Kings of Leon Return Home In 'Back Down South'

American rock band Kings of Leon have just released a new music video for their song "Back Down South." Directed by Casey McGrath, the video intersperses footage of the band playing outside for a group of local teenagers and members of the 'Use Somebody' band fan club with short clips depicting the fans making their way to the concert. The slide guitar-driven track is the fourth single lifted from the Southern rockers' critically wayward fifth studio album "Come Around Sundown" which debuted at No.2 on Billboard Hot 200 when it was released in the U.S. last October via RCA.
Frontman Caleb Followill discussed with the NME about this gently-paced acoustic country tribute to the band's southern roots: "That song came from Matt messing around on a little lap steel. He played the melody to me and the first lyrics that came to mind were 'Come on down and dance, if you get the chance.' I think because we recorded the album in New York, we somehow rediscovered a bit of our country side, whereas if we'd been in Nashville, where you're surrounded by country music, that would've never happened But we were like, let's get a bit of fiddle on there, let's have the pizza delivery guy in the studio singing the chorus with us. We wanted it to have that kind of rootsy feel."
The four-piece southern-rock band return to a familiar refrain and pay homage to their Southern roots and wayward youths in new video. It's a chilled-out summer breeze of a song with some plaintive fiddle and the Followill brothers singing "I'm gonna go back down south now" over and over again through the chorus. As great as "Sex On Fire" and "Use Somebody" are, it's wonderful to see what these boys can do when they write songs that aim to just fill the living room rather than fill the arena. The men of Kings Of Leon traveled below the Mason-Dixon line and hit the back woods of Tennessee to capture the nostalgia and down home feel of the south.
The clip was shot in May an hour south of Nashville, it is a simple, traditional, embeddable, and perfectly captures the spirit of the song as an homage to the south lifestyle, and the warm feeling of returning home with their melancholy vocals. It features the band performing live outdoors in a rural setting in front of their fans club local teenagers. The live footage is interspersed with vignettes depicting teenagers in the American south who all converge at an outdoor party the band is hosting. Staying true to the song, the video gives a mood of celebratory, reflective and nostalgic. It's a dusty, sun-drenched look at Kings Of Leon as good-old Southern boys instead of one of the biggest rock acts in America.