Photo Credit: Owen Ela
Cage The Elephant have released the video for their latest single, “Mess Around.” The single is the first off of their upcoming album, titled Tell Me I’m Pretty. The video features snippets from George Melies’ Lobster Films Collection.
According to Loudwire, the band parted ways with longtime producer Jay Joyce for this album, and have begun to work with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. In an interview with Consequence of Sound, Matt Schultz shared where the inspiration for this song came from. He states:
Brad [Shultz] was listening to a lot of Jay Reatard at the time and was inspired by the riffs that Jay was so incredible at writing. We had already recorded a majority of the record and took small breaks from the studio with Dan [Auerbach] and went and demoed some new tracks. ‘Mess Around’ almost didn’t make the record — Brad was unconvinced that it fit. And I overheard him playing the riff and got really excited, and then convinced Brad to pursue it as a song.
A couple years ago I saw OutKast doing their festival circuit. Andre 3000’s delivery and his sense of melody was inspiring to me. I was wondering if there was a way to create an alternative song with a similar kind of energy, marrying that with a Byrds or a Creedence Clearwater Revival stylistic color. We recorded it in one day and brought it into the studio. Dan got very excited about it — he actually did the solo that’s on that track. It just happened really fast.
You can definitely hear the resemblance in this track and OutKast’s music, but Cage The Elephant delivers a unique spin with their own energy infused.
The album, Tell Me I’m Pretty, is due to be released on December 18th. In the meantime, be sure to watch the video for the album’s debut single, “Mess Around” below.
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