Thieves Want Fans To Rock ‘N’ Roll In New Music Video

Still got the fire in my belly/Truth be told I cannot lie/One thing I know for certain/I’m gonna rock and roll ’til the day I die.”

—Lyrics to “Fire In My Belly” by Joe Delia & Thieves.

Defiance. Energy. Action. Rock ’n’ roll. Those are the makings of the band’s anthem “Fire In My Belly,” not to mention the song’s future music video, which the band is calling on its fans—from the East End and beyond—to star in.

Rest assured, singing is not necessary. Instead, the band wants videos of energetic rockers lip-syncing to “Fire In My Belly” while showing off what makes them tick—whether it’s surfing, playing guitar or spending time with family and friends.

“We have such a loyal audience out there,” Mr. Delia, a Montauk part-timer, said during a telephone interview with his wife and bandmate, PJ, from their home in Tappan, New York, last week. “I want to see some of those faces, and they know who they are.”

“We want to see how you’re still rocking,” Ms. Delia said, adding that videos can even be taken with camera phones and flip cams. “It’s all about doing your favorite thing and saying, ‘I’m not done.’”

So far, the band has received a handful of videos from upstate fans, primarily. But in one, a pilot is flying his plane over Montauk while rocking out solo. In another, a few coworkers are dancing around their office, lip-syncing as a group.

“I wonder if they’ll get busted,” Ms. Delia laughed. “‘So that’s what you were doing that day? That’s why you didn’t get that project done on time?’ We have a woman in a beauty shop, dancing around playing guitar. She even put fake tattoos on herself, bracelets all up her arm. There are people trying to blow dry hair in the background but they keep stopping to watch her.”

The cutoff date for video submissions is Sunday, April 15, according to Ms. Delia. Once the submissions are received, she will edit together the fan videos to match up with the “Fire In My Belly” record track—a format made famous in 2007 by Nickelback’s “Rockstar” music video, which featured celebrities, including musicians Billy Gibbons, Kid Rock, Nelly Furtado and Gene Simmons, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., hockey player Wayne Gretzky, the Times Square’s Naked Cowboy, and a host of Playboy bunnies from the television series “The Girls Next Door,” lip-syncing to the song.

“Nickelback’s video is probably where I got the idea,” Ms. Delia said. “It’s stuck in the back of my mind all this time. But I’m not saying that we’re going to have celebrities in it. We probably won’t. But the celebrities are our fans.”

A number of videos are expected trickle in from as far away as Hong Kong and Norway, maybe even one from France, Ms. Delia said. Currently, submissions have been from fans in their 50s, but Ms. Delia said she hopes there will be a mix of ages. Even babies are welcome in the video, she said.

“I think people should be as creative as they want,” Mr. Delia said. “There’s any number of scenes they can set up. They can do it while they’re doing just about any activity in life and it will be amusing and entertaining. The key to it is having fun. It’s no deeper than that.”

While the couple is looking for energy and humor, a rock edge doesn’t hurt, either, they said.

“The feel is defiance. It’s ‘I’m not done yet.’ Very defiant,” Ms. Delia said. “I like the line, ‘Still got some crazy habits/But I keep pushin,’ pushin’ on through.’ I didn’t write it, though. Joe did.”

She paused, waiting for a reaction. Her husband just quietly chuckled.

The song lyrics hit Mr. Delia as he was bicycling around Montauk on one August day in 2010. The words kept popping into his head, he said, forcing him to veer off to the side of the road at least 20 times.

“I must have looked crazy, dumping my bike, pulling my iPhone out and squawking a few lines into it,” Mr. Delia said. “That phone’s an instant note pad.”

When the musician got home, he wrote the entire song top to bottom, he reported.

“The song came very quickly and fluidly, which is the way you want them to come,” he said. “It really was something of a theme, or an anthem, for myself and a generation: that we keep rocking ’til we drop, so to speak.”

To submit a video, email it with a signed release through Dropbox or YouSendIt, or mail it on a DVD or flash drive to Thieves Video, 53 Hickory Hill Road, Tappan, NY 10983-1803. Rockers under 18 need a parent to sign the release. Listen to the song for free on the band’s Facebook page. The deadline is Sunday, April 15. For instructions or more information, email PJ Delia at PJ.Thieves@gmail.com or visit joedelia-thieves.com.