Spaghetti Western meets horror music video from slide blues guitarist and friends.

1. What motivated you to make this music video?

As a musician who also loves cinema, a music video gives a powerful visualizer to accompany the music. It’s a great way for an artist to further share the vision which motivated the song and its lyrics with their audience. Film is also a huge passion of mine and creating a music video is a fantastic way to realize that whilst creating a piece which will make the music all the more marketable.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you  to make this film?

This was the most involved project I have ever worked on. From the planning stage to completion, it was a couple of years! A great deal of people came together to make this project happen from costume and makeup teams to drone operators, expert equestrian teams and special effects teams both during filming and post. The most gruelling part of the process were the post production special effects and extensive rotoscoping in order to entirely transpose a Western movie set situated in the UK to a desert in Southwestern USA!

3. How would you describe your video in two words!?

Western Horror.

4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing “Walk with Me  Through The Fire”?

The post production special effects were a real learning curve and incredibly involved and labor intensive. During the filming itself, it would have to be capturing the bolting horses! Animal actors of course have a mind of their own and don’t always do what you want or expect. Sometimes this works to your advantage but other times you have to try a few different things to capture the shot you have in mind.

5. There are 5 stages of the filmmaking process: Development. 
Pre-Production. Production. Post-Production. Distribution.

What is your favorite stage of the filmmaking process?

I have a love/hate relationship with post production. While it’s often hard, frustrating and incredibly labor intensive, seeing the ideas come together is incredibly satisfying, especially when the end product is gradually developed and built into something so different from the original shot. I especially enjoy seeing special effects transformations. For example, in Walk With Me Through the fire, our excellent prosthetic artists did an incredible job turning myself and my fellow musicians into living skeletons. However, in post our eyes, necks and mouths were removed and we were lit just so in order to bring the idea I had for the characters to completion. Often, it’s the tiniest details that satisfy me most, for example when my character “drinks” the shot and you see the whiskey gradually disappear from the glass. Obviously this was not possible to do for real due to my skull prosthetics so was done in post. It’s a tiny fraction of time in the video but just so satisfying to see those little details!  

6. When did you realize that you wanted to make this kind of music  video?

As long as I have made music videos, I have always harnessed a Southern gothic horror vibe and have gradually become more and more adventurous with the scale of my projects. I have always loved Westerns and was waiting to be inspired to write just the right song to enable me to create a music video of this theme. One day when noodling on guitar, I happened upon a riff that I knew was the one! As I wrote the song I knew it would be to accompany a Western music video so both the song and the film concept were developed concurrently in order to compliment each other.

7. What film have you seen the most times in your life?

It’s a toss up between Django Unchained, Sinners and The Exorcist (1973).

8. In a perfect world: Who would you like to work with/collaborate with  on a film?

It may be a bit obvious but Quentin Tarantino and Ryan Coogler. Also, probably a bit more surprising considering my usual style but I think Danny McBride is quite the genius. 

9. What is your favorite meal?

Chargrilled oysters from Drago’s in New Orleans followed by more chargrilled oysters from Drago’s in New Orleans! Haha!

10. What is next for you? A new video?

Creating the Walk With me Through the Fire music video was an incredibly experience but it was very exhausting and took a great deal out of me and my team. I am going to return to working on my music and writing album number 2! Once that is well underway I will likely turn my attention to another music video but Walk With me will be a very hard one to follow and outdo!