New Orleans queer punk band Special Interest's new video 'Black Silk Stocking' reveals the intimacy and playfulness between two trans sex workers, with a client and then later post session with each other. Read a Q&A with the band below. Is this song part of a new project you’re working on? (If so, any info on the new project you can share?) This song is actually taken from Special interest’s first release, a Demo titled ‘ PrEP. Love. Unity. Respect.’ Every video I wanted to do from our album I needed money to make my vision come true but I was in the mood to create something so chose a song from our demo and created a concept that I didn’t need any resources to make happen. I asked my studio mate Juicebox Burton to help me co-direct since we have yet to collaborate on a video project together in our new studio. What was the initial concept for the song? The concept stems from a series I’m writing called ‘Sis is this the end of the world’. The series is about queer intimacy and the struggle to survive in this hyper real hellscape we live in. The two characters are named Nova and V based on the two characters in ‘Daisey’s’ a film from the Nová Vlna movement. In my series the two characters are madly in love trans sex workers who are learning to navigate a new market since they perviously presented as in way before transitioning. As for this video I just wanted to show the intimacy and playful ness between the two lovers With a client and then later post session with each other. Showing the contrast between work intimacy and then later their own personal intimacy with one another. When I showed their intimacy post-session I wanted to focus on the care they give one another and the looks and touch that vastly contrast their performative intimacy. How do you know the performers in the video? Each performer is a friend of Juicebox, Raven (the DP) and me. All of our friends are very intimate with one another and we all often help each other out by being in one another’s projects. The two main characters and the John are all New Orleans queers we love and trust. What’s the significance of the hourglass? The hourglass was just used to keep time. I wanted to add a little element of absurdity to the video by using this old method of time keeping to show the monotony and routine mundanity of this work day for these two characters. Also as a reminder this method of survival is as old as time itself. Is there a story behind the creepy contact lens? One of the actors came in day of and was like I have these weird contacts and I wanna wear them! One of the actors never wore a contact so it took us 30 minutes to get it in them. It was a cute added touch that I think made the two main characters one cohesive unit. I liked the contrast between the hi-res shots and the home video footage. What do the different resolutions expose? I don’t intentionally see the two resolutions as motif that exposes something. But then again the aesthetic of using this outdated resolution along with the hour glasses, I think pays homage to the fact that this kind of work has been going on forever. Especially as a means for black brown and trans folks to survive. And with in the same breathe it’s also showing that this love between whores, black and brown, trans folks is as old as time. We have been here loving each other and keeping each other alive forever and it’s unfortunate we never see our bodies loving each other in media. But that is something I plan to change in my body of work. Interview with Alli Logout by Raphael Helfand