The Hives – Countdown to Shutdown

We got approached by legendary The Hives asking us to helm the video for their song “Countdown to Shutdown”. We got happier than kids on Christmas eve, the second single of their first album release in over a decade! Game on.

As usual we didn’t want to settle for the mundane and so we got very fueled up by the idea of actually not even having the band in the video at all. Absurd? Ludicrous? Perhaps, but to us it made sense. After listening to the song we decided to make the tale of corporate executives jamming to the beat while their hearts pounded with fear of the revolution rising beneath them.

For the corporate leader role, who better than Sweden’s crown jewel of male acting, the inimitable Magnus Krepper. We envisioned him not just in boardroom banter but in an epic stunt scene – taking flight and crashing into a wall. As we were rewriting the rules of music videos reality kicked us straight in the face and we realised we shouldn’t exile The Hives from their own video. We threw them back in for a fabulous grand finale. Rock ‘n’ Roll storytelling at its best.

The video won a Grammy award 2024 for best music video.

CREATIVE CONCEPT, DIRECTION & ART DIRECTION: Snask
DOP: Jallo Faber
PRODUCTION: Diktator
CLIENT: The Hives