Jamey Johnson releases his much-anticipated debut Warner Music Nashville album, Midnight Gasoline, today, marking his first new solo studio album in 14 years.
Also today, CMT debuts the video for “Someday When I’m Old” across its platforms, including CMT, CMT Music and CMT Equal Play, as well as the Paramount Times Square Billboard.
LISTEN TO MIDNIGHT GASOLINE HERE
WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR “SOMEDAY WHEN I’M OLD” HERE
Johnson, who served as the video’s executive producer, developed the concept for the cutting-edge video that depicts him giving advice to his younger self. Joel Robertson directed the video that was shot in Nashville.
“The idea behind the video is if I could go back and meet the younger version of me, what would I say?” Johnson says. “Or would I?”
The video uses a mixture of AI technology and post-editing effects to feature Johnson both as a young man and as he is today. Johnson supplied about 30 photos of himself as a young man that were digitized and processed through AI software to “de-age” Johnson. This visual was placed over a “stand-in actor” in the video and blended seamlessly with post-editing effects.
The video features many aspects of Jamey’s real life, such as his beloved guitar, Ole Maple, the 1986 Dodge truck he owned when driving to Nashville for the first time and the clothes he wore in the music video for “The Dollar” (which are worn by the “young” Johnson). The photos featured in both wallets are Jamey’s photos of his daughter.
In the video as in real life, the young Johnson has his truck towed near a club he was playing in downtown Nashville.
“The first line in the song says, ‘Someday when I’m old, I’ll pull up to the store and park wherever the hell I want to.’ That makes me think of the time when I was young and had first moved to Nashville,” he says. “I parked my old ‘86 Dodge out in front of Tootsie’s and went in and played.”
But the next time he parked near Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, his truck was towed. “I liked the idea of this version of me telling that younger version of me that someday when I’m old, I’ll get to park wherever the hell I want to,” he says.
“I like the part where it says, ‘I realize that some things just don’t matter and how fast it all goes.’ If I could go back and bullet point that, I would try to give myself that message. It goes fast. It goes so fast.”
Today is also the release date of Midnight Gasoline, his first solo studio album in 14 years that is a collaboration with his label, Big Gassed Records, and Warner Music Nashville. It is also the first of his Cash Cabin Series, which is a collection of albums recorded at the famed studio in Hendersonville, TN, that was owned by Johnny and June Carter Cash and is now owned by their son, John Carter Cash.
Midnight Gasoline, known as Cash One, is a musical continuation of his last two solo studio albums, That Lonesome Song, which was certified platinum for 2 million in sales, and the gold-certified 2010 album, The Guitar Song, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Album Chart. Rolling Stone and Spin named The Guitar Song to their all-genre Top 5 Best Albums of the Year. (He also released a 2012 duets project, the GRAMMY-nominated Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran, and a Christmas EP.)
Johnson’s co-writers on this album include Jim “Moose” Brown, Dallas Davidson, Ira Dean, Dale Dodson, Rob Hatch, Randy Houser, Ajay Popoff, Jeremy Popoff, James Slater, Ernest Keith Smith, Chris Stapleton and Tony Jo White. Other songs were written by Dean Dillon, Scotty Emerick, Kyle Fishman, Jeff Hyde, Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo and Troy Verges.
The album also contains “21 Guns,” “What a View,” “Trudy,” “Sober” and “Saturday Night in New Orleans,” all of which were released during the last few months.
