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Jun 28, 2017 By Christopher Roberts Saint Etienne

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Beloved British indie-pop trio Saint Etienne released a new album, Home Counties, at the start of the month via Heavenly. Now they have shared a video for “Magpie Eyes.” Tash Tung directed the clip, which mainly features teenagers in suburban England, including actors playing younger versions of the band. Watch it below.

The band’s Pete Wiggs had this to say about the video: “The video was shot in Stevenage with its once fine Ladybird book New Town architecture that was a fleeting vision of suburban utopia. The director Tash Tung came up with the idea of an imagined younger ‘us’ spending a typical day hanging out in record shops and cafes - capturing the ennui and bonhomie of those years when you have no idea how your life will pan out.”

Director Tash Tung had this to say: “It was so much fun to make a music video for Saint Etienne, a band who I grew up with and who have a long history of interesting promos. It was a great experience to work in a small team and also with a lot of creative freedom, using film photography and shooting docu portraits of kids from the local area in the town centre. My favorite - very serendipitous - moment was when I cast my friend Eve Mahoney to play the young version of Sarah, and I found out Eve’s uncle used to be the band’s photographer, the amazing Joe Dilworth!”

Wiggs had this to say about the song in a previous press release: “The title was inspired by a book about Creation records ‘my Magpie Eyes are hungry for the prize’ which in turn was taken from ‘Up The Hill Down The Slope’ by The Loft. I often find myself being so deep in thought that I’m not really listening to what my children are saying to me and I extrapolated guilty feelings over that into the story of someone who for a combination of personal ambition and commuter journey time ends up missing out on his kids growing up and not really knowing them or the ‘Herberts’ they might be hanging out with.”

Shawn Lee produced Home Counties, with support from Augustus (Kero Kero Bonito), Carwyn Ellis (Colorama, Edwyn Collins), Robin Bennett (The Dreaming Spires), Richard X (Girls On Top / Black Melody), and Gerard Johnson (Denim, Yes). It was recorded in central London, with the band members commuting to the studio every day for six weeks.

A previous press release described the concept of the album, which centers on where the band grew up and the area’s reputation and relationship with the rest of England: “The Home Counties are an embarrassing place to come from. The name itself suggests that somehow the rest of Britain isn’t ‘home,’ not even London. It’s where John Major’s vision of cricket and warm beer was meant to exist, but it’s not really like that at all, and it never has been. The Home Counties are a land of bootleg DVDs at car boot sales, Waitrose bags for life, parking disputes, bored teenagers in semis inventing ghost stories, squaddies causing trouble at all-you-can-eat buffets, train drivers in eyeliner and suburban rebels, a place where Tony Hancock and Spike Milligan drew inspiration. Saint Etienne grew up in the Home Counties. Here are sixteen new songs they have written about a day in the life of this doughnut of shires that ring the capital, punctuated by bursts of BBC radio to remind you what time it is, and all connected by train journeys - main lines, branch lines, commutes, escapes.”

Saint Etienne Tour Dates:

U.S. Tour Dates:

Sep 24 - Boston, MA - Somerville Once Ballroom
Sep 25 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
Sep 26 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
Sep 27 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall
Sep 29 - Chicago, IL - Park West
Oct 2 - Seattle, WA - Neptune
Oct 4 - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
Oct 5 - Pomona, CA - Glass House
Oct 6 - Los Angeles, CA - The Fonda Theatre

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