Inside Heath Ledger’s Modest Mouse Video

When Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock was introduced to Heath Ledger while the band was on tour in Australia in 2007, the pair got along so well that they rented a boat, hitched inner tubes to the back of it and had an afternoon of wild rafting. It was a fateful outing: Ledger told the frontman about the problem of illegal whaling in Australian waters and offered to direct a music video that would address the issue. In early August, the animated clip for Modest Mouse’s ”˜King Rat’ ”“ Brock calls it “the gory whale video” ”“ debuted online the same day as the band’s No One’s First, and You’re Next EP was released.

Sara Cline, Ledger’s partner in his production company the Masses, recalls the day Ledger giddily e-mailed, “I have an idea for the Mouse!” (Ledger had previously shot a black-and-white video for Nick Drake’s ”˜Black Eyed Dog’ and directed Ben Harper’s ”˜Morning Yearning’ clip.) Ledger and illustrator Daniel Auber holed up in director Terry Gilliam’s London studio to brainstorm for ”˜King Rat.’ Gilliam ”“ who directed Ledger in his final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ”“ pitched in: “Terry made a bunch of faces, and they drew the sun based on those,” Brock says. “Heath was really hyped about the video.”

The clip was partially finished at the time of Ledger’s death in January 2008, and the dark final cut retains his original vision: a boat full of whales hunt humans, turning their remains into food for pet seals as a horrified sun looks on.

Brock recalls his final meeting with Ledger, who rolled up on a Dinosaur Jr skateboard while on break from shooting The Dark Knight. “I was in London, and he had green hair,” Brock says. “It was like a dude who had got in the pool after getting a perm ”“ I didn’t realise it was part of the Joker thing.” Ledger presented nearly final drawings for the video. Brock had no idea it’d be the last time he’d see Ledger. “The guy seemed healthy as shit to me,” says Brock. “But life is tricky.”

With ”˜King Rat’ out and the EP scoring an impressive first week (it charted at Number 15), Brock is looking to Modest Mouse’s next projects. First up is a soundtrack the band recorded with the Shins’ James Mercer for 180Ëš South, a documentary about an epic road trip to Patagonia. “Some of it is bloopy little depressing noises that are supposed to hover behind shit,” Brock says. And the follow-up to 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank should be finished in the next six months, with the band road-testing some of the material on its current tour. “It’ll take some effort,” Brock says. “But that will make it more fun.”