Deftones run of enticing visuals and pristine media drops seem to be firmly intact as they release their latest music video for “Ceremony”. They have enlisted some heavyweight filmmaking talent to level up their game in the shape of Leigh Whannell.
Hitting their socials with a Giallo-style movie poster, Deftones debuted the music video for the track “Ceremony” from their 2020 Album of the Year candidate, Ohms. For this video, Deftones worked with horror auteur Leigh Whannell, who directed The Invisible Man, Insidious, Saw, and the upcoming reboot of The Wolfman classic.
The video features Cleopatra Coleman (The Last Man On Earth, In the Shadow Of The Moon) as the star of the music video and the band members as mysterious doormen.
Cleopatra arrives at a cocktail bar at night. After applying her mascara, she speaks to the doorman (Frank Delgado), who asks her name. She replies, “Mary Kelly,” and he tells her that she’s not on the list. She flirtatiously pleads with him, and he asks her to tell him, “something you’ve never told anyone before”. She replies with 7 words, “I’m not who I say I am”, and he lets her in.
In room 1, there is a neon sign of a White Pony. She moves quickly through into the kitchen area, where Sergio Vega is guarding the next door, wearing a jacket with Korean artistic detail. At first, he won’t let her through the door but asks her to “give me something meaningful to you” and she takes a solid gold fly from her bag and hands it to him.
The next room is like a 1920s/30s speakeasy bar with the intoxicated elite dressed like flappers staggering around drunk. Cleopatra passes through, and at this door she is met by a digital Stephen Carpenter on a screen, almost like an acid hologram. He asks her, “Are you willing to take a risk?” She replies, “yes,” and he tells her to put her arm in the letterbox on the door. She screams out and her wrist is punctured in two places as if she’s been bitten by a snake or vampire. Is it Saturday Night?
In the next room, a white owl, much like that from the cover of Diamond Eyes, sits atop a piano. Abe Cunningham guards the door in here but doesn’t ask her a question, just shakes his head. She turns to the bar and goes to get a knife from the barman who is cutting oranges. She tells Abe she’ll cut his throat if he doesn’t let her in. He does and then takes her down in an elevator to the final corridor.
She sees two people walking towards her, wailing with devastation. At the end of the corridor, Chino Moreno guards the door. He asks her, “Are you truly ready to go in?”, she says she is. Inside the final room is an old witch-like woman, who tells her something, but we don’t know what. Whatever she says completely floors Cleopatra and she staggers away, distraught.
Much like Radiohead’s video for “Just”, we are left wondering what on Earth the witch could have told her that was so awful. We need some lipreaders to confirm, please! Some say brought the awful news, “Eros will never be released”.
(That may be a joke). Watch the video here. Have you caught any other song or album titles or lyrics? Let us know in the comments.
And if you dare, visit the Deftones Fate Lounge for a Tarot reading of your own and learn what’s in store for you.
Whannell explained how the opportunity to make the video came about over on Twitter this week, noting that he’s a big-time Deftones fan and recently wrote a tweet in praise of their latest album. After that, Whannell says, it wasn’t long before he was contacted with an offer. Whannell tweets, “One day I wrote on Twitter that I was loving the new @deftones album. The next day their manager sent me a DM asking if I wanted to direct a music video for them. I said yes. The moral of the story is, talk about the things you love on Twitter, not the things you hate.”
“Specifically, I mean talk about the ART and pop culture you love, not the art and pop culture you hate. When it comes to politicians and their stupidity and insanity, all bets are obviously off.”
042121#Ceremony pic.twitter.com/4fQhpCIT90
— Deftones (@deftones) April 20, 2021