Trevor Finlay Brings His Sharp Take on Information Overload to Life
With a Self-Produced Music Video
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — We’re all addicted to knowing things we never needed to know. Who broke up. Who got offended. Who said what. We scroll, we watch, we react, and then we do it all over again. Trevor Finlay brings that reality to life in the official music video for “A Little Too Much,” his latest single written with the late songwriter and longtime friend Robert K. Wolf.
WATCH THE OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO
Filmed to look like a livestream, the video places Finlay and his band tightly inside the portrait frame of a smartphone, turning the very device responsible for much of today’s information overload into part of the visual language. It’s a fitting contradiction for a song about consuming more than we ever asked to know. “There’s a delicious irony to this song being about the constant bombardment of online information and knowing full well that I’m adding to it,” Finlay says.
Finlay took the concept from idea to screen himself, serving as both director and editor of the video. Rather than approaching it as a traditional music video, he saw the visual as another layer of the song itself. “It doesn’t feel that official though because to me it feels like an extension to the song,” he says.
“And editing is like a game, you’re unscrambling these visual ideas and then putting together a jigsaw puzzle.” His longtime fascination with film also found its way into the process. “I have practically studied movies and I spend so much time with these songs that I can’t help but think about the cinematic components,” Finlay says.
The result doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither does the song. Instead of preaching about screen time or telling listeners to unplug, “A Little Too Much” finds the absurdity in the noise and gives people permission to laugh at a reality most of us recognize in ourselves.
“People can take away what they want from the song and video, but what I hope to accomplish is to offer a few minutes of joyful distraction and avoidance of whatever else is going on,” Finlay
says. “We could all use a break every now and then.”
Beneath that humor, however, the song carries deeper personal significance. “A Little Too Much” was written with Finlay’s late longtime friend and collaborator Robert K. Wolf, making its release another chapter in a songwriting partnership that continues to live through the music they created together.
The track also marks a creative first for Finlay. Known for incorporating a loop pedal into his acoustic performances, “A Little Too Much” is the first time he has brought that signature element into a studio recording, creating the rhythmic foundation that drives the track.
“A Little Too Much” follows Finlay’s June 5 release “Shut the Hell Up” and continues a current run of singles leading toward his seventh studio album.
Across more than three decades in music, Finlay has shared stages with James Brown, Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Chris Isaak and Charlie Daniels, building a career across performing, songwriting, production and session work.
Now, seven albums into that journey, Finlay isn’t trying to compete with the endless stream of information coming at us. He’s holding up a phone-sized mirror to it, and giving us something worth watching for a few minutes instead.