The curious case of David Fincher directing two videos for Canada’s Loverboy

By Nick Patch, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Over the years, two-time Oscar-nominated director David Fincher has helped bring some indelible characters to life: Amy Dunne, Frank Underwood, Lisbeth Salander, Tyler Durden and many more.

But once upon a time, Fincher fixed his lens on some characters of a different sort: Canadian good-time rockers Loverboy.

Before Fincher became the exacting lord of stylishly gloomy films like “The Social Network,” “Seven,” and “Gone Girl,” he made his name helming music videos.

Most famously, he directed Madonna’s monochromatic “Vogue” and “Metropolis”-derived “Express Yourself.” But a couple of years earlier, he presided over two videos from Loverboy.

It’s a piece of trivia that even the Vancouver rockers find amusing.

“Isn’t that cool that he’s become so famous?” marvelled singer Mike Reno in a recent telphone interview.

“I think that was his learning ground. He started out doing rock videos and now he’s working with Brad Pitt.

“Every time I see a David Fincher production, it reminds me of those videos we did.”

Fincher first linked up with the band on the video for “Notorious.”

In a series of quick cuts, the band wanders a dimly lit streetscape of slick cars and once-slick haircuts en route to a gig. The focus is hardly on the band, but instead on a cavalcade of extras cavorting in the mist.

“We were hardly even in it,” Reno pointed out with a laugh.

“It showed actors and hot babes and guys going to parties.

“And it just showed us walking around waving at the camera once in a while.”

Guitarist Paul Dean credits king-making manager Bruce Allen with the concept.

“He said we should do a beer commercial,” he recalled in a separate interview.

“That’s really all it is. It’s a really simple concept of good-looking people.”

The rowdy tune hit No. 24 on the Canadian chart and earned a best editing nomination at the MTV Video Music Awards.

The band was understandably impressed enough to work with Fincher again, next hiring him for the sky-reaching “Love Will Rise Again.”

The director veered back toward the conventional with a video depicting the band rocking out in front of a hyped-up crowd and a wind machine on a Vancouver soundstage.

Eventually, the sprinkler system erupts and Reno gets doused.

“The premise was that somehow a fire starts because the band is so hot — which is totally stupid,” recalled Dean.

“I can remember they had some technical problems.

“I haven’t watched the video in a while but it seems to me that Mike is soaking wet at the end. He’s pretty bedraggled by the end of it.”

Both tunes were culled from 1987’s “Wildside,” which actually marked the end of Loverboy’s commercial heyday and the beginning of an acrimonious spiral that would keep the band away from the studio for a full decade.

But Loverboy persevered: this summer they have tour dates in Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta and Nova Scotia. In the U.S., they’ll tour with the Romantics and Rick Springfield.

A music video production at the best of times is a blur, so the band doesn’t have that many concrete memories of Fincher.

Dean recalls only one directorly piece of advice Fincher gave him: “Just pretend there’s nobody looking at you…. Just go about your business, forget about the camera.”

Years after Fincher said that, Dean was settled comfortably in front of a screen to watch his directorial debut, 1992’s “Alien 3.”

The flick was coolly received by critics, but Dean was impressed.

“I’m looking at the credits in the beginning: ‘David Fincher.’ Jesus, I know that guy! Well, not really, but I’ve worked with that guy,” recalled Dean, who calls 1986’s “Aliens” (directed by James Cameron) his favourite film of all-time.

“That was a pretty big step up I would say for him…. The movie wasn’t up to ‘Aliens,’ but it was still pretty cool.”

Follow @CP_Patch on Twitter.

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