The Malort Video
^actual freeze frame from the music video
For obvious reasons, I figured this music video deserved a blog on it’s own.
With the latest batch of singles we have released in Titans of Siren, It has become pretty clear that we plan to release a music video with each song. DIY music videos aren’t hard. Get a camera, set up your instruments in a room and film - see the music video for “Leech” as proof. That entire video was filmed within an hour. Editing took quite a bit longer, but admittedly, editing is the most fun yet detail-oriented part of the entire process.
Before we decided to move forward with this type of release cycle/promo of including a music video with each single, the initial idea was to shoot a quick DIY music video for the song, “Leech.” That was it. Just the one music video.
“Leech” was the first single we had released in 8ish months and the first original song we had released in years (“Satisfaction” is a cover song). It is also the first Titans song that Vincent and Riley wrote together.
We timed up the release with our 5/1/26 show with Slackjaw at Exit/In which happened to land on a Friday. The majority of new music is now released on Fridays due to a shift in global media release strategy back in 2015. I won’t get into the details of why - the only thing to know is that the majority of music is released on Fridays, so we took advantage of being able to announce the release at the massive show. At that point, we hadn’t discussed a music video for the song.
In early April, I was going stir crazy at home due to drinking too much coffee. I got anxious over the fact that we might be missing a big opportunity by not having a music video coupled with this new song that we were so excited about releasing.
With less than a month out, the music video had to be easy. It had to be something we could film quickly.
An idea popped into my head. I remembered laughing my ass off at 2 specific music videos that I had seen in my early 20’s:
The first music video was for a song called “The Mess Up” by an Australian band called DZ Deathrays.
In the music video, the 2-member band drinks an entire bottle of Jagermeister while ending the music video with each of the 2 members chugging beers. It ends…poorly, but the music video became such a hit in Australia that it inspired the a music video made by their friends in a different band:
The 2nd music video that came to mind was for the song “Red Light, Green Light” by another Australian band, Dune Rats. In the Dune Rats’ version, they substitute Jagermeister with bongs packed with marijuana. It’s a wild watch, but it was also wildly successful and a hit among fans.
“Red Light, Green Light” Music Video
My thought was that we could do something similar, but we’d have to put our own spin on it. Why not drink Malort?
Titans of Siren has always had a strange relationship with Malort. From the first time we shared a toast and took shots of it to asking for it while on the stage at Muddy Roots, it has always been part of our weird rite of passage.
I introduced the idea to the band members in our group text, and everyone gave their stamp of approval. We’d have to plan it and discuss the reality of drinking that much alcohol. It’s one thing to agree to a clever idea. It’s different when grasping the reality of taking 10+ shots of an awful tasting liquor.
We had set the filming date to the 2nd weekend in April. Admittedly, the busyness of life got the best of us, and we didn’t have enough time to discuss the logistics of filming the Malort music video in nearly as much depth as we wanted.
The music video concept had been brought up a few times since the original idea within our band text group chat, but it had begun to take a turn from actually doing it to “we can fake taking shots and dump them on the ground.” Or “we can toss them over our shoulder.”
I’ll take personal responsibility for having rigid expectations for the Malort idea. My expectations were clear - either we REALLY do it or we don’t do it at all. The second we start pouring liquor on the ground, the music video basically becomes pointless.
About a week before filming, Vincent had texted me an alternate idea to the “Leech” music video. Since the song is super energetic and chaotic, the Malort idea might not fit the imagery of the song. Instead, it might be more fitting to film a music video of us performing the song in our rehearsal space. Our rehersal space is in our guitarist, Riley’s garage.
I was bummed about not shooting the Malort video for “Leech,” but the nervous sediments were echoed by Riley, who wasn’t ready to consume that much alcohol, and Julian, who wasn't drinking alcohol at all.
So, we filmed the “Leech” music video using the “garage performance” concept. It turned out incredibly, and I was astonished by how great it looked after the final edits. We had set up our gear in the garage, each one of our girlfriends filmed one pass through the song with Vince’s handheld camera. From there, we got a couple close up shots, and it was done!
The Malort concept was seemingly indefinitely put on the backburner. Until…
Until were were set to release 3rd single of the year, “Slick.”
We had just gotten done with the rollout for our 2nd single of 2026, “Generic Imitators.” “Generic Imitators” is an outrageous song about the realities of being a rock band in 2026. We released an official music video using live footage taken from Vincent’s camcorder. It was another music video that was incredibly fun to edit.
“Generic Imitators” Music Video
After that release, we were kind of stumped on what to do for our next single, “Slick.”
After lots of brainstorming, we revisited the idea of doing the Malort music video for “Slick” with my added caveat that we actually HAVE TO DRINK THE LIQUOR.
Luckily, everyone agreed to doing the music video with a few compromises:
Julian wouldn’t drink, but in order to have him in the music video, he would dress up as a goofy looking waiter and serve us our shots.
We didn’t HAVE TO finish a full 2 bottles of Malort. If we were going to constantly be taking shots throughout the music video, that was good enough. The goal would be to see how many shots we could take rather than to finish both bottles.
One obstacle that we ran into with drinking Malort is that it’s only sold in fifths (750 ml or ⅕ of a gallon) - not handles (1.5 liters). Originally, the idea was just to drink “one bottle.”
We went back to the DZ Deathrays video and came to the conclusion that if 2 people could finish a fifth of Jager and chug a beer on top of it, we’d probably need two bottles (fifths) of Malort between 3 people. We had to change our language when discussing the music video to emphasising “TWO bottles of Malort.” It made the task much more intimidating, but one fifth between 3 people is around 5.5 shots per person. 5.5 shots isn’t enough to get people’s attention and there would be too much empty space in the music video over the span of the 3 min 30 sec song.
We also needed to confirm how many shots are in a 750 ml bottle. Online, it said 17 shots, but we measured in person with one of Vincent’s empty Malort bottles by filling it with water and dumping shots of water into the sink one by one. A fifth of liquor is in fact 17 shots.
Here’s the math: 17 shots per bottle x 2 bottles = 34 shots. 34 shots/3 people = 11 ⅓ shots per person in 3 mins and 30 seconds. Yikes. The very minimal silver lining is that Malort is 70 proof (35% alcohol), which is on the weaker side of hard liquors.
I had to look up how dangerous that actually was online. The problem is that when you’re googling anything regarding binge drinking, it becomes very similar to looking up minor symptoms of general sickness on Web MD - you think you’re going to die.
Is drinking 12 shots of Malort in 3.5 minutes a terrible idea that is somewhat unsafe? Absolutely. Will drinking that amount end in inevitable death? For some people in extreme circumstances? Sure. For 3 guys who average 5’11”, 175 pounds and have a decent alcohol tolerance? Not a chance. Of course nothing on the internet is going to say “You’ll be fine! Just drink water and eat food afterwards. P.S. you’ll still have a decent hangover.” It was more of “this Blood Alcohol Content calculator says that you’re going to be at 10x the legal limit, and then you’re going to explode.”
I joke, but it was pretty silly.
Either way, the idea of not having to finish both bottles seemed like a great plan.
There was one more obstacle that had to be discussed before filming - the music video had to be filmed in one take. We couldn’t cut for any reason at all. This is because then you could make the argument that we took breaks or dumped some Malort out between takes. We also couldn’t film more than one take because if we get half way through, and each member is already 5 shots deep, we aren’t starting over from scratch.
The day of filming came. Friday, May 29th.
Riley had made a suggestion the day before about attire: “Boys i have an idea for attire: wife beaters/tank tops, shorts, and suit coats with ties. Julian can also be in a wife beater with a bowtie, vest, and a fancy top hat I have, What do we think?”
Vincent and Julian loved the idea.
“Works for me - as long as no rain” I said. I only have very high end silk ties that my Dad gave me. Didn’t want one getting wet. Yes - I did wear a $100+ tie in the music video. Looks good, right?
The first half of the day was composed of me trying to stay as hydrated as I could.
Riley’s girlfriend, Meg, was kind enough to see what we needed to help settle our stomachs after the shoot. Ginger ale was the general consensus.
When I arrived at Riley’s house, we agreed on setting up my big plastic table on the driveway in front of Riley’s forested side yard. I actually had forgotten the table and had to run back to my house initially, but it all worked out because I had to grab some clear shot glasses for us to use anyway. Fun fact - the shot glasses we are using in the video are actually my girlfriend’s shot glasses that she got from Disney World. They have pictures of characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas on them. We had to make sure that the designs were facing away from the camera, but I don’t think we were close enough to the camera for anyone to notice Jack Skellington or Zero.
We got changed into our tank tops, blazers, and hats and began discussing the minor details of the music video:
Were were going to serve the Malort from a wine chiller (ice bucket) to keep the Malort cold. We didn’t care about the Malort being chilled as much as the funny “overly fancy” look of the wine chiller.
How would we start? By taking a collective shot between the 3 members.
How would the audience know that we are drinking Malort? Julian could show the label on the bottle as soon as the song starts.
How would we hear the song? Someone’s girlfriend behind the camera could play it on Riley’s bluetooth boombox. We’d obviously overdub the actual audio in post-production.
After those wrinkles (and a few more) were sorted out, we did a test run for the first minute of the song by taking shots of water.
It went smoothly as expected, and we decided that we were ready to film.
The next 5 minutes was pure adrenaline, misery, and relief:
Taking the first shot of Malort felt surreal. It felt very similar to playing the first notes of a highly anticipated show. My brain finally realized that this was actually happening. All the planning, nerves, and anxiety was real, but I just had to get through the next 3 mins 30 seconds.
For the first half of the song, I had settled in. I had to lip-synch a lot of lyrics, so I hadn’t taken a ton of shots, but because the Malort was chilled, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Once the bridge of the song started with the drum and bass interlude, things got a little more difficult. I had the chance to take more shots, they started to really stack in my stomach. Additionally, the bitterness from the wormwood and alcoholic burn started to rise in the back of my throat. The taste of the Malort ultimately couldn’t be tamed due to the fact that it was served chilled.
When the guitar solo hit, I knew we were in the home stretch. We had already made a massive dent in the second bottle of Malort. I had just taken to the routine of getting my shot poured, taking a deep breath, and taking the shot while trying not to think about it or taste it too much.
By the time the song ended, I saw that we had almost finished the 2nd bottle. You can hear me say “One more! One more!” Then I tried taking the shot. It hit the back of my throat, and I spat it up. Sad.
Either way, we had done it! No one died or had to be taken to the hospital!! As seen in the video, Riley and Vincent threw up the Malort pretty quickly after the song ended. They got it out of their system, which was probably for the best.
I did not. I spat up the one shot at the end, but outside of that, I was keeping the Malort down.
Everyone involved in the music video (girlfriends included) shared a group hug while celebrating after the camera was shut off.
I did tell Vincent to say the line about “struggling for your art” in the opening scene. That shot took place after he was done…getting the Malort out of his system. It works as a great attention grabber to kick off the music video.
While the final amount of Malort shots taken didn’t add up to the 34 in the video, there’s a few things to consider:
First, Julian took quite a few drinks of Malort in the background of the music video while the rest of us were between shots. I don’t really know how much he drank, but as he said afterwards: “it’s more than you’d think.” To be fair, he couldn’t count the exact amount of shots he took as he was drinking stright out of the bottle.
Secondly, over-pouring shots is easy. A shot is technically 1.5 ounces, which is about ⅔ of a shot glass. From what I can see in the video, a lot of those shot glasses were filled more than that, so I’m assuming that the reality was that we had more “shots” than we counted because they were bigger than regular shots.
…
The next move after shooting the music video was getting food. The three of us that were taking the shots felt relatively fine, but we were hungry. I had started to feel a rise of what I thought was an adrenaline buzz, but I quickly realized it was an alcohol buzz. It was determined by everyone that I should probably eat something ASAP to help my body digest it all.
Julian had mentioned meeting up with his girlfriend and roommate at Phat Bites - the local bar and restaurant down the road.
We then invited ourselves with him because that seemed like the easiest way to get food - plus it was a Friday night, and everyone else needed a drink. He didn’t care. The more the merrier.
The rest of the night was kind of a blur for me. The alcohol pretty much hit me in full once we got the Phat Bites 30 mins later via carpool.
Riley and Vincent were fine due to getting the Malort out of their systems. Hell, they were even getting drinks at the bar.
I was not. I had a craving for water and wings. I remember sitting at the outdoor patio while snarfing down my large order of hot wings. I didn’t talk much because I was hungry, drunk, and constantly making sure that I didn’t hit a tipping point of getting sick. I remember intently watching the Stanley Cup in the background of the bar. Outside of that, I was content, We had done it! The music video was done. 2 bottles of Malort down in 3 mins and 30 seconds.
So, that’s the story of the Malort music video. It was real. And we did it!
Fun fact, the next day we woke up early to goto the Tennessee Ren Faire. Riley’s girlfriend Meg was performing in some shows, sop we wanted to support her. I was extremely hungover, but I survived. I’ve had worse hangovers, but I certainly won’t forget that one - and the contxt behind it - anytime soon.
Cheers!
