Nigel Dick was a “record company guy who thought he could direct” when he boarded his plane from London to Los Angeles in 1985. But, as he writes in his new memoir, Music Video Mischief, out today (Sept. 15), from the moment he stepped off the plane, if anyone asked what he did, he was definitive: “I was a film director.” Luckily for Dick, Los Angeles has always been amenable to strivers, even if their journeys require some fake-it-til-you-make-it. Over the coming decades, Dick became one of the most innovative and in-demand music video directors in the world, helming blockbuster videos for Black Sabbath, Oasis, Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Nickelback, Cher, and R.E.M.
But the band that helped make Dick’s career was Guns N’ Roses. He directed three of the band’s videos from their landmark debut, Appetite for Destruction — “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “Sweet Child o’ Mine” — as well as their 1989 clip for “Patience.” In this excerpt from Music Video Mischief, Dick writes about his experiences working with GNR, including anecdotes about his one-on-one conversations with Axl Rose and the time Slash carjacked a trailer on set. Dick also opens up about how he admittedly “didn’t get” Guns N’ Roses when they first started working together, but came to understand them better through helping craft their distinct visual identity.
In his second great rock and roll history book, Uncommon People, David Hepworth kindly credits me with creating the opening sequence of Guns n’ Roses’ first video, “Welcome to the Jungle,” in which Axl steps off the bus for the first time in Hollywood, a blade of straw in his mouth, Izzy offering him drugs and a hooker asking him if he wants to party. I would like to take full credit for coming up with this sequence, but sometimes the smartest thing a director can do when someone offers him an idea is to simply say, “Sounds good. Let’s do that!” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century I have a policy about starting a new project: keep your eyes and your ears open and figure out who on that job is wielding the most power.
Keep that person on your side, and you’ll make your life a lot easier. Sometimes it’s the lead singer, sometimes it’s the record company/film company boss, sometimes it’s the actor’s agent, sometimes it’s the guitar player’s wife and sometimes it’s the lonely record company gal with an axe to grind. In Guns n’ Roses’ case, it was Alan Niven, their leather-jacketed manager.
And it was Alan who’d pitched that memorable opening sequence to me, except that Alan’s style wasn’t so much about pitching as telling me what we were going to do. To my eternal shame, I understood what made Great White tick but G n’ R were the first sign that I was no longer on the sharp end of all things musical. Great White loved the sound of Led Zeppelin and all the bands I loved.
All they wanted to do was sound like Led Zeppelin — and did a passable job of just that. Guns n’ Roses were Zeppelin fans, too, and also cited the Pistols (who I liked) and Aerosmith (who I didn’t), but they wanted to take those influences and leap forward into the future. I wasn’t yet ready to take that leap with them.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
