While we heard from many musicians throughout the “lockdown” (as Americans like to call it despite running wild like unleashed animals for much of 2020), one person we didn’t notice a peep out of was BANKS. She was too busy allowing a nervous breakdown, of sorts, to catch up with her after all this time. Like many, the pandemic’s infliction of so much “reflection” forced some kind of epiphany on her. One that gave her body the time to process having her first anxiety attack.
After a successful year of touring for her third record, III, BANKS’ predilection for celebrating the success was cut short by a breakup, paired with the onset of her dormant mental health issues—not to mention the fractured spine she had at the beginning of her tour finally coming to roost via physical consequences. Emerging from a year like that, it’s no wonder BANKS feels like she could make the announcement, “I’m the Devil.” For those who dance with him can’t help but absorb a bit of his energy. Luckily, he does have plenty of “bad bitch” energy to go around, and he seemed inclined to give some to BANKS. And, before her, Lana Del Rey in the “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” video (there’s elements of “Born to Die” and “Ride” at play in “I’m the Devil” as well), a hodge-podge of concepts thrown together that include some witchy-type ritual sacrifice shit involving wolves and dancing around a bonfire. This particular “plot point” (minus the wolves) is also one that crops up in the BANKS video. Yet, in the context of this storyline, unlike LDR’s, it makes sense—fits naturally into the narrative.
Co-directed with Jenna Marsh, the aesthetic BANKS wanted to go for in “I’m the Devil” pulls inspiration from the sexually campy flair of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula and Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her. Taking these visuals and using them as a tongue-in-cheek response to her 2020 lows, “I’m the Devil” empowers her descent into darkness. As she remarked of her lockdown period, “I actually kind of hit a really dark place, but it was a place that I needed to go through to really confront some things. The big demons in my head that take away joy in my life.” But they can’t do that if one turns these demons into their bitch. Which is precisely what BANKS did. Ergo her assertion, “In order to overcome those demons, you have to be stronger than a demon. What’s stronger than a demon? A devil. I couldn’t be some kind, sweet, polite person to get over the certain things that I needed to get over. You have to be a devil.”
Unfortunately for the poor soul in this video, that means his own demise. Allured by her—as all people are by the “wild side”—the proverbial tall dark stranger watches her walk by in “that red number” (complete with matching PVC boots) and decides to offer her a single red rose. One she eats right in front of him as blood then proceeds to drip from the corners of her mouth (something that probably should have clued him in). From that instant, it seems he’s putty in her hot little hands—made of skin that will quite literally burn you if you try to touch it. Harkening back to the whispered chorus that commences the track (“I’m the devil and I speed with the pedal on the gas”), we now see BANKS barreling down the highway in a red convertible, the license plate’s “California” font changed to “Serpentina.” Obviously, her temporary acolyte is in tow. When he touches her skin and it boils, that doesn’t horrify him quite as much as seeing her stick her reptilian tongue out at him. That’s when he knows he might really be fucked, like, metaphorically as well. Further confirmed as she starts levitating above the car amid the sky turning a hellish red.
Now parked in front of that aforementioned LDR-esque bonfire burning amid what has quickly turned into the dead of night, BANKS gets out and confidently walks toward it. Still unable to avoid being under her seductive spell, our Sacrifice follows her toward what presently seems to be the writhing orgy she’s offering to him (this part was surely mined from the famed “Monica Bellucci scene” in Dracula). And as she lets these other two women play with her for his viewing pleasure, she soon finds the opportunity to shove her lover/sacrifice into a Perspex box (a.k.a. a clear acrylic box). BANKS is embracing her devilish identity and relishing every moment of it.
Choosing to release the song and video on June 16th, her thirty-third birthday, feels ironically appropriate considering everyone knows thirty-three was the often presumed age Jesus died (ahem, or rather, was crucified). And apparently what rose up in his place is this little devil here. Hence, the lyric, “I hear the bones in the devil retired/So someone write my new name down/‘Cause I’m the devil.” Upon stuffing the sacrifice/love slave into the glass encasement, the final scene concludes with a POV shot of BANKS spitting atop it (Jesus got spit on too, you know). Whether that’s all part of the ritual or it signals some far worse doom for the man is left to our discretion, one supposes. Or perhaps the man was one of those demons BANKS talked about before, of the ilk that required her to transcend into the full-stop Devil in order to conquer it.
As the first single from what will be her fourth record (still no name or release date offered yet), this track has established another side of one of music’s most complex Geminis, as further evidenced by her having to learn a new production mastering technique for the songs. And even though BANKS has noted, “My animal self is free in this album. It’s me at my core,” one gets the sense there will still be more layers to penetrate even beyond this rawness. There’s no limit to how base carnality can get, after all.
