From playing in the bottom of an empty swimming pool to blowing up a house and beating each other up a bit, the members of Falling In Reverse had a grand time making the video for the group’s latest single, “Fuck You And All Your Friends.” In fact, they had so much fun the quartet wanted to share it with the world — via a new behind-the-scenes companion premiering exclusively below.
“It was really fun,” frontman Ronnie Radke tells Billboard about the experience with Ethan Lader, who also directed the group’s previous video, “Superhero.” “It was like a party almost. Usually a video’s fun, but after a while, after a couple hours it’s like work because you’ve got to keep doing the scenes over and over and over again. But this one felt like it was just one big party, very special. It just reminded me of the bands whose music videos I used to watch, like Sum 41, blink-182, stuff like that. A very punk vibe.”
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The song itself has a serious undertone, about backstabbing friends, while Radke added an extra layer of commentary in the video by sporting an anti-Nazi jacket featuring a swastika surrounded by a red circle and slash. And although it was certainly topical when FiR filmed the video (and now), the fashion wasn’t premeditated. “I just thought it had the perfect vibe for that song,” he says, “and I love to wear something I’ll never wear again in a video. I have a bunch of stuff like that. It was just very strange that I got that jacket and then I noticed that it started becoming trendy, the anti-Nazi thing in the media and stuff. It just kind of fit, I thought.”
“Fuck You…” is the fifth single from FiR’s latest album, Coming Home, which came out during April and debuted in the Top 5 of the Alternative, Hard Rock and Rock Albums charts. The group is currently on the road and has dates booked throughout the year, including a late-winter run with A Day To Remember, Papa Roach and The Devil Wears Prada. Meanwhile, Radke is happy with how Coming Home has been received.
“There’s been more and more people, like older people, coming out of the woodwork telling me it’s their favorite album — very mature, very relatable,” Radke says. “Even friends of mine that are in bands that sound nothing like us, rappers and friends like that, they tell me they love, like, three or four songs on the record. Obviously the younger fans love the stuff, too, but it’s a good feeling to see that from an older crowd.”
Radke also hints that some new music may be in the offering — “A different format, a different way, let’s just say that for now,” he notes — and he’s hoping FiR, a veteran of many a Vans Warped Tour, will get a spot on next year’s farewell trek. “That will be a very emotional one — probably the biggest Warped Tour there ever was, too,” he predicts. “You know how it is; Bands do farewell tours, and everybody who was a fan will go to that, so I expect it’s gonna be a very big thing. I won’t miss the heat, I’ll tell you that, but Warped Tour has always been special and we have so many great memories.”