Born in 1967, Laurent Mercier attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and spent several years as an independent multimedia artist, organizing collective exhibitions, and analyzing the condition and status of artists in society. He also worked with the publishing firm, Association for the Development of Multimedia Literature. Irritated by what he perceived as the "stranglehold" of major media companies on the music industry and other creative industries, Mercier launched Callicore as a "resistance act" against the "cultural dictatorship of the media" by these large-scale companies. Callicore controls all aspects of its projects, from pre-production to post-production, and retains a relatively independent and free nature. One of the first collaborations between Mercier and Xavier Semens, who joined Callicore in 2006, was the animated video for Phantom Rider, a song from the 2007 album, Hymn for the Hellbound, by the British psychobilly group The Meteors. That same year, Callicore produced an animated video for Sound of a Gun, by the British punk band The Buzzcocks. Callicore created the animated video for Blues Ain't Nothin' But a Pimp, a song from John Lee Hooker, Jr.'s Grammy Award-winning album, All Odds Against Me. The video portrays Hooker as a comic book character, "Bluesman", who plays in clubs at night and cleans up the streets during the day. The video was a Webby Award honoree in the Special FX/Motion Graphics category in 2009. An image from the video was featured on the album's cover. In 2008, Callicore produced its first video for Carbon/Silicon, a band founded by Mick Jones, the former guitarist for The Clash, and bass playerTony James. In 2010, the studio produced the video for hip-hop group Arrested Development's Bloody, as well as for When We Were Angels by Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg, a project of former Ramones drummer, Marky Ramone. In 2011, Callicore created the video for Cake's Long Time, a track from the band's comeback album, Showroom of Compassion. In an interview with Cake singer John McCrea, Mercier said the gloomy mood of the video, which follows the plight of a man and his monkey imprisoned in a dystopian world, was inspired directly by Cake's music, which reminds him of "melancholy things." McCrea was impressed by the video's general movement and choreography, which he suggested are often lacking in music videos, and appreciated how Mercier perceived the non-humorous side of Cake's music. Callicore produced and directed videos for artists such as Brian Setzer, Lee Rocker, Eagle-Eye Cherry and Dr. Feelgood, from 2011 to 2013. The studio has continued its collaboration with John Lee Hooker, Jr., with several videos featuring the "Bluesman" character created for Blues Ain't Nothin' But a Pimp.
