Rooney Will Make You Want Your Own Personal Piano Man

Last year, Rooney came crawling back into our lives with their long-awaited album Washed Away. During that six-year hiatus, many members of the band pursued solo endeavors. While frontman Robert Schwartzman spent much of that time writing for other artists, he was also busy preparing to make his big directorial debut with Dreamland. Today, we're premiering the music video "Sad But True," an original score from the soundtrack for his film.

Schwartzman wrote the film years ago with a friend and remarks how "the beauty of this project was making it on a shoestring budget, trying to tell this story with limited resources, and working with an amazingly talented cast and crew." The whole process consisted of "constant problem-solving," but that's what made it fun for the director. Schwartzman further elaborates on the process behind the music video: 

I've been playing music with Rooney for the past 17 years, and this film is the first time I could connect my songwriting life with filmmaking. I love finding similarities in the creative process, so many parallels, ultimately both music and film come down to storytelling. 

I wrote the song "Sad But True" for the film and imagined making a music video that features new performance footage tied to specific scenes from the film. What you're seeing in this music video are actual locations from 'Dreamland,' but instead of seeing the character Monty, we cut to new performance footage. So it takes you out of the 'Dreamland' reality and into the "Sad But True" reality orbiting the film's story line. 

It's like this film is playing out in my head, these images, as I'm performing the song.  

The mellow ballad makes you want to plop down on a stool at your local bar and confess your deepest desires to anyone who is willing to listen. If you've been trying to keep it together lately, this song is definitely not for you. Rooney plays on the common experience of feeling lost inside and sort of floating through your life. "Looking through shattered glass/ Watching the days as they pass/ Suddenly, out of the blue/ It all makes sense/ It’s so sad but true," Schwartzman sings in the chorus.

Dreamland is available to stream now on Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon; the soundtrack is on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon. Watch the dreamy visual unfold in the video, below.