Koe Wetzel Weaves Between Grief and Closure in ‘Drunk Driving’ Music Video [Watch]
Koe Wetzel sets his somber fan favorite, "Drunk Driving," to dark and haunting visuals in the song's new music video, shot in Nashville and directed by Patrick Tohill.
The clip follows Wetzel through a period of emotional tumult and grief: He sits in a diner booth across from a woman who does not appear to see him, rides shotgun in her car at night and strolls the streets alone, only to wind up in a church where we see the woman reading a letter he's written to her, complete with the lyrics of the song.
"I don't wanna leave you lonely, but I've got to / 'Cause it's only the things I need to prove / To you and everybody else / That scares me so damn much," Wetzel sings in the song's first verse. "I can't take it, I'm not strong / It's probably best that I move on / Get outta here, fade away ..."
"Drunk Driving" comes off Wetzel's newest studio album, Sellout, which arrived in 2020 and highlights his genre-bending blend of rock stylings and dark, haunting country storytelling. The latest clip follows the release of a music video for the decidedly more optimistic "Good Die Young," which came out back in February.
Since then, Wetzel has teamed up with rising country hitmaker Hardy for a short run of acoustic shows through Texas. While the pairing between Wetzel — an independent artist out of Texas — and the Mississippi-born songwriter-turned-performer who cut his teeth in Music City collaborating with the likes of Florida Georgia Line might seem unlikely at first glance, Hardy explained to The Boot in mid-2021 that they became friends after connecting on social media.
"We kind of realized that he and I are the Nashville -- and Texas -- version of each other, in our music — like, maybe not a similar aesthetic, but while he's identified as a Texas country artist, he sounds like a rock 'n' roll artist. And I think I'm very similar to that, in the Nashville format," Hardy points out. "Over the course of that run on the road, we realized we had a lot in common ... It all started on Instagram, and he's the coolest guy ever."
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