It was definitely a message with celebrity news quality that had popped up on the sidelines of the last cover story of ROLLING STONE with the artist trio Boygenius: Kristen Stewart had announced at the end of January 2023 that she was involved in three video clips of the formation of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus will do the shooting.
The actress (“Twilight Zone”) and director spoke of “three of the most fascinating people in the rock scene” when referring to Boygenius and was also very happy about the dialogue between the film and music worlds. In 2014, the Oscar-nominated all-rounder was responsible for the visual realization of the song “Take Me To The South” for the music video of the band Sage & The Saints. Stewart’s Boygenius works have not yet been published.
Now, various metal and core specialists have noticed that in the music clip of the song “Not Strong Enough”, Julien Baker is wearing a jacket with a rather dodgy patch while climbing a metal hiking trail ladder. The little road movie, which also takes place en passant on a fairground, in a memorial hall or in the batting cage of a baseball court, has an outdoor scene with Julien Baker solo. Around minute 02:40.
In this brief scene, a patch comes into focus for the camera. “German Black Metal Underground” can be read there. Also in the picture for a few seconds: an execution ax crossed with a sword. It greets the German black metal project Wehrhammer (“I’m looking forward to being your enemy”) in Fraktur.
The specialist forum “Vampster” notes: “The Wehrhammer, active since 1993, have collaborated with other openly right-wing radical bands such as Totenburg and Der Stürmer and like to cover songs by groups such as Landser and Störkraft”. All shady to deep dark references to names from the right-wing extremist music spectrum.
Since then, the inside scene has been speculating as to what Baker was thinking when she put that patch on her video jacket – which of course could also have been a prop from the recording crew’s closet.
Now there is a statement on Julien Baker’s fashion mistake, obtained by her label and made available by ROLLING STONE. Accordingly, she unknowingly wore the garment:
“Julien Baker unknowingly bought the patch in a Swedish indie record store without knowing anything about the band or their political affiliations – as a fan of metal music, the only thing that caught her eye was the design. When we, the German label partners, drew their attention to the meaning of the patch, the band immediately decided to have the video “not strong enough” edited to match the original wording and design of the patch change. Longtime supporters of anti-Nazi movements, Julien and boygenius are unequivocally anti-Nazis. They were surprised and dismayed to learn that the record store stocks neo-Nazi band merchandise. The patch in its original form is currently being removed from the video – and of course from the jacket itself! – removed or already is.”