Perhaps best known for being the man who directed Britney Spears’ iconic Baby One More Time video in 1998, Nigel Dick has also shot promos for the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Oasis and Cher.
As you’d expect, this means that he’s got some stories to tell, and he’s about to tell them in his new memoir, Music Video Mischief, which is released on 15 September via Trouser Press Books.
Ahead of that, he’s been talking to Music Week about some of his many encounters with rock and pop royalty, starting with Guns N’ Roses as they began their era of world domination in 1987 with Appetite for Destruction.
Even in this early stage of their career, the band had got themselves a reputation for debauchery and a certain amount of bad behaviour, but Dick suggests that, when he first encountered them during the making of the Welcome To The Jungle video, they didn’t cause him too much trouble.
“Guns N’ Roses were meant to be ‘The Most Dangerous Band In The World’ but I’ve met worse – I’ve been threatened a few times! On some level, and certainly at the beginning with Axl Rose freaking out and disappearing to hide in a room for two hours they were far more nervous around me than I was around them.”
Dick also shot the video for Sweet Child O’ Mine, which would go on to become the band’s biggest hit. He admits, though, that he nearly made what would have been a mistake when he was putting it together.
“For Sweet Child O’ Mine, I thought Axl’s snake-like dancing wasn’t rock and roll, so I actually told the editor to completely cut all of that stuff out!” he remembers. “Then I heard someone say, ‘Oh my god, that’s so sexy!’ and suddenly you go, ‘I missed something here – put it back!’”
Guns N’ Roses might have been pretty amendable, but Dick suggests that he had a rockier relationship with Oasis – he directed the videos for Don’t Look Back In Anger and Champagne Supernova in 1996 – and one member of the band in particular.
“Noel Gallagher said my video for Don’t Look Back In Anger was a “bag of shite”, but it says more about Noel than anything else,” he says. “I’d have been shocked if he’d said, ‘I love that video, it’s so wonderful!’ I mean, the little time that I spent with Oasis, there was no sort of sense of joy around them, which I was quite sad about. I got the impression they hated making videos. But this is my job.”
Nigel Dick’s memoir, Music Video Mischief, will be released on 15 September via Trouser Press Books.
