St. Vincent Tried To License Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” For Directorial Debut

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

St. Vincent Tried To License Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” For Directorial Debut

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

St. Vincent mastermind Annie Clark directed one of the segments of XX, a new horror anthology from a group of female directors. (We already posted the trailer.) And speaking to Vulture, Clark acknowledged one particular influence on The Birthday Party, her segment: The trippy video for Soundgarden’s massive 1994 power ballad “Black Hole Sun.” And she tried to license the song for the movie, but she couldn’t do it, which is too bad. Here’s what she has to say about it:

When you’re working on this stuff, you compile a visual and visual narrative bible and then try to make sure every decision you make is instinctively tying back to the DNA of the piece. So one of the references early on was “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. That video really stuck with me, but also, I put it in as temp music at the end of the film, for the ending sequence. And it accidentally worked perfectly, and so I was trying to get a hold of Chris Cornell to see if I could license the song for the film, but I didn’t have any luck. So I basically paid homage to “Black Hole Sun” at the end. And it just makes me laugh. The darkest parts of the movie, to me, are the funniest.

XX is out in theaters and on demand on 2/17. I look forward to the scene where blank-eyed suburbanites stick out their long CGI tongues.

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