Local singer-songwriter Bobby McAloney was moved almost to tears watching the trailer for the powerful anti-bullying movie Bully.
Just imagining his own daughter in similar situations to the ones showed in the film, was enough to set McAloney to action.
The B.C. based member of the band Cupla wrote a song based on Bully called My Stand, and now they are being supported by the film’s producers and partnering up with United Way Lower Mainland to donate 50 per cent of the proceeds. The song will be released Tuesday July 17th.
Bully follows five families in the United States over the course of one school year, and details how bullying has affected them.
Describing his song as “honest, emotional, and raw”, McAloney said he believes everyone has been affected by bullying in one way or another. “I know for a long time I was made fun of and belittled because if I was feeling down and small, these people could feel big.”
After writing the song and getting everyone on board, the next step was to make the music video, and McAloney said Cupla wanted to take a different approach. The video is made up of fans from around the world posing with messages of what bullying means to them.
“There’s so many people on social media talking about this movie and sharing their personal stories on how they’re being bullied,” said McAloney. “So we brain-stormed and came up with this idea, get people to send in their picture and a caption in that picture which would not only get people involved but in their own words through our video be able to express how they feel about it.”
Cupla is made up of Bobby and Billy McAloney, Tricia McAloney (Billy’s wife), Andrew Venning, and Travis Rankin. They have been together for just over three years and describe themselves as an alternative rock band.
“We’ve been called everything from a ‘bluesy Metric’ to Patti Smith mixed with Lou Reed, and that’s a wide spectrum, but we definitely know the road we’re on and have worked with some amazing people so far, and are looking forward to furthering this journey,” said Bobby.
The song will be available through iTunes, Amazon, and Last F.M. There will also be a link on their website www.cupla.ca to purchase the song starting Tuesday.
Check out their video for My Stand below:
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