Isaac and the Beekeepers , an acoustic rock band from Ruthin, North Wales have filmed a Christmas video in Chester featuring an apparently drunken Santa. Witnesses to the filming of the video last Sunday may have been bemused by the sight of the man in red getting to grips with a solar powered bin, harassing a busker and smashing a guitar against a skip.
The band have been together for 18 months and have released an album “Where We Are”, and are currently writing new material in preparation for future gigs.
The song “I Folking Love Christmas” was written late in 2015 but never properly released due to time constraints.
“This year we decided to mix it properly and release it properly, video and all.” says band member Isaac Birchall. ” I came up with the idea that I wanted a funny video to complement the song, and to have Santa living a bit rough and wandering the streets swigging lager and getting into all kinds of hilarious trouble, I wanted it to still be tasteful within reason and funny, and we needed a location with lots going on, Chester was the natural choice. I busk in Chester almost every week too, and the people are always friendly and accommodating. I planned the shoot, hired my friend Joe Hovis who’s just an all round funny guy to be our Santa and we spent a Sunday in the city centre.
Isaac says that he filmed the video himself on a GoPro. “This was great because it’s quite discreet, so we were able to capture people’s reactions really well to Santa doing all kinds of funny stuff without having massive camera’s following him around giving the game away.
“Dawson’s Music were great and let us film inside their store, the Pied Bull Pub did the same, Lorraine Hunt who works in Debenhams who was a great sport in putting makeup on our Santa, and my friend Ben Dickson who played our Busker was a star!
“The public were great. A lot of people were dancing along with our Santa, laughing with him, and generally giving him a wide but humourous berth. We made sure we were as respectable as we could be and didn’t disturb or annoy anyone (I hope!).
“A lot of the shots were off-the-cuff and made up on the spot to fit around a general storyline (Steals a guitar and tries to sell it, downs a beer from a pub and does a runner etc) which meant a lot of stuff had to be filmed twice because of camera shake from me laughing!”
Good luck to the band, who say they were delighted with a retweet from TV presenter Vernon Kay.
I folking Love Christmas is available here :
https://isaacbirchall.bandcamp.com/track/i-folking-love-christmas
The Chester blog 