Now that their onstage cred is firmly established, Sevendust are looking to branch out beyond performance-based videos.
The group shot two conceptual videos late last month in Toronto with director Noble Jones, who has previously worked with Roland Gift and Default. The first was for “Live Again,” the next single from the band’s latest album, Animosity. The clip concerns a girl who gets thrown out of her house by her father, who pushes her out the front door as her mother and neighbors stand by watching.
“I’ve always been fascinated and disturbed by young people and children that get thrown to the street,” drummer Morgan Rose said. “The video deals with this girl dealing with the fact that she doesn’t have any money or food and there are always pig guys out there that are looking to do something terrible to somebody that’s down.”
The girl’s not alone in her quest for survival. During the video, another woman appears to guide her away from trouble. “She acts as almost a guardian angel,” Rose said. “Some people might take it in a religious way and other people might see it more as a spiritual thing. But it’s really just about looking for somebody, not knowing where to find that person and needing help, and that person being available if you had just asked.”
The band was filmed in an old, empty theater, and there are photo images in the background of the girl, the angel, the father and the lecherous antagonists. “As we’re playing, the camera goes around the pictures, and then the still photos turn into real life,” Rose said.
The other new video is the second the band has shot for “Angel’s Son,” a song that was originally on Strait Up, a tribute record to Snot frontman Lynn Strait, who was killed in a car accident in December 1998. The track reappeared on Animosity and is a staple of the band’s stage show. The new video is geared toward the European market and depicts the band in a hospital during a trauma that wouldn’t be out of place on “ER.”
“The video opens up with a boy walking through a hospital, and he’s got an ‘In Memory of Lynn Strait’ T-shirt on,” Rose said. “Then he walks away, and it switches to this ER room scene about another boy who is in trouble, fighting for his life, and basically the craziness that goes on in the hospital trying to save a boy’s life. And we’re playing in different parts of the hospital. I’m not really into videos where people are playing on fields or hospitals or places where there’s no chance in hell that you’d see them play, but this actually turned out great.”
Sevendust are currently on the Cutty Rock the Boat Tour with Breaking Point and, on some dates, Soil. The shows run through May 11 in Boise, Idaho. After that, Sevendust will open stadium shows for Creed, with whom they’ve been tight for the past couple of years despite their stylistic differences.
“Those guys are unbelievable fans of ours,” Rose said. “They’ve always definitely left the door open for us to go out with them. And the tours with them are so laid back that it’s almost like a golf tour with an occasional show now and then. How can you lose playing in front of 20,000 people every night and getting to play golf three times a week?”
Creed shows notwithstanding, Rose remains disappointed that Sevendust haven’t been invited on tour by any of the numerous now-platinum bands who once opened for them, including Staind, Drowning Pool, Disturbed and Godsmack.
“We were so ready to come out and go out with some of these bands we’ve taken out, but it just seems they’re not ready to pay back the favor,” Rose grumbled. “It gets frustrating for everybody in our camp. But people know us as a killer live band, and I know from experience that it really sucks to have a band come out for you that’s wrecking house, and then you get out there and the crowd can go for about half your set and then they’re exhausted.
“I would like to think that’s probably why we’re not getting a lot of the offers we hoped we would get,” he concluded.
