The Door Knockerers

Not that I need another band, and I certainly don’t need another project. But a name came to me, and once it had arrived, I couldn’t leave it alone.

The Door Knockerers.

It’s a play on those religious folk who turn up at your front door, smiling politely, pamphlet in hand, hoping to save your soul.

The proper term would be door knockers, but that could just as easily mean the brass fitting on your front door. I liked the idea of adding an unnecessary “er” to make it perfectly clear that I meant the people doing the knocking. It’s grammatically ridiculous, which probably explains why I liked it.

I imagined the lead singer dressed like one of those young missionaries. White short-sleeved shirt, skinny tie, little name badge, short suit trousers, long socks and black shoes. The sort of outfit that suggests someone has made a serious commitment to something, although you’re not entirely sure what.

The badge would identify him as Elder Kevin, or perhaps Elder Gary. I liked the idea that his name might change from one performance to the next, with absolutely no explanation.

The rest of the band would look perfectly ordinary. I was thinking of AC/DC, where Angus Young wears his schoolboy outfit while everyone else just gets on with playing. One slightly ridiculous character at the front, surrounded by musicians who appear entirely comfortable with the arrangement.

As for the music, I hadn’t decided. It could be ska, with that infectious offbeat guitar, and the skinny tie would suit the old two-tone look. It could be punk, short and fast and delivered with considerably more enthusiasm than sophistication. Or it could be straightforward rock, with big riffs and a singer doing his best Angus Young, only dressed as someone who has come to discuss the afterlife.

At this point, it was still just a bit of morning silliness.

Then I started wondering whether I could actually make it happen. Not by finding a rehearsal room and persuading four other musicians to turn up on time, but by making the whole thing with artificial intelligence.

I’ve spent most of my life making music and video, so I know the real difficulty is rarely the idea. It’s everything that has to happen afterwards: musicians, locations, cameras, lighting, editing and a reasonable amount of money. Increasingly, though, there are ways around some of those obstacles. I could write the lyrics myself and let an AI music generator called Suno try the same song as ska, punk and rock without anyone giving up an afternoon.

And once I had the music, I could make the video, which is where things got properly ridiculous.

I imagined our missionary-looking singer turning up at people’s houses with the band in tow. He knocks on a door. Someone opens it. And we get a glimpse into whatever peculiar little world exists behind it. The first house might be fairly ordinary, with something slightly odd in the background. The next would be stranger, and the next stranger still. The joke would be the escalating absurdity, punctuated by cuts back to the band.

Then I wondered where the band should play. Perhaps outside a church. Not a particular church, just one of those modest brick chapels with a steeple, a neat lawn and an air of respectable Sunday morning seriousness. The band would be set up on the grass, and the congregation, in their Sunday best, would be headbanging along.

I rather liked that image. Ties flying, sensible hairstyles subjected to forces they were never designed to withstand, everyone enthusiastically rocking out to a band fronted by Elder Kevin.

By now I had a character, a musical direction, a location and the beginnings of a music video, so I started thinking about how I’d actually produce it. The first step would be a consistent look for the singer, a set of reference images so that Elder Kevin doesn’t turn into a different person every time a door opens. Then I’d generate the video in short sections of five to ten seconds, one doorstep encounter at a time, using tools like Kling, Seedance or locally run models. Finally, I’d assemble it all in DaVinci Resolve, cutting to the finished song. Same editing process I’ve used for years, except that instead of filming the material, I’d be generating it.

Naturally, there would be problems.

AI video has a habit of changing small details between shots. Faces drift, clothes change and lettering becomes something resembling a language spoken by people who have never encountered an alphabet. That little name badge would be particularly troublesome.

But then it occurred to me that if the system kept changing the name on the badge, I could make that part of the joke. Elder Kevin becomes Elder Gary, then Elder Barry, then Elder something or other, and nobody ever acknowledges it.

A technical problem turns into another ridiculous feature of the band. Which, when you think about it, is not a bad way to approach creative work.

What interests me is how quickly the distance between imagining something and being able to make it has shrunk. Not so long ago, this would have stayed a joke told over breakfast. Now I can seriously contemplate creating the whole thing. Whether that’s a wonderful development for human creativity or just means the world is about to be inundated with increasingly ridiculous ideas remains to be seen. Probably a bit of both.

I started the morning with a grammatical joke about people knocking on doors, and a little while later I was discussing character consistency, shot sequences and the technical challenges of producing a fictional rock band. All without picking up a guitar.

I haven’t decided whether The Door Knockerers will ever perform their first song. But I do like the idea of Elder Kevin standing on someone’s doorstep, looking terribly earnest, raising his hand to knock.

And instead of someone coming to the door, the whole band launches into a blistering guitar riff.

I think I’d watch that.