Picture the glory days of music videos and MTV. An era when — for better or worse — heavy metal and hard rock ruled the airwaves. Chances are whatever videos you think of as most emblematic of that time, Wayne Isham directed them. In fact, it's no overstatement to say that Isham created the archetype of the rock performance video. The credit list is staggering: Bon Jovi "You Give Love A Bad Name," "Living On A Prayer" and nearly every other video from the band's commercial peak. Motley Crue "Home Sweet Home," and "Dr Feelgood." Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me," Skid Row "18 & Life," Metallica "Enter Sandman," and whole bunch more. And when trends changed and pop ruled the day, Isham transformed himself into the king of grandiose pop videos. Will Smith "Miami," 'NSync "Pop," Backstreet Boys "I Want It That Way" and Ricky Martin "Livin La Vida Loca" and "She Bangs." Isham directed them all. Throw in some current hit videos for The All American Rejects, Avenged Sevenfold and Faith Hill, plus scattered clips for Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Aaliyah, The Rolling Stones and Dave Matthews Band, it becomes very clear why Wayne Isham was a very deserving recipient of a lifetime achievement award at the 2007 MVPA Awards. Shit, the fact that he's directed videos for both Julio Iglesias and Pantera should have been enough to earn that award.
So, without further ado, here is the man in his own words.
name: Wayne Isham
company: Merge @ Crossroads
job/title: director
First Video: The first video I did was probably Jimi Hendrix "Are You Experienced." It was well after his death. MCA, I think, had the rights to the catalogue and did a re-release of all his material. I was a driver and delivery man for the edit house that was working on it. Being a huge Hendrix fan, I told Alan Douglas that I thought what they were doing was horrible and that I could do better. So he told me to go ahead. Hendrix had never played the song live, so I did my own animation and took old footage and choreographed it to the track. We actually found a clip where Hendrix said the line "not necessarily stoned, but beautiful," which we were able to sync with the song. It was a dream come true to watch all the footage and it helped me learn how to choreograph images with music. [editor's note: I couldn't find the clip online, but YouTube did yield this]
Strangest Video: Having done videos for so long, nothing strikes me as strange anymore. Everything has a unique twist. But, the one that ranks at the top is probably Michael Jackson "You Are Not Alone." We had planned out all these elements for the video and then Michael had this idea where he wanted to use this Greek, classical-styled, artistic imagery. And, he wanted to appear in it naked with his wife, Lisa Marie Presley. Like they were Greek gods. It had nothing to do with the video we were doing, but I said, "OK, that's cool. We can shoot it." We set it up and as we're ready to shoot, he leads me into the trailer and says, "Have you asked her?" He wanted me to ask her to appear in the video. He was too shy. So I asked. And we did it.
What's Next: The next thing, physically, is a concert I shot with Tenacious D which is now being mixed. That's been awesome. Pure pleasure. We just started digitizing and editing a concert for Hinder. Made me feel good to be on the road with crazy fucks carrying on the spirit of rock 'n' roll. In general, I truly believe music videos are a major factor in driving the business. They're not going away. I've been through so many ups and downs. We just need to figure out to create videos as people expect them, especially since we've set the standards so high. But, high quality filmmaking is not going away. There are so many talented young filmmakers out there that I see and it's just exciting.
