It’s late morning on a Tuesday during the recent hot spell, and I am in a field in deepest Ayrshire with three other guys.
The hostile sun is both baking the earth dry and rapidly reducing me to a wet mess. I am in a suit and tie, carrying a bottle of wine, a soup ladle and a pair of Marigolds. The writer, Darren McGarvey, stands beside me, dressed as a priest.
In front of us is a static caravan and on the ground around it lie a bundle of discarded engine blocks, some rusted playground equipment and, because this is Ayrshire, a scattering of spent bullets.
We are trying to shoot a scene but have been stopped in our tracks by a herd of curious cows that has moseyed over to suss out the intruders. They hang about for 20 minutes, doing that vapid, starey thing that cows do, before, unimpressed, turning tail and heading for the shade. Everyone’s a critic.
I’m not sure how it is for Beyoncé, but this is fairly standard practice in my short history of filming music videos. I have made three so far, each a more bewildering experience than the last. Madonna reputedly spent $10 million on the video for Express Yourself. Our record company boss, Ian, gave us a budget of £500, plus the threat of extreme violence if we went a penny over.
Stepping into the role of frontman
When we formed Fat Cops a few years ago, I hadn’t factored in the prospect of appearing on camera. I mean, it just didn’t seem like something I’d ever need to worry about. But the band has turned out to be much better than any of us expected and has gone on to achieve what can only be termed a minor level of success. As the singer – or, dread word, “frontman” – this has meant putting my face and what we mustn’t call my sassy chassis into the public eye.
We have had three record covers, each of which (not my choice) has carried an image of my face – the first, a selfie taken immediately upon waking from an operation on a broken arm, heavily morphined and arguably not at my best; the second, me screaming into the void (those who saw it had a similar reaction); the third, me wincing camply at the camera (taken by my wife at five minutes’ notice when the band realised we were about to miss our deadline – again, Ian; extreme violence).
The videos, though… utterly, utterly surreal. For the first, I was made to don a duffle coat and a set of boxing gloves and wander around the streets of Glasgow, trying not to get battered. I repeatedly ran up some very steep steps, spun around a bit, and almost had my ear cut off by a drone.
For the next, our whizz director Neil came to my home, erected a green screen behind me, pressed record and issued the memorable command: “Right, go”. After an hour of prancing around my living room looking more like Mickey Mouse than Mickey Jagger, we decided to try again another day. This time, he let me hide behind a guitar and a vintage mic, put some dancing girls on the screen behind me, and we just about pulled it off.
In middle-age, some perform am-dram in the local village troupe, some self-publish their novel, some clank around in their shed trying to invent an umbrella for cats. It’s like a statement: I am here
And now Ayrshire, with its nosey cows and its ammunition shells. I realise as we’re filming that, for some reason, no other member of Fat Cops has yet appeared in any of our videos – that whenever it’s discussed they all perform the equivalent of that meme where Homer Simpson backs into a hedge. Curious.
‘I am here’
But, really, I don’t mind. At the age where much of life has settled into a steady and often monotonous rhythm, where surprises are more often of the unwelcome kind, this stuff doesn’t so much tease me from my comfort zone as fire me from a cannon.
In middle-age, some perform am-dram in the local village troupe, some self-publish their novel, some clank around in their shed trying to invent an umbrella for cats. It’s like a statement: I am here. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Out on Friday – our new single High Expectations, featuring @lokiscottishrap and produced by @MrNormanBlake1 pic.twitter.com/UCoFv8goHR
— Fat Cops (@thefatcops) July 28, 2021
We are now in discussions about the shoot for our next single, due out at the end of September. Ideas so far: the band dresses up in army gear and tackles an assault course; we tie a camera to a dog’s neck for the day; we get our kids dressed up as Bugsy Malone-style gangsters; can we get access to the Countdown studio and/or Rachel Riley?
I know how it will end. Just Deerin, staring into the camera, wondering what to do next. Here I am.
Chris Deerin is a leading journalist and commentator who heads independent, non-party think tank, Reform Scotland
