SONG:   “Leave ”
BAND:  2nd Place Driver
3:45 minutes

DIRECTOR: Harm van Zon
www.2ndplacedriver.com

SYNOPSIS:

Brief synopsis: Videoclip for the song ‘Leave’ by NL band 2nd Place Driver. Taken from their 2005 debut album ‘…1’. The story of the video follows the lyrics of the song and show the singer on 1 planet and his girl on another looking at each other and longing. The band is playing as animated pin-up dolls, with only their faces being filmed, the rest animated.

Director Biography

After graduating in advertising, communication and multimedia at the St. Lucas college in Boxtel (Netherlands), he attended the art academy St. Joost in Breda (Netherlands). Graduated there in the field of 3D computer animation and his graduation film/project 'BLOX' won several awards, among those an award for the best student film at the the Netherlands Film Festival in 2004. He then started to work as freelance animator/designer and worked on projects such as, 'Nightwatching' and 'Tulse Luper Suitcase' from director Peter Greenaway. In November 2006 Onesize (www.onesize.nl) hired him for a freelance job which ended up in a full time contract at the studio. Harm now works there as an all-round 3d animator.

Band Biography

www.2ndplacedriver.com
www.myspace.com/2ndplacedriver

The band 2nd Place Driver was founded in 2002 by guitar player Bart Dietvorst (ex Wealthy Beggar) and singer Rias Baarda, first as a (home-studio) project. Quickly there after it became a real band and after recording a first E.P. (2nd Place Driver, 2003) lots of gigs followed and a stunning live reputation was quickly established. This first release got airplay in The Netherlands and Belgium on radiostations such as 3FM, KINK FM and Studio Brussels and a bunch of great reviews in several media followed. Early 2004 a second E.P. (Leave E.P., 2004) was released and the story continued with again lots of media attention, airplay and gigs.

After those two E.P.s the official debut album followed in april 2005, entitled 1. This album was released in The Netherlands and Belgium by PiTAR. The album was received very well by fans and media and the first single Leave got airplay on radiostations like 3FM, KINK FM and Radio 2. The video for Leave got airplay on TV channels such as MTV and TMF. After this, two radio singles followed and got more airplay.

The album draws attention and 2nd Place Driver gets an Essent Award for it. Essent is a big gas & electricity supplier in The Netherlands and gives this award to 10 promising Dutch acts a year. As a result the band plays the Lowlands Festival (along with acts such as Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age), gets attention on MTV, a promobudget of 5.000,- and lots of media attention.

In the meantime the band played more than 200 shows, mostly in The Netherlands, in clubs such as Paradiso, 013 and Milky Way and on festivals such as Lowlands, Eurosonic and Parkpop. The band played supports for bands like Soulwax, Racoon, Zornik and Maximo Park.

With a new bassplayer the band begins working on new material for a second album album entitled 'The Hungry Ones', released in October 2006. In September 2006 the first single/ videoclip of the album ‘My Mistake’ is released. The album release show in 013, Tilburg [NL] is advanced by a lightning gig right in front of the trainstation of Tilburg at 8 a.m. The band get’s national press coverage for this. The album get’s good reviews and in spring 2007 the band releases the 2nd single from the album, entitled ‘Smile’. This song is also being used in the USA indiefilm ‘Lakeside has no Lake’ by Robert Benfer.
In summer 2007 the band signs a new record deal with Stacey Records. On this label the band will release their third album, entitled 'Full Speed Bare Naked' late 2007. The band departs for a tour to Afghanistan, playing for Dutch and international troups in Kandahar around Sylvester 2007-2008.

The music:
Back to the future with electronic based retrorock. The music of 2nd Place Driver is like a knight’s move: one step back and 2 ahead: retrorock with electrobeats or Depeche Mode meets Nine Inch Nails. Gruesome and heartwarming at the same time.

References:
Soulwax, NIN, Pearl Jam, Bowie, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, QOTSA

Press clips:

review '...1' 2005
FileUnder.nl
..The songs grab you within the first 30 seconds and won't let you go after that. The fecfectly produced songs can compete with the great..

review '...1' 2005
Fret magazine
..2ndPD makes their own distictive sound from a lot of different influences. It's a well produced album with strong compositions and good melodies..

review '...1' 2005
BN De Stem (daily newspaper)
..The album sounds good and surely is radiofriendly, lot's of commercial perspective. '...1' is a decent debut album..