The song “Interior People” rests at the middle of Butterfly 3000 and centers on themes of mental health, such as depression and out-of-control thoughts. A fan favorite from the album, even Lucas has mentioned that its one his kids’ favorite Gizzard songs. “Interior People” is an introspective and personal track with a blissful instrumental and musical callbacks to “Shanghai.”
“Interior People” was a product of the COVID-19 lockdowns and was a concept well before it was ever written.
In an interview with Stereogum Stu said, “I remember that Joey had this concept of interior people before the lyrics were really written. I remember talking to him about the conceptual idea of the whole record, back when there were only two or three songs put together and there wasn’t a huge amount of lyrics written. And he was like, ‘Well, I wanna write about interior people.’ And I was like, ‘That’s cool, this is how that idea fits in the record.’ I don’t know, the song just made sense to us. It didn’t feel like a crazy juxtaposition with the music. Maybe that was a purposeful thing from Joey, but it felt right to me.”
When Joey had written the lyrics, Stu was actually concerned as to Joey’s wellbeing though he understood what it was: “…when I read them, I was like, ‘Are you okay?’ But he’s playing on the metamorphosis/change-of-states motif. It’s about questioning your sanity. Like, ‘Am I dreaming? Am I here? Am I real? Is this real?’”
In a press release, Joey said it was “about the internal battle of questioning your own sanity, and the joy that comes in letting go and surrendering to the void.”
The song was recorded by Ambrose (percussion), Cavs (drums), Joey (acoustic guitar/electric guitar/vocals/synthesizer/keyboards) and Stu (bass/synthesizer), with Joey playing a majority of the instruments. It was released on June 11th, 2021 with a full album video filmed at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles released on the 24th.
The music video for “Interior People” is a 2D animated cartoon by Studio Showoff and was released on July 12th, 2021. The video was described in an It’s Nice That article as a story about a world where humans have built a number of purple towers which is overtaken by caterpillar beings to be hives. The video follows the last remaining human woman and her partner — turned into a butterfly after a life-threatening injury — as they make their way to a tower so that she can become a butterfly too.
Director Ivan Dixon explained the creation of the video in the previously linked press release: “The only direction from the band was to include butterflies, to tie in with the album name Butterfly 3000. When I listened to ‘Interior People;’ I immediately pictured something with momentum, like a wild road trip. That’s
where the idea of the protagonist riding a giant butterfly came from. The title made me
think of cocoons. Maybe our hero was trying to find a cocoon to metamorphose into a
butterfly herself? Little moments of affection between her and her butterfly could hint
at a deeper bond between them. Were they lovers? With the cocoon I really wanted to
design the kind of thing you would find in a typical Australian garden as a kid. The ones
with little sticks poking out of them. I’ve never seen those particular cocoons
represented anywhere before.”
He also said that the video was inspired by the 1984 Hayao Miyasaki film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the works of Mœbius (Jean Giraud) and Heavy Metal. Dixon’s drawings also inspired the music video for “Catching Smoke.”
Like all Butterfly 3000 videos, it would be featured on the Blu-Ray Butterfly 3000: Ocular Edition. The video would also be referenced on the poster for 2022-04-19.
The song was only remixed once for the album Butterfly 3001.
The Confidence Man Remix features slowed down samples of the original that burst into an electro pop track.
“Interior People” has never been played live, but that’s not for a lack of trying. In a Reddit AMA from 2023 Joey mentioned that they tried to play it but that it was too hard. Another comment from Stu says “we'll see how we go in rehearsals!”