WATCH: Jake McKelvie Shares Video for “Pump Fake”

New solo album, A New Kind of Hat, out July 26th

June 18, 2024June 18, 2024 Ron Hart 0 Comments 2024, A New Kind of Hat, Jake McKelvie, Massachusetts, Pump Fake, Rhinestone Busboy, The Countertops

The strangest game of backyard football ever filmed serves as the backdrop of the video for “Pump Fake,” the new single from Massachusetts songsmith Jake McKelvie.

“For the video I wanted to do something a little bit silly with the hint of a plot but nothing too heavy handed,” he tells Rock & Roll Globe of the clip, which can be seen below. “The idea is like if Rod Serling wrote Little Giants and Wes Anderson’s cousin directed it — which is a pretty obnoxious thing to say but those are the points of reference, more or less. My friend Eric Walker directed it and did a bang-up job because that’s the only kind he knows how to do, and my funny friends did funny things while I furrowed my brow.”

As for the song itself, which appears on McKelvie’s brand new solo LP A New Kind of Hat, the frontman for The Countertops admits he’s been saving this one in his back pocket for a number of years before finding the right home for it.

Jake McKelvie A New Kind of Hat, self-released 2024

“This is a song that has kicked around for a while,” he explains. “One of those old, new songs that eventually stays around long enough to be considered an actual song whether I like it or not. It’s not so much an overcoming the odds song but it’s a song about doing something anyway in spite of the odds, I guess.”

Written over the years in various apartments and tour vans trekking along the northeast, McKelvie turned to Grain Thief’s Mike Harmon and his studio Wachusett Recording to cut the record. In addition to McKelvie, the album features appearances by Michael Holland on bass, and Countertops drummer Matt Bacon. Keith Dusoe makes a cameo on pedal steel. It was mixed by Harmon and Roger Lavallee. The record was mastered by Matthew Barnhart at Chicago Mastering Service.

“The Countertops are known for energetic live shows and goofy stage antics, whereas as a solo act I do more of the folk singer thing” he says about Hat, the follow-up to his 2016 solo debut Rhinestone Busboy. “This new record floats somewhere in between those two things.” A New Kind of Hat comes out on July 26th.

Pre-order the LP here.