DOWNEY, California — Staind filmed the fourth video from their breakthrough Break the Cycle on Monday, but it was a much larger milestone that was on the minds of the band and crew.

The Springfield, Massachusetts, rockers' "For You" marked the 250th video for director Nigel Dick, who was given a cake from the band to celebrate the shoot.

"That's insane," Staind guitarist Mike Mushok said of Dick's achievement.

Staind, Dick and a crew of about 25 gathered at an abandoned department store to shoot the performance portion of the video. The remainder of the clip was shot Tuesday (November 13) at a nearby diner called Johnie's Broiler.

The basis for the video revolves around the creepy song's opening verse: "To my mother/ To my brother/ It's your son/ Or it's your daughter/ Are my screams loud enough for you to hear me?"

"That obviously can be translated in a number of different ways, but I personally took the perspective of how hellish it is to be in the back in your mom and dad's car when you would rather be at home playing PlayStation, playing your guitar, hanging with your mates, whatever it is that makes your day," Dick explained during his lunch break.

"The story is of a teen stuck in the back of his mom and dad's car. Basically the lyrics that Aaron [Lewis] is singing are what's going through his head. Every time his mom and dad look at him he's just sitting there looking bored and resentful. When his mom and dad are not looking, he is screaming the lyrics."

The boy and his parents eventually arrive at a diner, and as soon as the boy sits down, which happens at the song's thunderous bridge, the other kids in the room start interacting in the same strange way with their parents.

"Sometimes you get treatments from directors and it's like they've never listened to the song," Mushock said. "When Nigel came up with this, it really depicted what the song is about."

Lewis wrote "For You" about the problems kids face every day. Many of its anecdotes came from stories he heard listening to kids during the band's first year-and-a-half on the road.

"It was one of those songs that from the beginning, we kind of wanted it be a single," Mushock said. "It goes back to what we are, a rock band. And we know that the kids like it from the response it gets when we play it live."

"For You" marks Staind's second time working with Dick. The group recently shot a video with the director in their hometown for the Break the Cycle version of "Outside" that will air in Europe and other areas outside the U.S.

Dick, whose 250 videos includes Britney Spears' "... Baby One More Time," said he has enjoyed working with Staind because their music is both hip and powerful.

"I love the ideas inside their music. It has proven thus far really easy for me to come up with ideas that match their lyrics," Dick said. "It's better than just another happy, poppy, lovey-dovey pop song, where you are just worrying about the surface and there's nothing you can develop underneath it. I'm quite happy to do that, but when there's substance to the lyrics, you can come up with an idea which has some form of linear quality that is more than just waving the camera around and making everyone look pretty."

A director since 1983, Dick has worked with Tears for Fears, Madness, Tina Turner, Cher, Guns N' Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, R.E.M., Oasis, Third Eye Blind, Ricky Martin and countless others.

"I've gone from doing Band AID to planning for a video and speaking to one of my favorite members of that band (Toto's Jeff Porcaro) and then having him pass away a few hours later," Dick recalled. "Every day brings a surprise. The thing that is great is I get to hang out with people in the public eye and I get to see behind the scenes a little bit — something other people never have a perspective on."

As for Staind, whose current single, "Fade," is still all over radio (see "Staind Cranking It Up For Next Single"), they wrap up the Family Values tour on Saturday in Tacoma, Washington, (see "Stone Temple Pilots Slam Rap Rockers At Family Values Stop") and will play a few holiday shows before the end of the year. "Then we'll definitely go back on tour after the holidays," Mushock said.

The guitarist and his bandmates have been jotting down ideas for their next album.

"When we were touring behind Dsyfunction, I recorded a bunch of ideas and a lot of that ended up being songs on this record. That's how it starts. You can never have too much material."