VIDEO PREMIERE: Ike Reilly Shares Never Before Released Home Footage of Chris Farley In “Born On Fire”

Illinois native Ike Reilly has worked as a gravedigger and a hotel doorman, but where he has always shined is as a singer-songwriter. On June 16th Reilly released his seventh studio album Born On Fire via Rock Ridge Music and Firebrand Records, the latter of which is the label owned by Ryan Harvey of Riot-Folk Collective and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. Interestingly, Morello and Ike Reilly both come from the same Illinois town of Libertyville. Born On Fire captures Reilly making rock and roll that, with a tough Midwest defiance, tells tales of love, lust, struggle, drugs, drinking and the underdog.

The title track of Born On Fire was one Reilly originally wrote about his son, but it just so happened that he had grown up as a friend of the late comedian Chris Farley and his brother Kevin, and a group of filmmakers had been working on a new documentary about Farley’s life. “Born On Fire” took on a whole new meaning in the context of Reilly’s relationship with Chris Farley as it almost seemed to describe the comedian’s turbulent yet brilliant life. The song is featured in a powerful final scene of the new documentary, titled I Am Chris Farley, and Reilly is also in the film. Glide Magazine is excited to premiere the new music video for Ike Reilly’s “Born On Fire”. It features Super 8 footage of Chris Farley as a child that Farley’s family gave to Ike for the video, and the footage plays alongside the songwriter’s band the Ike Reilly Assassination and footage of his own son. Before you check out the video for “Born On Fire” below, read our conversation with Ike Reilly where he talks about growing up with Chris and how this video came about.

How did you come up with the concept for the video?

Kevin Farley and the Farley family gave us childhood footage of Chris and the Farley family and this film editor I work with named Michael O’Brien had old super 8 footage of one of my kids. So O’Brien decided to cut a performance of The Ike Reilly Assassination with that nostalgic footage of Chris and my son Kevin, who actually inspired the song. O’Brien edited the show we were making for AMC. He has a lot of footage, a lot of good ideas but he is really hard to work with. A real troubled freak.

Who directed the clip?

My nephew Joey Richardson shot it, my neighbor’s son’s girlfriend directed. They broke up so I don’t have her name.

Where did you film the present day performance footage?

A field behind my house and a garage where we drink and store our gear.

What was the inspiration for this song?

The song was written almost as an apology to my kid Kevin who is that little boy crashing on his skateboard in the video. People are born with passion and fire and they gotta be who they gotta be in order to be fulfilled. I was puttin’ him in a box and I realized what a fucking phony and a fake I was by doing that. I was always angered by teachers, bosses, cops, priests, coaches, parents…anybody trying to define someone else by their own standards. Fuck that, this kid of mine, like anybody, doesn’t need me or anybody else defining who he is or what he might hope to be. My kid was and is a blowtorch of passion. I’m not telling him shit from now on except burn on.

The song was also used in a Chris Farley documentary. How did that come about?

Chris was a friend of mine. We were rugby teammates in college and after college we were on a men’s team called the Old Sodomites. I was working as a doorman when he got to Chicago and joined Joel and Dave at Second City. His brother Kevin is a great friend and when we were filming interviews for I Am Chris Farley, I played him the song and he and I both thought it would be a great for the film given that Chris was fuckin’ red-hot. Born hot, lived hot.