The Shins Chase Butterflies to Mexico

(Above: Shins frontman James Mercer, photo Courtesy of Your Mom Films.)

North American Monarch butterflies travel up to 3,000 miles annually to winter in the mountains of Mexico, and for ten years filmmaker Dennis Fitzgerald yearned to shoot a video with the butterflies as a backdrop. When he heard The Shins’ “Saint Simon,” from Chutes Too Narrow he knew it was a perfect fit, and lead singer James Mercer shared his vision. “The chords and melodic lines of the song are ornate in the way that myriad butterflies would be… kind of like a Byzantine kaleidoscope,” Mercer says.

Earlier this year Sub Pop Records sent the Portland-based band to Mexico for filming, allowing Fitzgerald and The Shins complete creative control. The team was granted access to Rosario Santuario de las Mariposas, a privately owned reserve, thanks to Fitzgerald’s Mexican producer bailing the owner’s brother out of jail. “We were allowed into parts of the park that literally no one else is,” Fitzgerald says.

All the butterflies in the video are real except one, though the animation and special effects might make viewers wonder. “It is bizarre to see that many butterflies,” Fitzgerald says. “It’s one of the things you should see before you die, definitely.” Mercer agrees: “We were all changed in one way or another.”