Earlier this month, Interpol hosted a press conference in Mexico City to announce their new album Marauder. The band answered questions and smiled for photos, and the press conference was pretty par for the course. Well, that is, until a man interrupted the panel to massage frontman Paul Banks’s head, without a single word of explanation.
The whole thing’s pretty weird, but watch it go down for yourself below. Our mystery man enters around the 24-minute mark.
Turns out, Interpol don’t need to beef up their security after all: The stunt was for their music video for “The Rover,” the first single off their new record. The mystery man in question is actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Girls, The Punisher) playing the song’s title character, a cult guru in the making.
The music video introduces us to The Rover on the brink of a breakdown inside a van carrying the band. After throwing himself out of a moving vehicle, he acquires his first followers and romps his way across the city to reunite with Interpol at the press conference.
“It’s the origin story of the character described in the song, the birth of a cult leader,” says Banks. “When we meet him, he is partly unhinged. He’s a man on the verge, an artist subjected to great pressures, and beset with existential frustrations. A distracted hipster who enjoys psychedelics, let’s say.”
Director Gerardo Naranjo (Narcos, The Walking Dead) filmed the Rover’s trippy adventures on-location in Mexico City for four days straight, resulting in a music video that blurs the line between reality and fantasy.
Marauder isn’t due out until Aug. 24, but you can find the album’s full tracklist here and check out the stops on Interpol’s recently expanded tour here. Check out the video for “The Rover” below.