Featuring quirky animation and some excellent lock-down dance moves, here is the latest single from Jamie Freeman. This previously unreleased track finds the nominee for ‘Best UK Song’ at the 2020 UK Americana Awards in a more aggressive frame of mind, rocking out while addressing the self-importance of an unnamed individual. Last year’s album, ‘Dreams About Falling’ benefited from some great collaborations. Here again, Freeman, has enlisted the support of that talented group, including Doug Williams (Wild Ponies), Will Kimbrough, and Grammy-nominated producer Neilson Hubbard (Mary Gauthier, Ben Glover, Amy Speace, Dean Owens, Orphan Brigade).
Freeman explains the inspiration behind the song: “The song’s lyric calls out that ‘big fish in a small pond’ of the music industry who never wants to take a risk or try anything new; they’re happy being lord of their own little world. It was inspired by an event where a close friend of mine fell foul of a particular ‘big fish’s’ inflated sense of self importance: this track is everything I wish I could have said to the person who hurt my friend, hence the venom in the delivery, but details have been changed to protect the guilty! I’ve gone for a pretty different sound on this track. It’s like 70’s glam rock, punk and rootsy Americana all mixed together! It was so much fun playing it in the studio and hearing those awesome Nashville musicians bring it to life.”
The animation, along with all the dance moves on show, were created by Freeman in the kitchen during quarantine. He continues: “I shot the video during lockdown, so the decision to animate the ‘King’ character was partly practical as I didn’t want the video to be just me sitting in front of a camera – I wanted to bring him to life. But as I started working on it, I started to really like the character, he was cute and mischievous, not like the person the song is based on. So although he does have one moment of narcissistic rage in the video it’s very short lived, and we spend most of the song just mucking about and doing stupid dance moves! I never thought I’d put a video out that featured me dancing in my kitchen! But a pandemic will do strange things I suppose.”
Upbeat, and direct, ‘King of the Village Hall’ is one to enjoy. Check it out.
