stage With…”. The first band they wanted to feature was Minnaars and from there we got the chance to work with them on the subsequent three picks; Methodist Centre, Demontré and Charlie and the Martyrs.

Early last year we then began to work with them on a wider overhaul of their brand and strategy. Which led us to start producing ‘lookbook’ films for their styles — it was definitely a conscious decision from both sides to continue the theme from the previous campaign of featuring artists and musicians. People we like, know and respect.

You’ve produced visuals for the White Noise Festival since it started, which focus on Leicester’s, shall we say ‘varied’ architecture. What’s been the inspiration behind them?
Inspiration has come from a lot of different places for the White Noise Festival stuff. We like evolving it and using it as a platform to learn. Often working with graphics and video we look for inspiration from people we like. Christopher Hewitt, Rob Chiu, Salomon Ligthelm amongst others. The videos play as projected backgrounds when the festival is taking place so it’s important that they get across the festival, the bands and the scene.

What work are you particularly proud of?
Music related? Red Paper Lanterns for Maybeshewill turned out really well, we had great help from a lot of people filming that one and I think it really looked good. The Dark Dark Horse live set also looks great; it was nice working with Jaimie and the guys. They got it sounding pretty awesome. We’re both big fans of their music so its always good to collaborate with them. But that said, we always try and get things to a standard that we’re proud to put out.

What have you got planned for future?
We have a few things coming out soon for Buenos Aires, Dark Dark Horse as well as the visuals for White Noise in May. There will be more Vandini films as we prepare for the next season and we have some exciting film projects coming up with Jeffrey Campbell. And finally some more personal projects will see the light of day at some point, It’s something that gets a little over looked at the moment as there is a lot of other work to finish, but there is some exciting ideas, projects and a book to come.

See below for their recent video of Dark Dark Horse performing an acoustic version of ‘Midnight Mass’.