So proud of this video…..

Where my Dutch album “Scènes” was a threesome project with my producer Crip Theeuwes and Artist Manager Gerry van der Zwaard, my English language songs are fully self produced. It means I wrote the songs, recorded them, mixed them and did all of the promotional activities. I often feel like the proverbial one-man-band. The next project getting this treatment is a video-clip for my latest song City of Secrets, which I wrote for bestselling author and Hollywood icon Patrice Chaplin.

I was wondering how I could make a fantastic professional video on a shoe-string budget. I then remembered that Patrice Chaplin had a Hollywood movie out in 1987 by name of Siesta. Now Siesta isn’t an ordinary movie. It was directed by Mary Lambert, a famous video-clip producer who had worked with Madonna, Sting and Janet Jackson. Siesta is the story of a woman waking up lying in a field in a Spanish airport with amnesia. During the film she pieces back together how she got there, involving a renewed romance with an old flame. When it came out, the movie was praised and trashed. You love it or you hate it. What most critics agreed on was it’s appealing high style and colorful exoticism. Lambert directed a star-studded cast. To nam a few actors in it: Martin Sheen, Jodie Foster, Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin, Isabelle Rosselini, Julian Sands – even Grace Jones makes an appearance. The soundtrack was done by Miles Davis. Today, the movie is a Cult Film. It is truely a product of the eighties which is also the period during which I got bathed in my main musical influences. People regularly tell me my songs really sound like they were recorded in the 80s.

Like my song City of Secrets, Siesta is all about unrequited love. I realized the movie could really match the song and got in touch with Patrice’s publisher to see if there was any chance I could use some material from the movie. I couldn’t believe it when I got the news back from Siesta’s producer Zalman King (who is a bit of a legend himself), that I got the go-ahead to use scenes from the movie in a video for my song. It means that I am about to produce a video clip containing a Hollywood cast in fantastic 80s styling. No idea how I am ever going to thank Zalman, Patrice and her publisher for backing me up to this extent. I realize I am a privileged guy, having found people who like my music, recognize the hard work and who are willing to back that up.

It’s another great experience.