“I’ve known film director Jeromy Cox for 20 years or so,” says Trophy Wife singer-guitarist Joe MacAskill, “and when he suggested I wear a horse costume for the video [“Move to the Desert”], I pretty much had to say yes.”

According to Cox, whose locally shot independent film Gothic Cowboy is nearing completion, “The idea for the video is a group of girls at a school diorama competition, and each band member would be matched with a specific diorama. One girl likes horses and ponies, so her diorama is like a shoebox barn with toy horses, with Joe dressed as a horse, singing and playing guitar.”

As it turns out, doing those things in a horse costume is more difficult than it sounds. “My outfit was from Buffalo Breath Costumes,” says MacAskill, “and it definitely wasn’t designed for musical performance. I had to keep taking the head off to do close-ups playing guitar.” The video’s school auditorium was actually Swedenborg Hall in Hillcrest, with other costume-clad band members shot around town at the Ruby Room and elsewhere. “All their outfits were handmade and customized.… I would have had an easier time playing if I’d been the mummy or caveman.”

Director Cox says he agreed to shoot the music video in hopes it would help him complete his self-made Gothic Cowboy film. “My backwards way of thinking is that I needed some experience with tying up a film project and all the final stages,” he says, “so I decided to tackle a smaller project with a number of limitations and deadlines I could set and accomplish. Now, I can apply what I’ve learned from that experience to tying up the movie. Hopefully. Man plans and God laughs.”

The Jeromy Cox–directed video for Trophy Wife’s “Move to the Desert” debuts January 23 at Bar Pink.