Doesn’t get much more authentic than that.
When it comes to authentic country music, there’s nobody who lives the lifestyle in his music more than Chancey Williams.
The Wyoming native is a rodeo cowboy turned country artist, one of only two artists to both compete at Cheyenne Frontier Days and also perform on the main stage. (The other is Chris LeDoux, if that tells you anything).
Given his background, Chancey is able to bring the western lifestyle to his music in a way that few other artists can. And it’s that authenticity that shines through on his latest album, Thirsty and Blue, which dropped everywhere today.
If you’re not familiar with Chancey Williams yet (shame on you), he’s been one of my favorite artists out there for a while now, and this album is a great example of why. While Chancey leans into his western roots on songs like “Town Broke,” “Rodeo In the Rain” and “Things A Cowboy Ain’t Ever Gonna Say,” which also features Ned LeDoux, he does it in a way that makes the west accessible to the rest of us who are fans of country and western music despite not living the lifestyle ourselves.
(As I told Chancey during a recent interview, I had to wear a cowboy hat when I went to Cheyenne Frontier Days this year and it felt like stolen valor – but he assured me that it was fine and they welcomed it).
Along with the album dropping today, Chancey also released a cinematic music video for the title track – and as it turns out, it was actually filmed on the same set of some of the most iconic westerns in history.
The video for “Thirsty and Blue” was filmed at the Mezcal Movie Set in Arizona, an historic set that was constructed back in 1968 and has served as the set for westerns like Tombstone, The Quick and the Dead, The Gambler, and television shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza.
Speaking with Chancey about the opportunity to film a music video on such an iconic set, he revealed that it all came about after he made his acting debut last year:
“I was in a film last year in Arizona it’s a short movie called ‘Becoming Billy.’ I played the first sheriff to ever arrest Billy the Kid, Sheriff Harvey Whitehill. And so we filmed on set for a couple days at this studio called Mezcal Studios. It’s the same movie set where they filmed Tombstone, which is one of the greatest westerns of all time, and Outlaw Josey Wales and The Quick and the Dead. So I got to know a lot of the people there that make movies in Arizona.”
After filming on the film wrapped, he played the title track to his upcoming album for one of his friends in the movie business – which gave him an idea:
“My friend John Marrs, he’s an armorer for movies, so he brings guns to a lot of movies, became good friends, and he’s directed a lot of stuff. And I showed him ‘Thirsty and Blue.’ It wasn’t necessarily ever even going to be the title track or the tour name.
John’s like, ‘Man, would you mind if I wrote a script for a video for this? I was like, ‘Man, I’d love that.’
So he sent me this screenplay of it being like a dream. You go to bed and you wake up in your dreams, you’re real thirsty and you can never get a drink. And so he wrote this screenplay for this video about that.
And he said, ‘Hey, I would love to direct this at Mezcal. I can bring the extras. I can get the horses. I’ll bring the guns. I got stunt guys.
I was like, ‘Man, I can’t pass that up.’ So we took a bus down to the studio and filmed for a whole day.”
Pretty incredible opportunity, especially for an artist with so much history in the American west.
The video turned out like a short film itself, and ultimately ended up being the favorite music video Chancey’s ever made:
“The way it’s filmed looks like a movie. Like they did such a great job. There was 30 extras on set that came and volunteered. They showed up in time period clothes. They knew their parts. They’d been in a lot of movies. I got to shoot a guy in it. I got to ride horse, you know, got to be horseback. So it’s by far my favorite video.”
If you watch the video you’ll probably recognize some of the buildings from your favorite westerns, and the entire cinematic masterpiece truly does bring the west to life in a way that can only be accomplished on a historic set and by people who understand the western lifestyle.
Like everything Chancey does, it’s as authentic as it gets.
