The Brody Dalle tune “Don’t Mess With Me” has a pretty simple message: Don’t mess with Brody Dalle. That’s also the gist of the video, an inspirational punk-rock slop-fest we’re stoked to premiere.
The third single from Dalle’s excellent solo debut, Diploid Love, “Don’t Mess With Me” alludes to some of the hardships this Aussie punk lifer has faced over the years. She’s survived abuse, meth addiction, a failed marriage to Rancid singer Tim Armstrong, and the dissolution of her band, the Distillers. Now 35, she’s a happily married mother of two, and she’s fiercer than ever.
Dalle proves it in the new video, standing tall and thrashing away on her Telecaster as she’s pelted with pills and doused in fake blood — and that’s just in the first 30 seconds. As the track progresses, she’s hit with booze, long-stemmed roses, flour, birthday cake, and all kinds of other crud — much of it symbolic, director Richard Farmer tells us.
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“She wanted to get messy, and that started the ball rolling,” Farmer says. “She had some early interpretations of the song when she was writing it, but we know with any great song, it can have many meanings to different people. We wanted to honor that and have symbols — objects that would not only be cool to see, but rise to the metaphorical soul of the lyrics.”
Throughout the daylong shoot, Farmer says, Brody was “a real trooper,” and she happily took whatever the crew dished out.
“I wanted to see her stand there and take on the world head on,” he explains. “She's a strong person, and if you have ever seen her live, she can't be knocked down — she owns it up there. Statuesque, badass, and beautiful, like a rock goddess should. I mean, come on, Brody covered in blood: visual heaven.”