Behind the Scenes: The Gossip's 'Heavy Cross'

Price James, a video director, who has worked with Simian Mobile Disco, Peaches, Florence and the Machine flew out to L.A. a couple of months ago to direct the video for 'Heavy Cross', The Gossip's first single from their album Music for Men that is now out. He gathered up some snaps for us and talked about his first time working with The Gossip.

On meeting The Gossip...
"I met Nathan the guitarist and had a bed party at the Sanderson with him and two friends. We laughed all night, making prank calls, a kind of teenage regression but hilarious (you had to be there). Bryan Younce was the commissioner at Sony, he is amazing, just a really lovely chilled guy. He liked my Shitdisco video and we've been trying to get the right job to work together on..."

On the concept of the video...
"As the song was called Heavy Cross, i just imagined all this religious iconography... I was thinking about guilt and pain and then remembered the story from my Catholic school days about Moses and the golden idols. Then the gold idea happened. I really just wanted to make something super glam, something fabulously glitzy. You could say I'm somewhat camp! The band are great, always putting in ideas and have a great sense of art and good taste. It was a pleasure. Sometimes bands have no clue and that's a nightmare situation when you have to bite your tongue."

On the location...
"We shot in LALA because of schedules. I love LA. I'm the palest white guy in the world with my blue Celtic skin, bu I looooooove the dry heat of California, you never sweat. But I hate bright sun, so I was walking round with a parasol. Many a tough man would shout at me as I walked down the road with my plus fours and booties. I stayed with friends downtown. I didn't have much free time but I loved the LACMA."

On being on-set...
"Beth, Nathan and Hannah are hilarious. We were basically doing comedy routines for the entourage. I think at one point Beth said she was going to pee herself. The shoot day was very long, there was more glitter than an Olympic opening show. The American crews are super slick and drilled, much like the British ones, but all the equipment seemed to be super new... it's all about the toys."

On the wrap-party...
"As soon as we wrapped the shoot, we went out to a party at a place called H WOOD. Loads of people we knew were there so it felt like a party in London. Nova (Dando) bumped into her friend JCDC (Jean-Charles de Castelbajac), Jeremy Scott was there, my friend Nez (a London director), a load of fun LA peeps who didn't look like Lindsay Lohan."

On the styling...
Nova Dando made the gold outfit, she found some fashion crew... an incredible designer called Brian Lichtenberg. He made the catsuit for the Peaches album cover, which we used in my Serpentine video(coming out soon i think). He has a London edge in LA, he's not too overly polished and hes a really lovely guy. Nova is the best stylist I've worked with and we continue to work together. The fashion element to the video was always going to be the main thing for me as Beth is a fashion icon now. It took a lot to convince my American office, how important this was...she has more press than Kate Moss these days...so she had to look literally a million dollars...

In fact here are the fashion credits...

Styled by Nova Dando
Hooded dress by Brian Lichtenberg S/S 09
Hooded head piece by Nasir Mazhar
Orbs by Fred Butler
Gold catsuit by Nova Dando
Shoulderpiece by Alexander McQueen - This was my favourite as I knew it would ping the most light. It was originally a belt/corset but I wanted it on the shoulders. It looked tougher as a shoulder piece.
Nathan and Hannah are wearing Brian Lichtenberg.

Album Music for Men out now.

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