Hamilton family's hilarious lockdown parody video goes viral

It's a rock down in lockdown for one Kiwi family who have created a hilarious music video parody of life inside the bubble that is poised to go viral.

Brad and Nicola Thomson, one half of Hamilton band The Monroes, have written, recorded, filmed and edited a music video about the coronavirus lockdown to Donna Summer's 1979 disco hit Hot Stuff.

The video, which features the couple at their Queenwood home with 4-year-old son Indy, is a lighter look at life inside the lockdown, complete with 1980s workout gear and rock-star glam.

Nicola Thomson, lead singer of The Monroes, said she and husband Brad - the band's drummer - lost their entire income before the lockdown began last month because of event cancellations.

Brad's main job working as a concert promoter dried up and all of the band's gigs for the year were cancelled including at the Balloons Over Waikato night glow.

"Obviously events are the first thing to cancel. We've basically just had our whole year cleared out."

Nicola, 34, said with nothing else to do in lockdown they decided to make the most of their creative skills and home props.

"We had the concept but you can't go and get things so thanks to the lockdown we had to use what we had in our house.

"We've got lots of dress-up clothes and stage clothes. It was really fun."

Convincing her pre-school son to take part was easy but maintaining his enthusiasm throughout the filming was slightly more difficult.

"Once he saw the video he loved it."

It took about two days to write the lyrics, record the song in their home studio using a downloaded backing track and Nicola's voice, film the scenes by using each other and a tripod, and edit the clip together.

The chorus went from "Hot stuff baby this evening" to "Lockdown morning and evening".

"We're not actually actors so that side of it was unique to us - trying to come up with funny stuff.

"The editing stuff is a bit of a hobby but the music stuff we do professionally."

Two other members of The Monroes, guitarist Haitham Mazyan of Auckland and base player Layton Lillas of Hamilton, couldn't be in the video because they aren't in the Thomson's bubble.

Nicola, who studied songwriting and production at Wintec in Hamilton, said The Monroes had been a foursome for a decade.

The comedic video was uploaded to Facebook yesterday and by this morning already had more than 3000 views and 90 shares.

Nicola said family in Holland had seen the video and overall feedback had been positive.

"Some people are dealing with some pretty serious stuff, us as well. But we're in a position to be able to laugh about it a bit and we're trying to find a bit of joy in a situation that's out of our control."

This article was first published on the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.