Sleaford Mods are releasing a special ‘dark themed’ video of new single The Good Life especially for Halloween today, which features Game of Thrones/Wednesday star Gwendoline Christie in full scary mode.
Directed by Ben Wheatley (The Kill List) who also shot the original video version, it is a shadowy, strobing studio-set spooky wonder all done in one take, in which Sleafords - Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn - swap centre stage with East Midlands band Big Special and Christie herself who memorable screams lyrics such as, ‘I’m the MAGA man with a severed hand, I’m Evel Knievel's stunt cyclist in a nowhere f-ing land.’
You can watch the full video here:
The song is taken from the band’s forthcoming album, The Demise Of Planet X, which is released on 16 January.
The Good Life marks Christie’s musical debut after she became friends with Sleaford Mods, and the Severance, Star Wars and Game Of Thrones star has spoken for the first about the experience of recording with the band at London’s iconic Abbey Road Studios to accompany the release of the ‘dark themed’ video.
“Sleaford Mods have been the soundtrack to some of the peaks of my existence,” Christie says. “They have accompanied me through the pains and ecstasies of life, providing essential galvanising force for creativity and precious antidote to life’s most punishing moments. They are a band that are very close to my heart due to their complete strangeness, pump, and the often cry that ‘they shouldn’t work, but do’. I love an unconventional success.”
She adds: “An impossible fantasy of mine was to be on a Sleaford Mods record a ‘It’ll never happen, but just imagine if it did’ notion. Cue Eden-like stardust sprinkled across my eyes. Life’s mundanity and frustration has often been relieved by this heavenly thought. So after we exchanged the hand of friendship and Jason told me he’d written a part for me on The Good Life. I thought I might explode with joy! Few things have made me happier than this.”
“We talked for about an hour and a half when Gwendoline first arrived at the studio, she's such an engaging, interesting person,” continues Sleaford Mods frontman Williamson of the genesis of their collaboration. “We’d had the outline of The Good Life for a while, but it just wasn't working. I’d done my verses about five times. Then we got the Big Special who are brilliant, but our manager thought it needed another voice and that was around the time that Gwendoline and I first started talking online, so it was really serendipitous.”
As The Good Life and its videos suggest. The Demise Of Planet X looks set to bring new dark depths and atmospheres, to Sleaford Mods’ wiry punk-disco electro music. We cannot wait.
Limited-edition versions of The Demise Of Planet X can be pre-ordered now, including a glow in the dark edition, available from the band and Rough Trade Records’ webstores. The band will play London O2 Academy Brixton on March 7 next year.
