IDLES Release Street Fighter Inspired Video For Never Fight A Man With A Perm

Fresh off selling out their biggest ever UK tour in less than 24 hours, IDLES have released a new video for Never Fight A Man With A Perm, taken from their life-affirming second album Joy As An Act Of Resistance.

The animated video is a pastiche of Street Fighter II on the Mega Drive and shows IDLES frontman Joe Talbot face off against two enemies Barry Biffa and Timmy The Thyroid (who, as the song says, is not a man but a gland).

"The idea for the Never Fight A Man With A Perm video came directly from the lyrics of the song and how it tackles the subject of toxic masculinity," say the team at Fluffer Records who made the video. "Using a British take on the classic arcade beat 'em up platform game seemed like a cool way to put this across visually."

IDLES released new track Mercedes Marxist in May, but there has been no confirmation of a new album as yet.

“Mercedes Marxist was a strange beast for us, after Rottweiler, it was the first song we wrote for Joy As An Act Of Resistance,” said frontman Joe Talbot.

“I was pissed off at what I was and where I was: I was sofa surfing on the weekends and spending the weeks looking after my mum. My life balance was way off and this song reflects just how useless I felt. It was me at my worst and without any buoyancy it became catharsis.

“It was the last splurge from Brutalism so we admitted it. I like it now.”

Read this next:

• IDLES' Joe Talbot on toxic masculinity and vulnerability
• What does it mean to be a rock star in 2019?
• Never Mind The Bollocks: British rock is thriving