Daniel Brereton gets back together with Metronomy for their latest video

Date
16 September 2019

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Over a decade ago now, our founders had a habit for regularly writing about their then Brighton neighbours, Metronomy. One such article signifies both the early days of It’s Nice That and the band too, covering director Daniel Brereton’s first collaboration with Joe Mount for Radio Ladio. This week Joe and Daniel have got back together for Wedding Bells, the latest single of Metronomy’s newly released and sixth (!) record, Metronomy Forever.

Back in the mid 2000s Daniel and Joe met through Metronomy’s manager Stephen, who frequently put forward the director for possible videos. Daniel’s idea was to paint the band completely for Radio Ladio’s video, not really thinking “about how they might not want to be painted, I was just really into the idea”. Evidently Joe was, and a relationship of open, directorial trust formed.

“It has definitely been collaborative, the best videos are,” Daniel tell us of the pair’s work together over the past decade. The process begins with Joe often sending the director a succinct idea in a sentence, or a link to a video he likes, “which I hold onto and run with”. These ideas have always varied though, dipping in and out of mediums and styles just like Metronomy’s records too. For example, when working on Reservoir in 2014, Joe suggested animation, “but harking back to an older style, like animations in the 60s,” Daniel points out. Whereas for Heartbreaker a few years earlier, “it was a road trip, so we went on a road trip.”

When it came to Wedding Bells however, the ideas Daniel pulled out of Joe were much more open, getting the feeling “that he wanted to do something free and fun”. In turn developing an idea “that didn’t take itself too seriously, as a retaliation to the bad news we get everyday.” And so they threw a party.

Staging a house party with a bunch of much cooler sixth formers than anything we ever attended, Metronomy sit squeezed in the corner providing the soundtrack to a will-they-won’t-they storyline. “I imagined a love triangle where the lead character likes his best friend’s girl and he can’t stop thinking about her,” the director explains. “We have all been there, so it was fun to make something that doesn’t try to be something it’s not, just simple, innocent fun.”

On getting back together after all these years, Daniel describes the experience of making Wedding Bells as quite simply, “really nice”. For things to come back around after so long seems to have been quite the wholesome reunion too, with the same make-up artist who painted the band green and blue for Radio Ladio returning to the set for this shoot too. However to find out if the video’s protagonists get together in the end, you’ll have to watch it for yourself.

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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Daniel Brereton: Wedding Bells

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About the Author

Lucy Bourton

Lucy (she/her) is the senior editor at Insights, a research-driven department with It's Nice That. Get in contact with her for potential Insights collaborations or to discuss Insights' fortnightly column, POV. Lucy has been a part of the team at It's Nice That since 2016, first joining as a staff writer after graduating from Chelsea College of Art with a degree in Graphic Design Communication.

lb@itsnicethat.com

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