Never trust kids to make your music video – even if it does feature Lego.
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That’s a lesson Stew Cunningham from Leadfinger learned when it came to the video for the band’s digital single Cheer Squad.
“A friend of mine was talking about how his kids were making little short scenes with Lego,” Cunningham said.
“I said jokingly, ‘you should get them to make a video clip for us’, not thinking he’d follow through on it.
“But when he put it to his kids, who were six or seven, they were excited. But that excitement lasted for a day.”
So their father took it upon himself to make the video, even buying a special stop-motion camera to make a video with a big cast of Lego characters and featuring a sword fight, bank robbery and a jail break.
And, of course, a few shots of a Lego band in concert.
“It took him a while, about four or five months to make it,” Cunningham says.
“He lives in Tasmania so it’s cold down there and maybe this gave him something to do.”
He says the video offers a contrast to the song.
“I like it – it’s funny and it offsets the song,” he says.
“The song has a bit of an edge to it and the video offsets that.”
Cunningham says Cheer Squad is an attack on social media and the way people like and share things without really thinking about them.
“People blindly follow things, they don’t question things,” he says.
“It’s like people have a cheer squad and they immediately click ‘like’ without questioning anything about what the person has to say.
I think on social media everyone’s too busy being sheep rather than people.
- Stew Cunningham
“I think we live in a world where there’s not enough cynicism. People don’t question anything any more. I come from a left-wing punk background and I question everything. I think on social media everyone’s too busy being sheep rather than people.”
The Cheer Squad three-track single is a digital-only release which serves as a teaser for the upcoming album Friday Nigh Heroes.
If you want the song Cheer Squad you have to buy the single – it's not on the album.
“The song Cheer Squad didn’t really fit on the album,” Cunningham says.
“We ended up with 14 songs from the session last year but only 10 made the album.”
Leadfinger perform at Dicey Riley’s on February 27.
