{"id":314139,"date":"2026-08-05T07:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T07:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314139\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T07:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T07:58:08","slug":"i-put-a-raging-dent-in-neil-youngs-forehead-tim-pope-on-his-riotous-videos-for-the-cure-bowie-queen-soft-cell-and-more-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314139\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I put a raging dent in Neil Young\u2019s forehead!\u2019 Tim Pope on his riotous videos for the Cure, Bowie, Queen, Soft Cell and more | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

As video director to the stars in the golden age of MTV<\/a>, Tim Pope\u2019s trademark was putting his very famous clients in uncomfortable or dangerous situations. He dressed Freddie Mercury as a \u201cgiant Mediterranean prawn\u201d, locked the Cure in a flooded wardrobe then chucked it off a cliff, and almost electrocuted two Psychedelic Furs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core of my work seems to be sadism,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI have wondered if it was all some sort of revenge for the brutality I suffered away at primary school, but maybe I\u2019m just cruel.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markI\u2019ve read that my work has been viewed a trillion times<\/p>\n

Whichever, it hasn\u2019t served him badly. Pope\u2019s glittering client list included megastars such as David Bowie and Paul McCartney, most of whom were only too willing to be \u2013 almost literally \u2013 tortured for their art. In the foreword for I Shoot Rock Stars, Pope\u2019s riotous new memoir, the Cure\u2019s Robert Smith sings the praises of \u201cevery moment\u201d in his company \u201capart from the hours spent drowning in freezing filthy water, being asphyxiated by snakes, slowly being fed into a giant spider\u2019s mouth, cut off at the knees, being chucked off a pier or orally endoscoped\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was for the video for Lullaby<\/a>,\u201d sniggers Pope, now a youthful 70-year-old with a mischievous grin. \u201cI had to run a camera inside Smithy\u2019s mouth at risk of knocking out his sweet little teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowie, who Pope worked with in the 80s and 90s, was similarly trusting. \u201cI strapped a camera to him and got him to fall forward,\u201d explains the film-maker. \u201cIf he\u2019d have fallen in the wrong way it would probably have impaled him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Pope started his memoir after coming across a years-old answerphone message from the singer, who died in 2016. \u201cIt was like David was speaking to me from beyond the grave, because I never said goodbye to him,\u201d he says. \u201cI realised I\u2019d been around all these amazing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope\u2019s wild ride began at Latymer Grammar School in Enfield, London, where the new film studies class introduced him to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski and \u201cthe concept of the auteur\u201d. Funding his new hobby by doing a paper round and working in a chip shop, soon enough he smuggled his first 8mm film camera into an Emerson, Lake and Palmer concert: \u201cDown my trousers, at immense pain to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

After film college, he was working at a company training politicians to appear on TV when he started moonlighting for record labels, filming bands playing live for \u00a3100 a pop. There were very few video directors then, and the world of David Mallet (Blondie, Bowie, Queen) or Russell Mulcahy (Duran Duran, Elton John) felt like \u201can impenetrable club\u201d. Then Soft Cell had a global smash with Tainted Love and hurriedly needed a video for the follow-up, Bedsitter<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019d met this art director, Al McDowell, who went on to work with Spielberg,\u201d explains Pope. \u201cWe came up with mad ideas, drew up a storyboard and after the video was shown on Top of the Pops the floodgates opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope\u2019s emergence coincided with MTV\u2019s 1981 launch as a global music video platform. However, he rejected what he calls their \u201cthou shalts\u201d \u2013 \u201cThou shalt make your stars wear Spandex\u201d, \u201cThou shalt include babes with big hair and even bigger boobs\u201d, etc \u2013 in favour of what he calls: \u201cDefiant individualism. Rebellion was in my DNA. I wanted to cause trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

He filmed Soft Cell amid chains, raw meat and maggots for Sex Dwarf, after which the police confiscated the film. After the Style Council\u2019s Long Hot Summer video<\/a> showed Paul Weller playfully stroking bandmate Mick Talbot\u2019s ear, the singer\u2019s father\/manager John phoned up asking: \u201cWhat are you doing with my boy?\u201d \u201cFor another video Paul came out wearing lipstick,\u201d Pope remembers. \u201cI think he was rebelling against norms and the image people had of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than adopt the off-the-peg style of many of his peers, Pope saw himself as a \u201cbespoke tailor\u201d, personalising each video to the song and artist. He made 37 of them for the Cure. Because Close to Me<\/a> drew on Smith\u2019s childhood claustrophobia when he was bedridden with chickenpox, Pope put the band in a wardrobe. For The Lovecats<\/a>, he came across the ideal location in an estate agent\u2019s window. \u201cThey let me view the house and gave me the keys,\u201d he sniggers. \u201cNext thing I know, I\u2019m in there with the crew. Smithy and the boys piling out of the van. The neighbours must have heard The Lovecats coming through the walls.\u201d Pope handed back the keys and the clandestinely shot video went around the world.<\/p>\n

Pope\u2019s regular clients were as maverick or uncompromising as he was. He filmed the The videos underneath a steam train and in a Spanish Harlem brothel<\/a> and blasted Talk Talk\u2019s Mark Hollis with an aircraft engine. Pope drew on Neil Young\u2019s \u201cemotionally raw real-life personality\u201d for a succession of fictional characters \u2013 psychotic old drifters or, in Pressure, the guy who punches himself so hard he actually knocks himself out. Once, filming closely, Pope\u2019s camera left the star with a \u201craging dent in his forehead like a third eye. But I got this amazing shot past his nose on to the keyboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He freely admits a \u201cSpinal Tap period\u201d: a 75ft penis on wheels for Hall and Oates, or Queen\u2019s It\u2019s a Hard Life<\/a> \u201cprawn\u201d costume video, which led drummer Roger Taylor to comment: \u201cNo artist has ever looked as silly in a video.\u201d By the late 80s, Pope was \u201cjetting about on Concorde, hanging out with Iggy Pop \u2026\u201d The chapter Iggy\u2019s \u201cCock\u201d Moment describes the time his camera captured the rocker\u2019s exposed \u201cschlong\u201d on stage. Pope writes about his adventures like he talks, in mild disbelief: \u201cLou fucking Reed and David fucking Bowie, and me, a boy from Enfield, trying to play it cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I got an amazing shot past his nose\u2019 \u2026 Neil Young, with painted-on eyes, and Pope on a shoot in 1997. Photograph: Bobby Bray<\/p>\n

He\u2019d met Bowie when Iggy said he\u2019d invited \u201ca couple of mates\u201d who turned out to be the superstar and Mick Jagger. Then, at Bowie\u2019s Wembley concert, the singer introduced him to Princess Diana. \u201cSitting behind her while she was hand jiving and singing \u2018Time flexes like a whore\u2019 along with Bowie was a brilliant moment,\u201d Pope smiles, \u201cbut I got glimpses of the real people. David fretting about his son\u2019s exam results. Freddie making me cups of tea and calling them \u2018Matildas\u2019. Behind the gossamer artifice of fame they\u2019re just human beings.\u201d He writes movingly of his friendship with the usually enigmatic Mark Hollis, and their blissful hours spent laid flat, \u201cletting music wash over us. \u2018Fancy some fuckin\u2019 Satie, Pope-ay?\u2019 \u2018More sherr-ay, Pope-ay?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 90s, after his short film, Phone<\/a>, won various awards, Martin Scorsese wrote to him saying he liked it and Pope found himself being \u201cseduced, in a way\u201d by Hollywood. Specifically, he was recruited by the now imprisoned Harvey Weinstein to direct the sequel to The Crow. \u201cA movie which made a lot of money but in which a young man, Brandon Lee, had died. So it was a tricky situation: but I\u2019d loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. This was before we knew about wanking into flowerpots and destroying women\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was still seen as \u2018good old Harvey\u2019, the most powerful man in Hollywood, but his other nickname was Harvey Scissorhands. He had a reputation for meddling in the cutting room and I suffered that really badly. I poured everything into that film and ended up with something I loathed, and he said the worst three words anyone ever said to me: \u2018We own you.\u2019 Cos they did at that point.\u201d The book doesn\u2019t flinch from what he calls \u201ca brutal experience\u201d, after which Pope returned to London, didn\u2019t make another video for 12 years or a film for 25. He says he carries \u201cmental scars\u201d to this day.<\/p>\n

\u2018Just a music fanboy\u2019 \u2026 Pope today. Photograph: Andy Vella<\/p>\n

Pope argues that the golden age of video ended when MTV dropped \u201cMusic Television\u201d from its logo in 2010, but he still makes videos and is currently casting a film called The Photographer\u2019s Assistant as well as putting together a 50th-anniversary documentary about the Cure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read that my work has been viewed a trillion times, but I\u2019m just a music fanboy from north London who got to work with most of his heroes,\u201d he says. But he does have one more ambition: \u201cI hope Harvey Weinstein reads my book.\u201d<\/p>\n

I Shoot Rock Stars: The Wild Adventures of a Music Video Director is published on 13 August by Wildfire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As video director to the stars in the golden age of MTV, Tim Pope\u2019s trademark was putting his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-314139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}