In the hours following the tragic death of Abay Lattin (a.k.a. Carnegie from Silver Medallion) over two months ago, his bandmate Oren J. Schauble told me the following in regards to the group's future:
"It's going to be tough, but I'm going to keep going and come up with something to truly express his legacy," he said.
Schauble is proving to be a man of his word, as he recently posted a Silver Medallion's newest music video on YouTube and is busy working on the act's upcoming album, both of which honor and commemorate his late friend and collaborator. The video is for the track "All I Ask Pt. 1," which contains vocals from Lattin that were laid down in the weeks prior to his death on September 11.
Both the song and its music video deal with endings. More specifically, the track involves the breakup of a troubled relationship. The music video depicts said situation, as well as the suicide of one of the person's involved.
"It's about a girl dating a guy, and she's just caught up in the life and the drama. She's cheating to feel better about herself, to feel wanted when she realizes that she was just a pawn and gave up a chance at happiness for her emotions. She can't take it and kills herself," Schauble says. "The video is really about the extraneous character, her boyfriend whose sitting outside her apartment trying to reach her and is just powerless."
It's heavy subject matter, to say the least. As any Silver Medallion fan will tell you, Lattin's silky-smooth lyrics were one of the band's many strengths. Hearing them now becomes even more haunting.
Schauble says while the song was created before his partner's passing, the video's concept was conceived in the wake of Lattin's death. And it shows. Shot by Valley filmmaker Bill Bastian, the four-and-a-half-minute music video is filled with darkly lit and moody images of pain, regret, and anguish. All of which, Schauble explains, is intentional.
"It's the most heartfelt song we've done," he says. "I wrote it about the longest and most painful relationship in my life, and I was happy to find a video that matched the weight of the material."
Mixing the song and creating the video proved to be therapeutic for Schauble.
"I found it best to throw myself into meaningful work after losing someone close to me," he says.
