After being announced on video on demand, the documentary «Long live Rock… Celebrate the Chaos» hits Amazon Prime this May. So we interviewed its director Jonathan McHugh to tell us all the details of the release …
David Aresté
M.S: Hello, welcome to Metal Symphony and thank you for attending us, it is a pleasure. From what we see, “Long Live Rock….Celebrate the Chaos” is the first documentary that you directed,right?
It actually was my 2nd film that I directed. The first is a documentary called “Cosplay Universe” about the people who dress up and attend Comic Con’s.
Much like “Long Live Rock…Celebrate the Chaos” is about a PASSIONATE sub culture of the mainstream people might think are a bit weird for playing dress up all year long at these comic cons, but the level of the passion for rock and cosplaying is something I wanted to shine a light on.
M.S: How did the idea come to him?
My friend Gary Spivack I met when we worked promoting Metallica to pop radio when we were at Elecktra Records books some of the biggest hard rock festivals in America. I had pitched him on the idea of making a movie about the rock fans. When he booked Metallica for the 10th anniversary of his biggest festival in Columbus, OH, we decided we would just start shooting and see what happens.
We interviewed 50 of the greatest rock stars including Lars from Metallica, Duff from Guns and Rosese, Tom from Rage Against the Machine, Rob Zombie, Machine Gun Kelley, Greta Van Fleet and Halestorm and some of the most passionate fans in the world.
Almost 4 years later…we are releasing our film on Amazon Prime /Coda on May 1st
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-prime-debuts-music-film-055356764.html
and Itunes on June 1.
M.S: And why releases now?
We wanted to reléase around the one year anniversay of the pandemic because everyone has been missing live music SO much. We waited for a year to see if theatres across the world and we could not wait any longer.
M.S: How has the change been from producing to directing a documentary?
I love both producing and directing. I am producing a documentary film callled “ City of Ali” on Muhammad Ali which has been so much fun learning about his history growing up in Louisvlle, KY. That will be globaly released on June 4th at Cityofalimovie.com
M.S: We imagine that he has been happy with the result …
Making “Long Live Rock” was a great time working with the bands and the fans to tell their stories.
M.S: What does this documentary have that the others don’t?
“Long Live Rock” has great live music experience with some wonderful performances for the fans to mosh and crowd surf to.
M.S: We suppose that it has been more difficult to manage the schedules of all the musicians that appear in the documentary than to produce the one of Janis Joplin, right?
They were both fun to work on. Most of our “Long Live Rock” interviews were done back stage at various festivals. Janis was shot all over America. Texas, LA, NYC, SF. Where some of the locations we shot at. So that had more locations
M.S: Continuing with that, how has the process of collecting the testimonies of the musicians gone??
It was wonderful to sit down with rock stars. One interesting thing was that Chris Cornell died 12 hours before we were going start shooting with him as one of my first interviews.
Have they surprised you with their statements?
Many of them talked about Chris Cornell and what his music meant to him.
M.S: It’s funny that you investigate the pits and the wall of death … something that you only see at Rock concerts and you always think why people do it, will anyone who watches the documentary find the answer?
I think they will get a better picture of what makes this genre tick that is for sure.
M.S: Today, some concerts and documentaries only give us the option to see them in theaters in a single pass and occasionally for specific dates. Do you miss that documentaries could be on the billboard for several days or weeks like an ordinary movie or it is not something viable in today’s film industry?
Good news and bad news about streaming is it a lot easier to see small documentary films like mine.
M.S: Maybe an alternative would be that they only can be viewed by video-on-demand platforms? Do you think this could help the audiovisual sector? Or does it hurt them because there is a lot of offer and demand?
Right now we are in a VOD and streaming world. I think that will continnue.
M.S: If the pandemic allows it, will you present the documentary in some theaters?
The film is about to start running in some Autralian theatres! SO I am excited about that.
M.S: We have finished our questions. Thank you very much for your time and we wish you all the best with this Long Live Rock and with all your upcoming projects.
Thank you, Here are the other tráiler links..
LLR
https://www.longliverockmovie.com/trailer
Cosplay Universe