Video Premiere: Chris Stalcup & The Grange "Moonshinin'"

Courtesy of the Artist

Garnering critical praise and earning comparisons to Gram Parsons and the Drive By Truckers, Chris Stalcup, and his band The Grange, released their sophomore album, Downhearted Fools, in September of last year. The songs on the ten-track collection are deeply authentic, passionate, and undeniably Southern. 

The Atlanta native knows how to write a song, and more importantly, knows how to write a song about what’s real with Downhearted Fools exploring such themes as life on the road, family, and relationships. Today, TDC is proud to premiere the video for one of the album's cuts, "Moonshinin'". 

Powered by Stalcup's whiskey-soaked drawl, the overwhelmingly emotional "Moonshinin'" chugs along like a train delivering both hope and heartbreak that are brought to life in the video, directed by Nathan Mowery. Stalcup relates the story behind the song and video,

"Moonshinin' was a song I had written a little while back, it was actually recorded in the sessions for Dixie Electric Company. It just never sat with me quite right for that album. About the time when Downhearted Fools started taking shape, there were some major life changing things going on with some people close to me. The song finally made more sense and grew into itself. We re-cut some of it and some of the lyrics that I felt I had been struggling with became very clear to me. For the video, I knew I wanted to convey some of this background of the story (as Nathan tells below). We shot this on one afternoon and evening during the Supermoon which we were excited about considering the song title and all. My good friend and his girlfriend agreed to be our actors in this shoot. We wanted the story to feel convincing and since they have a genuine connection together, that translated well on screen. For me the story on screen is one of hope and desperation but with the nuance that sometimes it's never too late to keep hanging on. If you look close you will see I subtly included some music buddies throughout, Justin Wells, Scott Low, Matt Woods all got nods in this video without actually being there for the shoot..."

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Director Nathan Mowery comments on the emotional impact of the video and offers some fun facts about the making of the project,

"I've done several music videos for songs on Chris Stalcup's Downhearted Fools. Moonshinin' is my favorite track on that album. We wanted to capture the feeling of being completely in love and then the harsh pain of when that gets ripped away. In this case we have a couple deeply in love, buying records, dancing in the moonlight (shot during the super moon of last year fun fact). The woman begins to grow sick and the man does everything he can to help the woman he loves as he slowly accepts what's happening is beyond his control. She eventually passes and we show the grieving man holding onto a feather that she gave him. Sometimes we latch onto certain moments or memories with past loves and replay them over and over. In this case it was a feather that slowly made him lose his mind. The pain of his heartbreak leads him to tying a concrete block around his leg and jumping into a lake as feathers slowly falls from the sky over where he jumped in. When people watch this I hope it connects with their own pain as much as it reminds them to not take time with loved ones for granted. I'm a sucker for a good heartbreak song and this is a great one.

During the first few shots you can actually see Stalcup walk by the frame. A little Easter egg. While we were shooting the woman floating, the trailer we were on flipped over causing me and the actress to fly into the air. Nobody was hurt but it was pretty funny. I also made it a point to give Stalcup's dog a cameo since she's been very supportive during the creation of these videos."

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