Here’s the video premiere of the latest single from Andrea Colburn and Kyle ‘Mud’ Moseley, also known as songwriting and performing partnership Andrea & Mud. With a flavour of spaghetti western, ‘Welcome to Blue Skies’ is a fine song that showcases Andrea & Mud’s classic country sound, featuring an outstanding vocal duo performance that is steeped in country history but possesses a new energy. Colburn’s spirited, melodic voice is a great match for Mud’s resonant, deep tones and the call and response nature of the duet reinforces the song’s themes of lonely voices seeking one another out and escaping to a new life. The sense of escapism is there again in the glorious bursts of mariachi horns; the feeling of motion, of running towards something better, is there in the upbeat rhythms.
The artfully-shot video, directed by Pouya Dianat of Beam Imagination, tells a tale – a love story – that follows on from the previous release, ‘This Time’. Colburn’s character is a waitress leaving behind her former boyfriend and escaping with Moseley. To the sound of a triumphant mariachi serenade, the new couple take to the road in a classic pickup truck and race across open fields to freedom where the grass is greener.
Moseley told AUK about the song and video: “The musical inspiration for ‘Welcome to Blue Skies’ came from an obsession with Carlos Guszman’s version of ‘Crying Time Again’ and ‘It’s Nothing To Me’ by Sanford Clark. Lyrically, the idea came from my love of Junior Brown’s ‘Holding Pattern’. I really like the metaphors in that song. I kind of put all those ideas into ‘Welcome to Blue Skies’ and ended with a shitty way to look at a vacation or an explanation of faking happiness by changing your surroundings. We all want to fly away sometimes, right? To me, this song sounds like a Spaghetti Western for flight attendants. It triumphantly crusades through dark clouds into an ‘everything is blue’ Prozac-blurred world. One of my favorite lyrics is, ‘There’s a million things that cloud my mind and tell me that it’s time to fly away…’ I love the air imagery in that line. It conveys the overwhelming amount of stress that trying to compartmentalize your feelings can cause. I have a hard time doing small tasks to take care of myself when I’m feeling low, and those little things build up like the clouds in the sky on a humid summer day. The truck I’m driving in the video is a 3-on-the-tree. If you’ve ever owned one, you know the mechanism that selects gears on the steering column (under the hood) will get stuck in first if it’s not lubricated correctly. Maybe it gets stuck when you don’t accurately shift? Not sure, but seems like half the day I was massaging it out of first gear. Also, our friend who let us borrow it told me to keep the key on the dash. Nobody will steal it because nobody knows how to drive one. I learned quickly in our EAV [East Atlanta Village] neighborhood. The scene where I’m driving the truck and Andrea is in the back is probably my favorite part of the video. I really liked the colors from that scene. It was a familiar road that I would take to fishing spots growing up. Happy memories.”
Colburn adds: “To me, ‘Welcome to Blue Skies’ sounds like Buck Owens met a mariachi band on a flight to Bakersfield from San Antonio, and the flight attendants sang backup. For obvious reasons, you can’t not picture blue skies and big, white clouds, and for that reason, it’s quite a sunny day song. I really love the way the call and response in this song echoes throughout. That’s kind of how loneliness and fear of complacency can feel sometimes; like you’re just another lost soul crying out for some peace on your journey to happiness. It helps to hear the other cries. Knowing you’re not alone can be hard to remember. It was so fun filming the video. We shot it on April 19, 2021, which you may already know, is my birthday. We had a 5 AM call time on a farm in Loganville, GA. I normally hate waking up early, especially when it’s still dark out but to know that we were about to shoot a real music video with Pouya Dianat and Beam Imagination had me so pumped. The first scene we shot that day was the first scene in the ‘Welcome to Blue Skies’ video, where me and Mud are waking up in the back of the truck. He knew getting that shot of us sitting up and the sun just started to poke out and shine on our faces was going to be the perfect way to start the whole video. It really is a gorgeous scene. I have no idea why I was sitting in the back of the truck by the way. Lol. I feel like maybe, in the video, I’m a gal that just can’t be tamed. I mean, I did punch my mean ex and fix the truck…I also really loved the scene where Kyle and I are running through the field and chasing each other around the tree and making out. We definitely all felt slightly cheesy shooting that, even though Mud and I are a couple in real life, but we knew it was going to turn out great. The whole video moves a lot and so does the song so I feel like Pouya and his crew did such an amazing job of translating that to video.”
Dianat explains “The music of Andrea & Mud profoundly influenced my direction of the love story portrayed in the two videos for ‘This Time’ and ‘Welcome to Blue Skies.’ Their melodies have a unique way of evoking a range of emotions and experiences, seamlessly transporting the listener through the ebbs and flows of life, reminiscent of the complex dynamics in a relationship. Their captivating tunes provided a vivid canvas for visualizing the journey of our star-crossed lovers. Moreover, these videos are not just love stories; they are a tribute to the changing face of America. We aimed to capture the essence of fading Americana while celebrating a new wave of troubadours shaping the country’s future. In ‘This Time,’ the setting is a quaint bar in a post-Covid, dry town, encapsulating a slice of life in contemporary America. ‘Blue Skies’ takes a different turn, filmed on the historical land of a farmer whose lineage traces back to the Revolutionary War. We infused these narratives with elements of the soulful surf western genre, enriched with a hint of mariachi, to create a tapestry that contrasts yet complements each other. As we approach America’s sesquicentennial, these stories not only recall our nation’s past but also herald the future, a future Andrea & Mud’s music beautifully encapsulates.”
Colburn’s description of the song’s sound is spot on and the result is an incredibly refreshing take on familiar country influences. The couple’s well-received 2018 debut album, ‘Easy, Sleazy & Greasy’, led to Colburn being nominated for the Ameripolitan Award’s Outlaw Female and for Outlaw Group the following year. We can now look forward to the pair’s third album, ‘Institutionalized’, which is due on 19th April 2024. Written in a dark, claustrophobic period, the new record tells the couple’s story of pandemic isolation through soulful Western ballads, honky-tonk and classic country. Now, they are helping to reinvigorate thee Atlanta Music Scene after the hardships of lockdowns. Moseley says: “We were together non-stop when we wrote this album. Now we do other things and can tour. We plan on touring as much as we can this year, and getting back into the studio as soon as possible. We need to keep up with Charlie Crocket!” Colburn continues: “We’re looking forward to touring, but we’re also here to help rebuild Atlanta’s county scene after the pandemic. Star Bar has county dance lessons. We’re packing out Honky Tonk Saturday night at Lloyd’s. We want people to know there’s good country music, and good country music in Atlanta.” Indeed, there is. Enjoy.
