Jackass star Chris Pontius - aka PartyBoy - is diving headfirst into Norwegian metal culture, staring in the short movie for the music video for Norwegian metal legends Vreid and Djerv. Pontius takes the lead in the dark cinematic clip for 'Loving The Dead'; a collaboration with Djerv, who are known for their massive global reach through Arcane and League of Legends. We caught up with Chris and Vreid main man Jarle Kvåle to talk about how the collab came about, the video, and what to expect from the forthcoming Jackass movie. Loving the dead; Eamon O'Neill.
Photo; Jørn Veberg
Hi guys, how are you doing?
Chris; We're great. Thanks for having us.
Jarle; Yeah, thanks for having us. It's a good day in Norway.
Chris, I gather you were a fan of Jarle and Vreid; how did you come to be involved in the project?
Chris; I was in Sweden, actually, and my family and I were traveling around Scandinavia on our road trip, and my wife found this really big supermarket outside of Karlstad, and she's like; "oh, there's a really good record section here". They had this giant black metal section, and so me and my son were like, showing records and talking about them, and we put it online, and we called it 'Black Metal Supermarket', and one of the records I held up - and I said it was one of my favourites - was Windir [precursor to Vreid], and one of Jarle's friends ended seeing the video, and he said; "oh, the guy from Jackass likes your band", and so Jarle wrote to me on Instagram.
So Jarle reached out to you, Chris?
Chris; Yeah, and he said; "I have a festival that we do [Tons of Rock, in Norway], and Metallica is playing, and you're welcome to come", and so we were actually meant to go home, and we decided to stay. We went back to Oslo and we went to the festival. We had the best time ever, and hit it off with all these guys, and became very good friends with Jarle, and here we are, really. So we've been in Norway for the past few summers, and last summer we were here for like three months, and the summer before that. So we kind of live here part time, almost.
How did the song 'Loving the Dead' come about?
Jarle; Last summer, when we were here, we were also working on another project, a documentary that me and Chris and a few others were doing where we started to look into underground, and rock and roll history and stuff like that. And while we're working on that we went to the studio, and I went to show Chris; "I got these new songs ready for new album. I have one song is a bit different, and I think it is going to be some different vocals". The whole song was lyrically inspired by like an American, California serial killer vibe and it had a David Lynch kind of feeling to it, and I said; "you know, I see some movie here; maybe you can participate?", and Chris liked the idea. Then we had a couple of beers, and he was playing the songs, you know, Chris played guitar and jamming on it, and as it developed during the autumn and we recorded the song, we brought in Agneta [Kjølsrud] from the band Djerv that did the vocals, really tremendous work, and that kind of opened a new dimension to the song.
With the song really taking shape, the video for the video must have come back.
Jarle; Yes, and then I called on Chris again and said; "we've kind of finished off the song. We're ready. Remember this summer where we talked about this crazy idea about music video?" and he was like; "cool, when can I come over?" So then he came over in January, and we went into a Norwegian church and tried to make something that we've never done before.
Chris; Yeah, the song sounds like a soundtrack song, so the video is like a short film, really. Like, it just looks like a scene out of one of these movies; like a David Lynch movie kind of mixed with a lot of these movies that are just like, fucked up. It's like Eyes Wide Shut or Silence of the Lambs; any of these movies that are kind of freaky that afterwards you're like; "what the fuck did I see?!" In the last Jackass movie, we did a Silence of the Lamb's bit just to be weird, but yeah, the video it's like a little film. It's almost like a musical interlude of a movie. I think.
The song is an epic, coming in at eight minutes long, and the video is a real film noir; I'm guessing seeing the video puts a slightly different perspective on the song, Jarle?
Jarle; Yeah. and the cool thing was, I haven't made a lot of music videos on the last albums, and I like to. For me, making something new is not just about making the guitar riff or whatever; it starts often with a riff, but then to think; video, visual design, lyrics; it's a package. When we went into this and we found this great church in Oslo, and I was like; "oh, can we use this? Like, a Norwegian, metal, black, call it whatever you want, we can use a Norwegian church, and we can bring Chris into this". Then all these ideas started to play, and to see how it's kind of developed, we had a script, set, but still, to see everyone from Agnes to Chris to myself and the director; everybody just kind of followed the intuition of the idea, it was amazing.
And that freedom created something special?
Jarle; When I kind of look back at how a lot of the movies in the '80s or '90s were made, that kind of aesthetics, I think they followed some of the same ideas. You know, when I looked into David Lynch, I'm pretty sure that everything wasn't planned.
Chris; For sure.
Jarle; And when I talk with Chris, this is how I make music. I hate; "oh, we're gonna make the album sound like this"' Fuck that! It's like, I have an idea, and I know where my music has come from, but I go in with approach of trying to create something and see how it leads me, and when we were talking about Jackass, that seems to be pretty much the same approach.
Chris; Yeah, it's good to have like, a rough idea, and then you just start, and then it just things take a life of their own.
Chris; We're great. Thanks for having us.
Jarle; Yeah, thanks for having us. It's a good day in Norway.
Chris, I gather you were a fan of Jarle and Vreid; how did you come to be involved in the project?
Chris; I was in Sweden, actually, and my family and I were traveling around Scandinavia on our road trip, and my wife found this really big supermarket outside of Karlstad, and she's like; "oh, there's a really good record section here". They had this giant black metal section, and so me and my son were like, showing records and talking about them, and we put it online, and we called it 'Black Metal Supermarket', and one of the records I held up - and I said it was one of my favourites - was Windir [precursor to Vreid], and one of Jarle's friends ended seeing the video, and he said; "oh, the guy from Jackass likes your band", and so Jarle wrote to me on Instagram.
So Jarle reached out to you, Chris?
Chris; Yeah, and he said; "I have a festival that we do [Tons of Rock, in Norway], and Metallica is playing, and you're welcome to come", and so we were actually meant to go home, and we decided to stay. We went back to Oslo and we went to the festival. We had the best time ever, and hit it off with all these guys, and became very good friends with Jarle, and here we are, really. So we've been in Norway for the past few summers, and last summer we were here for like three months, and the summer before that. So we kind of live here part time, almost.
How did the song 'Loving the Dead' come about?
Jarle; Last summer, when we were here, we were also working on another project, a documentary that me and Chris and a few others were doing where we started to look into underground, and rock and roll history and stuff like that. And while we're working on that we went to the studio, and I went to show Chris; "I got these new songs ready for new album. I have one song is a bit different, and I think it is going to be some different vocals". The whole song was lyrically inspired by like an American, California serial killer vibe and it had a David Lynch kind of feeling to it, and I said; "you know, I see some movie here; maybe you can participate?", and Chris liked the idea. Then we had a couple of beers, and he was playing the songs, you know, Chris played guitar and jamming on it, and as it developed during the autumn and we recorded the song, we brought in Agneta [Kjølsrud] from the band Djerv that did the vocals, really tremendous work, and that kind of opened a new dimension to the song.
With the song really taking shape, the video for the video must have come back.
Jarle; Yes, and then I called on Chris again and said; "we've kind of finished off the song. We're ready. Remember this summer where we talked about this crazy idea about music video?" and he was like; "cool, when can I come over?" So then he came over in January, and we went into a Norwegian church and tried to make something that we've never done before.
Chris; Yeah, the song sounds like a soundtrack song, so the video is like a short film, really. Like, it just looks like a scene out of one of these movies; like a David Lynch movie kind of mixed with a lot of these movies that are just like, fucked up. It's like Eyes Wide Shut or Silence of the Lambs; any of these movies that are kind of freaky that afterwards you're like; "what the fuck did I see?!" In the last Jackass movie, we did a Silence of the Lamb's bit just to be weird, but yeah, the video it's like a little film. It's almost like a musical interlude of a movie. I think.
The song is an epic, coming in at eight minutes long, and the video is a real film noir; I'm guessing seeing the video puts a slightly different perspective on the song, Jarle?
Jarle; Yeah. and the cool thing was, I haven't made a lot of music videos on the last albums, and I like to. For me, making something new is not just about making the guitar riff or whatever; it starts often with a riff, but then to think; video, visual design, lyrics; it's a package. When we went into this and we found this great church in Oslo, and I was like; "oh, can we use this? Like, a Norwegian, metal, black, call it whatever you want, we can use a Norwegian church, and we can bring Chris into this". Then all these ideas started to play, and to see how it's kind of developed, we had a script, set, but still, to see everyone from Agnes to Chris to myself and the director; everybody just kind of followed the intuition of the idea, it was amazing.
And that freedom created something special?
Jarle; When I kind of look back at how a lot of the movies in the '80s or '90s were made, that kind of aesthetics, I think they followed some of the same ideas. You know, when I looked into David Lynch, I'm pretty sure that everything wasn't planned.
Chris; For sure.
Jarle; And when I talk with Chris, this is how I make music. I hate; "oh, we're gonna make the album sound like this"' Fuck that! It's like, I have an idea, and I know where my music has come from, but I go in with approach of trying to create something and see how it leads me, and when we were talking about Jackass, that seems to be pretty much the same approach.
Chris; Yeah, it's good to have like, a rough idea, and then you just start, and then it just things take a life of their own.
Photo; Jørn Veberg
I'm guessing that keeps you on a bit of a creative edge, in that it could fall apart at any moment, or it might go either way.
Chris; Yeah. and also, music videos are kind of, like, I don't want to say a lost art, but at one time, really, every song had a cool video to it, and now, I guess because of MTV going away and all these things, it's just not a thing that people put a lot into now. So it's cool to do these things, because it's such a good medium for making things. Quentin Tarantino movies or things like this, they have these interludes where all these things happen just to music, and those things are so cool. So, yeah, it's really cool to do these, because you can really do whatever you want. It was really fun to make though.
Jarle; I think looking at metal and extreme metal and all that kind of old school rock and metal, it's always been a genre that's likes to explore, and also very much about the visuals.
Chris; It's so much about a visuals.
Jarle; It's like, you know, vinyl never went out of fashion in these genres, and there's cassettes coming back and everything. It's always been about something else, more than many other genres. I think it does come from growing up in the '70s, and especially the '80s and early '90s, with this kind of music video approach to it. It's how so many of us discovered music, and you might not like the song, but you love the video and that kind of combination. It's always fascinating.
It was filmed in a Norwegian church, and I mean, that's very black metal, taking me right back to all that stuff in the '90s with Varg Vikernes; it's so evocative, isn't it?
Jarle; Yeah, it's very special environment to play in and to be in, with the Norwegian history and everything, of course, but for me, to be in a church like that, it's about a bit of respect, but also that kind of childish rebellion coming back over and over again. I cherish so much, individuality and freedom and do whatever you want, and for me, I'm not a very religious person, I'm never going to become a very religious person, I think, but still, I respect when you are in a church. To see that's that room, the aesthetics of it, I love that.
Chris; It's definitely connected to black metal. I mean, just interviewing all the bands when we were shooting for the documentary, like, so much of black metal is a reaction to growing up in Norway at that time, just kids, kind of not fitting in and rebelling and against that part of society and just trying to really just be the opposite of it - like, not being into Satan - just being the opposite of everything else that was around them. They're definitely connected, but I think Norway, as an outsider that has somewhat kind of embraced that, Black Metal has attracted a lot of people to Norway. When you ride the train from the airport, there's a little video it shows these people on their way from the airport with corpse paint on, and that's pretty cool. Like, they recognise that.
Oh yeah, they're all going straight to the Helvet basement, aren't they?
Chris; Yeah, it's people from all over the world, and people actually do come here to visit and follow the roots of the music that they like.
Chris; Yeah. and also, music videos are kind of, like, I don't want to say a lost art, but at one time, really, every song had a cool video to it, and now, I guess because of MTV going away and all these things, it's just not a thing that people put a lot into now. So it's cool to do these things, because it's such a good medium for making things. Quentin Tarantino movies or things like this, they have these interludes where all these things happen just to music, and those things are so cool. So, yeah, it's really cool to do these, because you can really do whatever you want. It was really fun to make though.
Jarle; I think looking at metal and extreme metal and all that kind of old school rock and metal, it's always been a genre that's likes to explore, and also very much about the visuals.
Chris; It's so much about a visuals.
Jarle; It's like, you know, vinyl never went out of fashion in these genres, and there's cassettes coming back and everything. It's always been about something else, more than many other genres. I think it does come from growing up in the '70s, and especially the '80s and early '90s, with this kind of music video approach to it. It's how so many of us discovered music, and you might not like the song, but you love the video and that kind of combination. It's always fascinating.
It was filmed in a Norwegian church, and I mean, that's very black metal, taking me right back to all that stuff in the '90s with Varg Vikernes; it's so evocative, isn't it?
Jarle; Yeah, it's very special environment to play in and to be in, with the Norwegian history and everything, of course, but for me, to be in a church like that, it's about a bit of respect, but also that kind of childish rebellion coming back over and over again. I cherish so much, individuality and freedom and do whatever you want, and for me, I'm not a very religious person, I'm never going to become a very religious person, I think, but still, I respect when you are in a church. To see that's that room, the aesthetics of it, I love that.
Chris; It's definitely connected to black metal. I mean, just interviewing all the bands when we were shooting for the documentary, like, so much of black metal is a reaction to growing up in Norway at that time, just kids, kind of not fitting in and rebelling and against that part of society and just trying to really just be the opposite of it - like, not being into Satan - just being the opposite of everything else that was around them. They're definitely connected, but I think Norway, as an outsider that has somewhat kind of embraced that, Black Metal has attracted a lot of people to Norway. When you ride the train from the airport, there's a little video it shows these people on their way from the airport with corpse paint on, and that's pretty cool. Like, they recognise that.
Oh yeah, they're all going straight to the Helvet basement, aren't they?
Chris; Yeah, it's people from all over the world, and people actually do come here to visit and follow the roots of the music that they like.
The album is called 'The Skies Turn Black', and that song is a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne; what are your memories of Ozzy, and what did you make of the Back to the Beginning concert?
Jarle; I didn't meet Ozzy, but I was the promoter for the his last shows in Norway at the Tons of Rock Festival on both the last Black Sabbath, and last Ozzy show, actually, which was in 2016 and 2018. Ozzy was royalty, so you didn't intervene with him, but of course I was observing him and what he was doing there. He's been one of my strongest influences, and being at Back to the Beginning, is, speaking about religion, one of the most [shakes head]. For me, I've dedicated most of my life to rock and roll and that's my real passion in life, heavy metal or call it what you want, but to see all those bands, to see the audience and to see also himself that night, that was like, wow. I sat down on the train the next day, and I was going actually to London to see Slayer.
I was at that one as well.
What a weekend, you know?! And this was the weekend after Tons of Rock, so that worked for me! But for me, this was like I was the biggest fan boy in the world at that time, and they were, like such a good experience and I started writing some some lyric lines about this because it made such impression on me. And just a few weeks later, I was on vacation. I was in Italy, and I got a message that Ozzy died, and was just completely shocked. Even though you could see the state of him, I couldn't understand it. He was gone, so I sat down the next day and just listened to Ozzy and I wrote this song in obligation. It's a thank you to Ozzy, but it's also about whole world of Heavy Metal since the late '60s. For me, it's like, Back to the Beginning, Ozzy was the ritual master, but we kind of visualised what it's all about, and yeah, it was goosebumps. So it was just a thank you, and feeling delighted to be a part of this world.
Chris; I think it's crazy that Ozzy hung on. You can tell he hung on for that concert.
Jarle; And to see the documentary about him that just came out; all that pain and everything he was fighting through, he just so intensely wanted to say farewell, and then it was like a perfect love story, which, you know, it's a sad ending, and he's gone, but still, it's like it's the most beautiful thing ever.
Back to the video, and what are your final thoughts on it before it's unleashed?
Jarle; Well, I hope it's something special. It's not just the standard thing, so if you want a few minutes of enjoyment, it's amazing,
Chris; Yeah, just have fun. To me. it's just like, you can do anything you want; don't worry about having to do the same thing every time you do something creatively or whatever. And who cares? That's what Jackass is kind of about, and also, just having fun with your friends, really. That's what all these things are about, you know? That's what making these things is. If you have fun making it, you know it's going to be good. We had so much fun making this, so that's what it's about.
Chris, you've been busy with Jackass five, which is coming out now in June, haven't you? Tell me a little bit about that.
Chris; Well, I can't tell you much about it really because I have to start in like, two weeks. Jackass moves very fast once we start and yeah, we're starting filming right when I get back. We're going to really make this one count, though, so do really cool things. It's not covid anymore, so we can do stuff with the public also, and that's going to be awesome, and it won't be so rigid. I mean, the last movie. I think it worked, but it was really hard to film during that time, and we were one of the only films that was being made. But, yeah, if this is the last one, then I personally want to make it really funny.
Watch the video for 'Loving the Dead' above.
Jarle; I didn't meet Ozzy, but I was the promoter for the his last shows in Norway at the Tons of Rock Festival on both the last Black Sabbath, and last Ozzy show, actually, which was in 2016 and 2018. Ozzy was royalty, so you didn't intervene with him, but of course I was observing him and what he was doing there. He's been one of my strongest influences, and being at Back to the Beginning, is, speaking about religion, one of the most [shakes head]. For me, I've dedicated most of my life to rock and roll and that's my real passion in life, heavy metal or call it what you want, but to see all those bands, to see the audience and to see also himself that night, that was like, wow. I sat down on the train the next day, and I was going actually to London to see Slayer.
I was at that one as well.
What a weekend, you know?! And this was the weekend after Tons of Rock, so that worked for me! But for me, this was like I was the biggest fan boy in the world at that time, and they were, like such a good experience and I started writing some some lyric lines about this because it made such impression on me. And just a few weeks later, I was on vacation. I was in Italy, and I got a message that Ozzy died, and was just completely shocked. Even though you could see the state of him, I couldn't understand it. He was gone, so I sat down the next day and just listened to Ozzy and I wrote this song in obligation. It's a thank you to Ozzy, but it's also about whole world of Heavy Metal since the late '60s. For me, it's like, Back to the Beginning, Ozzy was the ritual master, but we kind of visualised what it's all about, and yeah, it was goosebumps. So it was just a thank you, and feeling delighted to be a part of this world.
Chris; I think it's crazy that Ozzy hung on. You can tell he hung on for that concert.
Jarle; And to see the documentary about him that just came out; all that pain and everything he was fighting through, he just so intensely wanted to say farewell, and then it was like a perfect love story, which, you know, it's a sad ending, and he's gone, but still, it's like it's the most beautiful thing ever.
Back to the video, and what are your final thoughts on it before it's unleashed?
Jarle; Well, I hope it's something special. It's not just the standard thing, so if you want a few minutes of enjoyment, it's amazing,
Chris; Yeah, just have fun. To me. it's just like, you can do anything you want; don't worry about having to do the same thing every time you do something creatively or whatever. And who cares? That's what Jackass is kind of about, and also, just having fun with your friends, really. That's what all these things are about, you know? That's what making these things is. If you have fun making it, you know it's going to be good. We had so much fun making this, so that's what it's about.
Chris, you've been busy with Jackass five, which is coming out now in June, haven't you? Tell me a little bit about that.
Chris; Well, I can't tell you much about it really because I have to start in like, two weeks. Jackass moves very fast once we start and yeah, we're starting filming right when I get back. We're going to really make this one count, though, so do really cool things. It's not covid anymore, so we can do stuff with the public also, and that's going to be awesome, and it won't be so rigid. I mean, the last movie. I think it worked, but it was really hard to film during that time, and we were one of the only films that was being made. But, yeah, if this is the last one, then I personally want to make it really funny.
Watch the video for 'Loving the Dead' above.
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