Gay men were actually having sex in St. Vincent’s video for ‘Fast Slow Disco’
St. Vincent has opened up about her 2018 video for ‘Fast Slow Disco’ and said that the gay actors were actually having sex in the video.
The track was a reworking of her 2017 song ‘Slow Disco’ from her 2017 album ‘Masseduction’ and the video was inspired by Madonna‘s ‘Like A Prayer’, Annie Clark said in a new interview on the Queer The Music With Jake Shears podcast.
“I always thought the song had more life and more potential than what it needed to be on the album. So I was like ‘why don’t I just do it again’ and ‘Like A Prayer’ is the very obvious tip of the hat,” she said. “We went in and re-cut the song with this different attitude.”
For the video she pulled in 50 men and turned the Brooklyn metal club St. Vitus into a raunchy gay leather bar.
“It was just a casting for gay men who want to have a really good time. I was the one woman on the set,” she explained.
Clark added: “Everyone is on the ground making out and I’m on top of them singing. I was wearing heels and I had to be like ‘Hey babe, I’m not stepping on your balls, am I?'”
She continued: “People were full on fucking. It was two in the afternoon. We had vodka going. It was a bar. People were full on fucking on the set. It was cool.”
Clark previously revealed that the pop rework of the song was actually encouraged by Taylor Swift.
“I don’t want to start a weird rumour or anything,” She said at the time. “But I swear to God, you know because Jack Antonoff’s bros with Taylor Swift because they work together a lot, and I feel like Taylor was like, ‘You should make this a pop song.'”
She added: “I know that she wholeheartedly supported that idea and I think the genesis of the idea was her.”
Clark is set to release her new album ‘All Born Screaming’ on April 26 which features the Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.
NME spoke to St. Vincent about her upcoming record, where she shared the impact of Grohl’s drumming on ‘Broken Man’: “From the beginning of the song, it’s a slow-burn.”
“The shape of the song is climbing the mountain, because it just grows and grows,” she continued. “There are essentially three drummers on the track: the first part is my programming, the second part Mark Guiliana comes in, and then at the very end of the track – just when you think it can’t get any higher – Grohl comes in with this absolute reckless spirit and just takes it to the edge.”
Sharing more details about the LP – which is the follow-up to 2021’s acclaimed ‘Daddy’s Home’ – in a separate interview, Clark added: “It’s a heavier record [than before]. I think it’s black and white and all the colours in a fire – that’s what it sounds like to me.”
“I had Dave Grohl play drums, I had Josh Freese [Devo, A Perfect Circle, Foo Fighters] on drums, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Mark Guiliana. I worked with my very good friend Cate Le Bon, who is one of my favourite artists ever and a great producer in her own right [too],” she added. “So I just feel lucky to get to work with my friends”
Last week, she announced a UK and European tour with Heartworms. You can purchase any remaining tickets here.
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Damian Jones
NME
