Ben Lee Drops New ‘Heavy Metal’ Song

Ben Lee has announced the release of his new album, This One’s For The Old Headz, and shared the lead single, Heavy Metal.

You gotta love Ben Lee for his sense of humour. The music video for Heavy Metal, directed by Nash Edgerton (Mr Inbetween), finds Lee wearing a whole lot of wigs in a spoof of glam metal – it’s easy to spot Alice Cooper and Mötley Crüe. With that song title, you’re likely expecting something properly heavy, but in Ben Lee fashion, Heavy Metal subverts expectations.

Check out the music video, made in collaboration with Ben Lee and his wife, Ione Skye’s company, Weirder Together, Social Register, and Blue Tongue Films. The latter is a production company and an Australian film company with Edgerton as one of the listed filmmakers.

“When I was ten years old, I was obsessed with the Mötley Crüe home video Uncensored, and particularly a scene where singer Vince Neil rode down Sunset Blvd in a jacuzzi built into the back of a limo with two hot girls,” Lee commented in a press release. “It was a seminal moment for me that imprinted deeply on my nascent ideas about success, sexuality and the music industry as an impossibly iconic symbol of hedonism and rock n roll debauchery.

“In some ways, I’ve been chasing that moment my whole life, whatever that means. That’s what this song is about. Whatever has gone awry in my life, ‘blame it all on heavy metal.'”

Revealing that the music video for Heavy Metal is “basically a shot-by-shot remake” of Penelope Spheeris's documentary, Decline of Western Civilisation Part II: The Metal Years, Lee explained that he leapt at the opportunity to play Lemmy, Gene Simmons, Ozzy Osbourne and other assorted metal heads. “It’s the performance I’ve been waiting my whole life to give!”

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This One’s For The Old Headz was recorded to tape in three days with producer Justin Stanley and stars the power-pop rhythm section of Jon Wurster and Jason Narducy (Superchunk, Mountain Goats, Bob Mould).

The album will be released via Weirder Together Records on Friday, 20 September.

On the album, Lee added, “With an album cover shot by legendary indie party photographer Cobrasnake, This One’s For The Old Headz is a blistering, loud guitar and harmony-filled classic Ben Lee album that is sure to capture the hearts and imaginations of old heads and young heads alike.”

You can catch Ben Lee on tour from tonight through July and find tickets here.