Braden Lam, Halifax’s adopted pop troubadour, may not be an east coast native, but he’s all about putting down roots. “Driftwood People,” his latest video and title track to his recent album, is all about those who chose to wander. While Lam is trying to convey that message as he “drifts” around picturesque Nova Scotia for the video, it really looks more like a campaigned designed to lure us in.
“Since the song is about travelling and looking at the world in a better light, Tim [Mobourquette] (filmmaker) and I wanted to stir up some wanderlust in viewers with the shots of me drifting through the various places I visited this summer,” says Braden Lam.
Lam and Mombourquette spent all summer just the right circumstances to put waiting for moody evenings and crisp sunny mornings to call each other up for a spontaneous drive to get the next shot.
“We spent all four months of the summer running around NS whenever we could with a tripod, a measuring tape, and a guitar. It was fun to make and a challenge in making each shot fluent, but also strongly contrast the others.
We wanted people to watch the video and feel called to grab some friends and go on an adventure themselves. The idea of connecting with the outdoors and other people in your life is a strong theme across the song, and the album that we tried to convey in this video.”
That being said, Lam and Mobourquette don’t stray too far from Nova Scotia and the effect simply results in us trying to justify a season along the South Shore. We’re looking at you, Music Nova Scotia.
Lam also points out that in all the shots he’s entirely alone. It’s the journey of a man, his guitar, and a tambourine. And everyone knows that tambourines are notoriously bad travelling companions.
“The fundamental message of the song is that I kept drifting through all these experiences by myself and found that happiness is really only true when shared with others,” says Lam.