The latest episode of Agents of SHIELD was a romp of a good time and featured tons of throwbacks to the 1980s. One of the best moments in “The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D” was Deke (Jeff Ward) singing Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me) with his band, The Deke Squad. Ward recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his big musical number and admitted he was incredibly nervous about singing. During the interview, he also shared some backstory into the epic moment and revealed why he snuck Daisy’s name into the song.
“[I imagined that] when Deke got back to our time and he split up from the agents for a year between [seasons 5 and 6] — that’s when he starts his company and everything — I feel like he gave himself a little tutorial on like history, sorta like Austin Powers did when he was watching all those videos in the nineties and catching himself up on the last 30 years. I feel like Deke went through the decades to see [what he missed] and one of the things he did was watch Live Aid. I think he saw Bowie and ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ and he was like, ‘I can’t do the Bowie stuff, but I can do ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ and if I do, I can play Live Aid,’” Ward explained.
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Ward went on to share that Deke’s song choice had something to do with his feelings for Daisy (Chloe Bennet). “In my mind, it was all, just in case he never got back, a message in a bottle to Daisy to say, ‘Don’t you forget about me.’ And that’s why I changed one of the babies to Daisy in the song. So I had a whole backstory that I really loved,” he said.
“I didn’t plan very much,” Ward revealed about the performance. “I just took in as much as I could of those amazing performers and would just let it happen. And [showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen] were so supportive and sweet. The crew was so amazing because they were so down to keep up with me. One of our camera operators, Bill Brummond, who’s a genius, was so amazing at like, I would come up with a move and he would just come up with a camera move on the fly that would complement the move. We had this subconscious connection. That was the most unique thing I’ve ever gotten to do, and it felt like a gift to both me and Deke to be able to do it.”
You can also check out Ward’s performance here. Agents of SHIELD airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 10 PM EST.
