Dale Earnhardt Jr., the music video director.
Just last week, Luke Combs premiered a new song and accompanying music for “Back in the Saddle,” which features NASCAR legends Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Richard Petty. He previously talked about suggesting the do the music video at small, more local short track, when the initial idea was for them to film Jr. in a Next Gen car at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The song, which was written by Luke alongside frequent collaborators Jonathan Singleton and The Brothers Hunt, finds the country superstar ready to ready to get back to doing what he does best, a natural lead single, but the accompanying music video tells the story best. Jr. said he liked the song, but he felt like the video treatment didn’t exactly match the message.
When Jr. retired, it was several years before they debuted the new Next Gen car, so he never drove it and says he never will (never say never, but I digress…), and so he put in his two cents on the idea and said it would be much more authentic to show off the grassroots, late model aspects of racing that people may be less familiar with.
Considering Jr. also scored his first win as a crew chief in an Xfinity race recently, and just celebrated the 100th win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for his team Jr. Motorsports, his wife Amy tells him what a lucky “SOB” he is, and Jr. went onto explain on the Ask Jr. segment of his podcast today how Luke just randomly texted him about starring in the video and how cool that was:
“That’s what Amy said. My wife Amy’s like, ‘You’re one lucky SOB.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah. I mean, what am I supposed to do?’ She’s like, you know, just on and on and on, you just fall into all these real really cool… like Luke Combs texted me the other day. Going, ‘Hey man, I got a video idea. You wanna be in it?’ And I’m like, ‘Of course I do.’
And they were like, all right man, so you’re going to be driving a car and here’s a song. So he sends me the song, and I was like all right, the song is cool. And they were like, we’re gonna get a Next Gen. We’re going to Charlotte. I was like, this song sounds like it’s about grassroots racing to me.
It sounds like a guy getting back into his old s***, you know. And I was like, I don’t drive Next Gen cars, never have, so it’s not very authentic. Never will. I’m never gonna run Next Gen race. And people are gonna go, ‘This is bull***, Dale ain’t coming back to Next Gen racing, you know.
So I thought, I love the late model stock stuff, so why don’t we shine a light on that. So we ended up making that, and she’s like, dang, that just happened. How do you just… she’s the one that came into my life and was like you’re negative, and pessimistic, you need to be thinking about the law of attraction. I’m like, alright, so I changed my attitude and will things into existence I suppose. It has been a good year.”
Only Dale Jr. could rework an entire video for a superstar like Luke Combs… it’s impressive.
But I do think he was right about the concept, and it definitely felt more true to him, and the song, to make it feel more homegrown and authentic. But either way, having Jr. and Richard Petty both in one music video is a recipe for success. There’s just no way that isn’t cool as heck.
If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you doing? Go ahead and change that now…
“Back in the Saddle”
The full Ask Jr. video:
