OYLS Team With Danny Trejo To Tell A Story About Mental Illness In New Video

In OYLS’s stirring visual for ‘Netflix (Your Product Is Too Good),’ Danny Trejo marries ‘masculinity’ with ‘vulnerability’ to show the struggle of mental illness.

OYLS dub themselves a “profit conscious musical duo,” and there’s a lot of heart to go with the consciousness behind this LA-based electronic act. The latest example arrived today (Apr. 13) with “Netflix (Your Product Is Too Good),” the duo’s newest music video. Taken from their most recent album, OYLS (For Your Consideration) and directed by Nicole Lipp, “Netflix” sees actor and pop culture icon Danny Trejo at a dark point, with sweatpants loosely slung around his waist, and a bag of microwavable popcorn by his side on the motel bed. As the song plays (“Sometimes I lose myself / sometimes I lose / It’s 4 in the morning, and I’m binging on shows / I’m a loser / Bad controller, I’m out of control / when I lose myself.”)

“Netflix (Your Product Is Too Good)” finds the perfect visual tone to the song, with minimalist production that allows the focus to stay on the song’s lyrics and, thus, its message. It’s a banger if an electro-tune boasting deep self-introspection, coupled with an observation on how endless media consumption can be as detrimental as any other physical addiction, could be a banger.

Seeing Danny in the throes of depression is a startling image and one that the band knew they had to have for this.  “From the very start we knew that we wanted Danny for this music video,” OYLS tells HollywoodLife. “The video [and] song is about mental illness and addiction and we wanted to portray vulnerability in someone who is the epitome of toughness and masculinity.”

It took a while to make this collaboration come true, despite Trejo’s prolific output. “ We first started trying to court Danny a year and a half ago,” the band shares with HollywoodLife. “He has a bunch of restaurants in Los Angeles and so we would go and eat at Trejo’s Tacos frequently hoping that we would meet him. This was all before the pandemic hit. Unfortunately, we never had any luck. So we reached out to his agent and told her about our vision for the video. He was super receptive to the concept and loved that the proceeds were going to MusiCares. He has a giant heart and really loves supporting the community.”

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“Netflix (Your Product Is Too Good)” is not just a music video, It’s the third episode in a series of seamless videos dubbed a visual “Pop Opera.” The first, “Visa (Paid For My Parking Ticket)” arrived in November 2020, with “Instagram (You Remind Me I’m Worthy)” arriving in a month later. The next in the sequence (assuming they follow the tracklisting on OYLS (For Your Consideration) will be “Zoloft (Makes Me Comfortable),” with “AppleCare (Doesn’t Cover Arson),” the two-part “The New York Times (Sold Me A Mattress)” and “Comcast (Thanks You for you Patience)” rounding out the full For Your Consideration experience.

OYLS is committed to the “conscious” label. The duo sold space on their For Your Consideration album cover for anyone to purchase, with profits going towards MusicCare, the non-profit org that assists musicians struggling with mental illness. “We hope to impact the discourse surrounding mental illness,” the band said in a statement. “It’s such a stigmatized topic but so many suffer on a daily basis that it really shouldn’t be. Hopefully, we can help make that change.”