Chase Rice Gets to Flex During Single-Take ‘Way Down Yonder’ Music Video [Watch]
With the new music video for "Way Down Yonder," Chase Rice did something rarely (never?) done before in country music.
The western-themed, barroom drama was shot in one take, with no cuts.
"If one person screws up, you gotta restart it," he tells Taste of Country, talking about how much he enjoyed a long, grueling day of filming in Fort Worth, Texas.
The song is from an upcoming album from Rice, and sonically, it stretches him into territory his fans aren't expecting. Over the last decade, few artists have come so far to find their true voice. To compare early hits like "Ready Set Roll" (2013) to more recent hits like "Eyes on You" (2018) and "Drinkin' Beer. Talkin' God. Amen" (2020), and now "Way Down Yonder" (plus what's to come) is to take one heck of a journey through the genre.
Rice, Blake Pendergrass, Corey Crowder, Hunter Phelps and John Byron wrote the song, and Oscar Charles added the stomping, minimalist arrangement. It's a great pick for a throwback music video that centers on the kinds of debauchery found in a 19th-century Texas saloon.
"I wanted to pull my gun out and do the straight western thing, but I figured that probably wasn't the best idea," Rice says.
Rice does get to tussle with a guy, however, an experience that the former college football player enjoyed a bit more than your average Nashville picker. The camera swirls around the room and finds Rice appearing at different tables, between shots of patrons drinking, gambling and rabble-rousing. After the fight scene, there's a few seconds of a choreographed dance sequence before a slow-motion sequence that forced him to sing very, very fast in real time.
Justin Timberlake's "Say Something" video with Chris Stapleton was the only music video Rice could think of that relied on a single-take approach. At over six minutes, that's much more complicated than Rice and Twelve Midnight's nearly four-minute-long scene. With music videos of more importance now (the CMT Awards are on network television), it's fair to wonder if his fans can expect more like this.
The answer to that question for Rice is yes, but you'll have to wait a little longer to see his most ambitious effort yet. There's no timetable for the new music. He's currently on tour with Jason Aldean.