This last weeks shoot for the “Wake Me Alive” music video was a full and wild day of shooting.  The crew showed up on-the-set at Stevens-Henager College in Salt Lake City, Utah at 7 AM last Friday and began getting the set ready for the hospital scene in the video (you’ll note I’m in a coma in some of the photos).  The rest of us stumbled in about 8 AM and started getting our costumes, hair, and make-up straightened out.  I can only image what the students at the college were thinking as they saw a sweaty shirtless tattooed man running around the halls followed by a video crew (I’ll leave the reasons behind those scenes to your imagination).  By midnight, we had created the building blocks of a masterpiece (or so I’m told). 

Big thanks to Kannika Coley who plays my ‘love interest’ in the video - she did a great job and we had great on-camera chemistry - Jaime Fletcher for filling in as the nurse on the video, Cynthia Dean for her hair and make-up work, and the entire crew at Super Heumann Productions for their super-human efforts.  The video should be released on-line in mid-October and we will be posting more details as we get closer to it’s release.  The single “Wake Me Alive” is currently available on iTunes.

Some photos from the set:

The Walking Wounded Photo shoot was so rewarding and fun, I figured I’d post a number of new photos that I just got from Jared Platt.  A huge thanks to Jared and all the participants, again, from that shoot.

Note:  I have copies of photos for the various people involved in the shoot.  Please contact me to arrange sending them to you.

Yesterday’s photoshoot for “The Walking Wounded” album cover was an incredibly rewarding and exhausting full day of work.  A big thank you to my personal friend and photographer Jared Platt for shooting us, Steven Hansen (aka Filthy Duck) another personal friend and top Utah photographer for assisting and capturing the event via his lens, Cynthia Dean of Enizio for the gore makeup (along with her assistant Cassie), and Ken (my business manager) for helping to manage everything and for making us laugh.  We spent most of the cold day just outside the Utah Ghost Town of Thistle getting photos of me and my rag-tag group of 7 wounded warriors who will physically represent many of the inner wounds that we carry with us as people in this crazy place we call planet earth.  The conditions were kind of cramped with the 11 of us inside my tour bus, but I appreciated everyone’s willingness to have a good attitude in-spite of cramped quarters.

The most difficult part of the day (besides the temperature) was carrying my 300 pound Slam Grand Piano down into a marsh to be photographed with a house half buried by water behind it.  It took four of us to carry and took it’s toll on my poor friend Steven’s back.

A special thanks to all my sexy “trade-for-print” wounded models, who were (for the most part) extremely professional and fun to spend the day with:  Paris, Ariana, Kesia, Jenica, and Kimberly. 

Click below to see some random photos from the day, courtesy of Filthy Duck.

There’s something interesting about getting photos taken with a great photographer - a great photographer, and I’ve worked with some great ones in the past (see PlattPhotography.com), gets you to completely relax and is able to capture images of you completely being yourself.  Possibly your goofiest self, or your coolest self, or your most real self - but natural images of who you are.  In some cultures they believe that a photograph can actually capture one’s soul, and I think there is some truth to that with a great photographer.

My photoshoot with Filthy Duck yesterday was more about three guys goofing around then almost anything - in other words, it was a blasty-blast!!  We got some great photos and had a great time!  Steven Hansen (aka Filthy Duck) is so much fun to work with and and the end of the shoot we had all bonded like crazy photo brothers.  Thanks Steven!