Geronimo went number one in Australia in May and its official Australian clip has recorded over 750,000 YouTube views.

The Les Miserables-inspired mini love story featured the band members leading a rebellion with the help of cardboard armour and a giant cardboard soldier.

But frontman George Sheppard said their UK record label Decca wanted something different.

“Because it was our first single that was going to be released in the UK, they needed a video clip that was going to establish the entire band properly,” he said.

“Over here, we had Let Me Down Easy, which featured the band a bit, so that wasn’t as much of an issue for the Australian version of the Geronimo clip.”

 

Sheppard said there was a big difference between the first video, shot at Parramatta in Sydney’s west in April, to the second one filmed in London.

“We funded the first video ourselves, so we had to try to make it as fancy as we could with a small budget,” he said.

“It was nice to go to the UK and have Decca backing the new one… we had a really seasoned director come in and achieve what we probably couldn’t have done back in Australia.”

The international version features the band members playing instruments amidst flaring coloured lights and cleverly placed props.

It has racked up 81,000 YouTube views since it was posted two weeks ago.

 

Sheppard said while he couldn’t choose between them, he was happy for fans to pick a favourite.

“The first one is a bit more dramatic and filmic... I used to be an actor in Sydney so I have a soft spot for that one,” he said.

“But the other one is just so much fun to watch, and the colours are so pretty.”

Sheppard is not the first band from Brisbane to have two video clips for one song.

The more famous version of The Go-Betweens’ Streets of Your Town featured the band members spliced in amongst scenes of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, while the second version had them performing the much-loved 1988 track.

And Savage Garden recorded a second clip for the American release of 1996’s To the Moon and Back.

English chanteuse Kate Bush made two film clips to accompany the release of her 1978 hit Wuthering Heights.

The UK version saw her dancing in a dark room in a white dress, while the US version had her dancing in a field in a red dress. The heavy eye make-up remained.

The original clip for Tori Amos’ 1994 smash Cornflake Girl was a lyrical take on The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy goes to hell. It was considered too strange for American audiences, so Amos’ co-directed a reshoot which saw her driving a pick-up truck full of girls around an American desert.

More commonly, artists have a “dirty” and “clean” version of the same video clip, such as Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines.

In the unedited version, Thicke, Pharrell and rapper T.I danced with topless models, while the tamer version had them in scanty underwear.

Miley Cyrus’ infamous clip for 2013’s Wrecking Ball, in which she rode naked on said wrecking ball and licked a hammer, was also accompanied by a director’s cut clip which was a close-up of the singer’s teary face.

Sheppard’s debut album, Bombs Away, is available now. The band plays the Eatons Hill Hotel on July 25.