Ever wonder what it would look like if Zack Synder had been given a fraction of the budget of The Watchmen to produce a prequel? You’d probably be looking at Sleepy Kicks’ “Neighbourhood Watch,” directed by Jack Leahy.
From Sleepy Kicks’ Hard Left EP, the new video shows us just what separates the neighbourhood watchboys from the neighbourhood watchmen. It’s a little bit of an origin story, unfolding around an unlikely and endearing oddball of a hero (played by Owen Thomas) turned local vigilante.
“Now I’m out of work because nobody’s got the guts to come and give me an uppercut,” sings Braden Kamermans, as he laments the downside of ironically working yourself out of a job.
The song itself blossomed out of that hypnotically catchy riff that bounces eagerly throughout the whole of the song. Without the punch of the drums, it’s easy to imagine Kamermans getting lost in the riff and gazing out the window for hours.
“I was staring out a window that night and mindlessly playing the riff on repeat, and realized how creepy it would look if someone saw me just staring blankly at the Fairview Legion for 75 minutes, so ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ sort of popped up and it went from there,” says Kamermans.
“I think I had just been introduced to IDLES at the time so I was probably subconsciously trying to write something a bit heavier, but it was just a really addictive thing to play, kind of bouncy but heavy, When I showed it to the band they instinctively knew how to approach it – our beautiful boy Mitch threw in this really perfect ugly chord which serves as the little unsettling cherry on top.”
‘It’s certainly not about me surveilling my neighbor Jimothy Courdray for the better part of 2019 in all my spare time, to the point where they had to move…”
Fortunately for the band, the incredibly talented Jack Leahy is a childhood friend of Sleepy Kicks’ drummer Colin McCormick. It was Leahy who had actually approached the band first with an idea for the video.
“Jack and his girlfriend Gwyneth Christoffel (who also helped with the video) are both in the film and animation industry, so we were very confident based on their experience that whatever they touched would be gold,” says guitarist and vocalist Mitch Currie. “We were talking about how we wanted to do another music video for Hard Left, and he came to us saying he already had a vision for ‘Neighbourhood Watch.’
“When someone as talented as he is gets inspired, you don’t get in the way. We gave him the reins, and the outcome speaks for itself.”
And it does. The video is a little goofy and kind of sweet, goggles and all. For all that it’s still epic enough that you could imagine sitting through a season of watching someone whose sole desire in life is to be the best darn neighbourhood watchmen they can be — keeping their loved ones (along with the rest of the neighbourhood safe), even, perhaps, at the cost of those same relationships.
“A friend once told me that security guards aren’t allowed to actually stop any crime if they see it happening, they just have to kind of harass the bandit and try to obstruct them without touching them,” explains Kamermans. “I don’t even know if that’s true, but it seemed like a funny idea to me; this person who was paid to be some kind of mercenary scapegoat for ‘keeping the peace,’ where they have no power except to watch. FTP.”
“We had such a great experience with this project and had a unique amount of creative freedom,” says Leahy. “I remember being confused about the concept of ‘Neighborhood Watch’ as a kid; who, what and where was it? This was an opportunity to try and flush out some of those questions. It was an honour to create a video for this wonderful song!”
Sleepy Kicks also note that the video for “Neighbourwood Watch” is, officially, their “last hurrah” for Hard Left before they start releasing new material.