One of the things that really grabs me on a personal level, and I don’t think I’m speaking out of pocket here for many punk fans, is a solid music video. PUP, for example, has mastered the fun, vibrant vibe (just see “DVP”) while bands like Pianos Become The Teeth, Touché Amoré, and The Menzingers go for something more artistic and indie-movie these days. However, kooky videos are pretty eye-catching as well.

Enter Anamanaguchi -- a New York-based band that mixes pop punk, industrial, some post- hardcore and chiptune (which I just learned was 8-bit inspired and a mix of fuzz rock, electronic and synth music). I was sent a video recently for “Magnet” off their upcoming album, Anyway: their first full-fledged rock effort on Polyvinyl Records. With a new tour due, the band wrote most of the music in the iconic, famous American Football house but the seeds for this track came a bit earlier. The kicker, though, is the Batman-inspired music video. Just enough to hook a comic nerd and punk geek like myself, so I decided to peer more into the makings of this video, the song itself, and something I’m fascinated with: IP, creator rights and infringement, especially in an era where AI and art is coming into conflict with regards to original work being subsumed to generate machine art.

The “Magnet” video mashes up tons of footage from many Batman movies, all while the band splices in shots of themselves, mimicking the backdrop of Gotham. When asked about the theme behind Magnet, lead songwriters and guitarists Peter Berkman and Ary Warnaar offered up key insight. Not just about the song but about the director, Jared Raab, who worked on Nirvanna the Band the Show (a Canadian time travel mockumentary-adventure web series and film) and who knows about navigating IP laws.

Warnaar admits, “We didn’t initially set out to write a Batman song, so yeah. [Laughs]… Working back from the Bat-sphere.. the chorus of “Magnet,” where the song stemmed from, has this very euphoric push-pull of feelings. It’s heavy but optimistic, dark but romantic. Emo but tough. That ‘opposites attract’ -- aka magnets concept -- continued to inspire the tonality of the song, the lyrics, and the vocal performance: soft vocals over hard chorus. And yeah, eventually, we realized that that euphoric/reckless tension is a staple of the Batman energy.

Berkman adds, “I don’t know if we’re even necessarily big fans of Batman. I definitely love the new movie [Matt Reeves’ The Batman], and I absolutely love Batman Forever’s look. It taught people to see colors they did not know existed. The real start of it was that we grew up on MTV in the ‘90s, and when you look at a lot of what was popular back then, it’s kind of surprising to find out just how much of it came from deep relationships between movie studios and record labels. Most of those companies have consolidated even more 30 years later. It’s funny that now that after they’ve all gobbled each other up into these big behemoths you see a lot less natural collaboration-type projects like movie tie-ins. Although I guess Rihanna is a Smurf now.” Yes, Rihanna is a Smurf. To the point, though, the video reflects that gothic Batman Forever essence. The tone, pacing and overall dynamism does feel a lot like what Joel Schumacher inculcated into that film, but the Tim Burton and Reeves energy is there, too. So too is that Adam West aura.

Berkman does think it’s all a perfect fit and something to capitalize on. “Batman naturally lends itself to rock music, I think, and we made a rock album. The kinds of songs Batman music tended toward have this odd feeling about them; he’s not as straightforward of a figure as Spider-Man: a guy who gets powers. He has a lot of psychological, economic and even political background to his story. When somebody gets the reins to the Batman franchise, they have to make lots of decisions. [Christopher] Nolan’s group decided to get rid of rock music… Reeves’ group decided to bring it back. So maybe there’s something to that.”

It does feel timely to tap into that zeitgeist, given Reeves had Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne in a grungy, seedy Gotham. The trailer even used Nirvana’s “Something In the Way,” and got ‘90s fans immediately hooked. Regarding Anamanaguchi’s choice to pay homage in what’s essentially Batman rock, Warnaar adds, “We didn’t pick the Batman franchise so much as the song dictated it. We weren’t even seeking out any franchise at all [laughs]. Batman songs/vibes have existed for decades; we kind of just happened upon one in our own wheelhouse. It’s like if we started a demo and said to each other “this is such a beach-y song,” and continued with that vibe and shot a music video for it on a beach. Batman is just a bit more honed in than “beach vibes,” but honestly only slightly. Gotta be millions of people that have seen Batman and never been to a beach.”

Berkman confesses, however, they knew how to generate a hook with this song to something established and popular. “2022’s The Batman is the newest movie so it made sense to use it the most since the video is kind of about us trying to get the Batman people’s attention -- we wanted to tend toward the direction they’re going in. The Gotham they’re depicting is closest to the one that we live in (New York City, baby!). Honestly, choosing what moments went to which era was a feel-based thing more than anything totally conscious. But we feel maybe there’s some kind of mythology or story that comes through it somehow. There’s definitely not a lot of Nolan-era stuff in there… zero of the Zack Snyder stuff also. I really want to hear what people think the music video narrative is.”

Unfortunately, the TV sphere, such as Fox’s Gotham, got cut from the creative vision. “None of the TV shows ever got any music video tie-ins; it’s something distinct to the way movies are marketed. The Batman we know is probably mostly from cartoons and video games but when it comes to music, it’s all about the movies. I always loved the Batman ‘66 opening sequence with the searchlight, so there’s a bit of that in our own footage, too,” Berkman adds.

It might seem like an opportunistic picking and choosing but Anamanaguchi would know what works commercially, having created music for Fornite and the Scott Pilgrim franchise. Visually, though, elevating “Magnet” is a whole new story.

Berkman says, “When Ary showed me the song, I was immediately struck with all these Batman images. The gear-shift of the Batmobile, the gliding of the cape, the love interests, the grapple guns, the entire thing. I live in Texas now and I saw that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie was premiering at SXSW, so I went to the premiere screening hoping to meet Jared. The idea wasn’t very firm but when I brought it up to him, he immediately started running with the tropes that all of these blockbuster movie tie-in music videos tend to work with. It’s all stuff you don’t notice even if you’ve paid attention. Jared has such an incredible eye for these little things that go a long way, which was completely obvious from the movie I’d seen that night!”

Now, the gusto is cool and all, but what about fair usage. Well, on Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Raab’s colleague and co-creator of the series, Matt Johnson, helped pave the way for the workaround and avoiding copyright infringement. I was curious about “Magnet” getting flagged by Warner Bros. as this seems like just cause for a corporate ruckus? Is that the vid getting pulled possibly plays into the adage of there is no such thing as bad press. It had me wondering from my PR/marketing and advertising past if this was a sort of guerilla marketing campaign where the buzz builds once it’s pulled and Anamanaguchi would then seed out the “cool, banned” video on other social media platforms. Rage against the machine, right?

Warnaar contends, though, that this won’t happen. He’s confident, to say the least. “Were on the same team as Mr. Batman here, I think Warner Bros. will get that. Hopefully, the only reason it would ever be taken down is because Warners Bros. thinks it’s too hype and they wanna save it for the next Batman movie. We’d hope their instinct upon seeing it is not “this bangs, we gotta take it down” but “this bangs, we should start doing more shit like this again.” We seek to inspire, not provoke.” Raab and Johnson’s perspective in the past was that once the video is full tribute and not a rip-off, it’s all good. That’s fair use. It seems to have worked for them and, now, for Anamanaguchi.

Still, I had to ask if the band was worried and if a contingency was in place. That is, lawyering up in case a lawsuit hits or a cease-and-desist. Not every band has financial muscle and not every label has such deep pockets to tussle with a corporate titan.

Warnaar reveals, “Working with Jared Raab is more or less the extent of our contingency plan. We’re not trolling the system here, or trying to bait some drama into it. There was some grey area to navigate, so we got the pros to help us do it carefully and creatively. Short term, we understand it’s a bit messy, but it’s genuinely with the altruistic goal of bringing back music video movie tie-ins to the world. Also, our lawyer is swag; he fought for NSYNC when the big managers tried to take advantage of the lads.

Berkman expounds, “Yeah, there’s a lot of grey area and that for me is where a lot of the excitement lives. You have people who get away with infringing on everybody’s rights, which everybody accepts implicitly, with the corpuses of this generative AI stuff that is not illegal for some reason. Maybe it’s legal when you put a robot between you and reality. But for us, the legality comes from fairly using the environments in which we were raised. There are children who thought Seal was Batman. There is a lot to be said about the rights to your own understanding of the world, and America is an interesting place for all of that to play out.” Irony being, James Gunn’s Superman is currently out. Why didn’t Anamanaguchi look for some traction there? Warnaar says, “I don’t think anyone in the band is particularly Bat-pilled or

Spidey-pilled or Superman-heads etc. Although, we definitely have respect for all the big dogs. I think we could write a sick Superman track, but like we said earlier, we didn’t seek out to write a Batman song, it kind of just happened. Our marketing timing would have definitely been more locked in if we wrote a Superman song, or if Batman 2 was about to drop, but we’re doing this for the love of the game; no secret PR strategies involved.”

Berkman has another reason why. “Superman needs an orchestra, I think. I suppose in a world where Nicholas Cage played Superman in the mid ‘90s we probably would’ve gotten a new genre of Superman rock, maybe even Superman rap. But for the same reason we didn’t get a MacBook Pro EDM Batman in the 2010’s, there’s probably some deep cultural reasons for that.”

It’s clear from the infographics provided above regarding Bat-rock by the band, they assessed culturally and personally why Batman was the route to go. They treat the Caped Crusader as art, but also, science. The thought-process is pretty fascinating and the visual direction, to me, bold. It’s something that definitely plays in the online space where comics is growing in terms of podcasts and such. There are more interviewers, reviewers and such, and something like “Magnet” can only serve to bring these eyes to Anamanaguchi, and for those scouring for Reeves’ news on the Dark Knight and the next sequel: something a script has only just been completed for.

As for if Anamanaguchi will be part of that, they’re aiming for it. Gunn and the new DC slate has its own Batman movie planned as well: The Brave and the Bold. That’s another window of opportunity, although it does feel like Reeves’ Batman 2 might be the band’s best shot. Warnaar says, “Hopefully, by the time Batman 2 is out, movie tie-in music videos will be back and flourishing; maybe we’ll have done a couple legal ones by then, and this will be our official above the board return to the Batworld. Of course, all this depends on our ability to make more Batman music.”

“Yeah, agreeing with Ary here -- the music has to come first,” Berkman chimes in. For anyone who’s unclear, Anamanaguchi wants Warner Bros. to take note. Given they’ve played on Jimmy Fallon, too, they seem like they’ll be worth the effort.

Warnaar concludes, “100%. Or to be a bit more accurate, they [WB] weren’t holding auditions for this kind of thing anymore, so we made a sort of skate-style “sponsor me” tape and sent it into the world. We’re excited to see where it lands.”

Berkman ends, “Hopefully, it lands in the arms of Batman.”