Tag: special edition

We met up a couple weeks later and Sam had this big book of images he pulled for reference. He nailed it right away. Then we all sat in the control room and talked about the videos. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck as he talked. I watched everyone in the band become fired up and excited.

The Black Parade was coming to life. It was magical.

He wanted to shoot the videos back to back, to use the resources we would build and not let anything go to waste because it was going to be the biggest video we ever made. It was going to be epic and he wanted them to connect.

We played Sam the song we would be doing the second video for, and there was an immediate reaction as he stood right up. You could literally hear the pistons firing in his head. We asked ‘What do you think?’ He was silent.

With his back facing us, still staring at the blaring speakers he turned slowly and said, ‘WE’RE GOING TO BURN THE FUCKER DOWN.’

SAM BAYER

From the second we shook hands I felt how intense this guy was. I think I was so nervous to meet him that I gave a lame half-handshake because I kind of missed his hand. I told him I loved his work, he told me he loved our work. I had a feeling something was coming around the corner.

Almost a month later we met and he came and listened to what we had worked on. He instantly got it. He was instantly excited. He picked out every single influence and said: ‘You guys are throwing down the gauntlet with this record…I want the videos to do the same thing…they have to.’

Sam got the concept of The Black Parade on so many levels. He got it metaphorically, culturally, cinematically. He even picked out the influences of certain films like ‘City Of Lost Children,’ Delicatessen,’ ‘Metropolis,’ and ‘The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari.’ a film we had been trying to capture since we made our first video for ‘Vampires Will Never Hurt You.’

Before we shot the photos or even had the costumes we needed to choose a director for the first single ‘Welcome To The Black Parade.’ It needed to be the definitive video for the record, an immediate knockout punch to accompany the mini-epic that summed up the album. It would include every major character and would see us transformed into the band. The Black Parade.

I met Samuel Bayer when Bob and I presented an award at an annual music industry award ceremony, which was fun. Sam received an award for lifetime achievement and as they ran his reel, highlights of his work, I saw so many of the videos that had impacted me throughout my life.

One video in particular, ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ by the Smashing Pumpkins, stirred a lot of emotion in me. It was one of my favorite videos of all time because before that video, the Pumpkins never looked so dangerous. Rock bands had started to look boring again and nothing was daring, everyone looked the same in ripped jeans and ‘I could give a fuck!’ flannels. The Smashing Pumpkins looked like they just landed from space to annihilate the Earth. They looked liked a new band.