Constantly stepping up his game and setting the bar higher with each release, singer-songwriter, engineer, and rock artist Greg Hoy releases a memorable and picturesque music video for his feel-good single, "Highway 101."
Over the past year, Greg Hoy stepped into the role of a solo music career and has already received incredible attention from listeners around America. Inspired by acts like Dave Grohl and Jack White, Greg Hoy offers a soulful blend of rock merged with the soothing sounds of folk that emphasize his melodic arrangements.
Now releasing his music video for "Highway 101," the song itself offers an old-school twang that leaves any listeners captivated and engaged. As the music video touches on dear memories and enjoying a road trip's scenery and landscape, Greg Hoy can be seen grooving away in the studio with his bandmates in Minnesota.
The music video for "Highway 101" opens with a toy station wagon slowly moving through a set-up landscape while being pulled by a string. As the video transitions into scenes of Greg Hoy and his bandmates jamming to the song's upbeat and lively flair, it later moves back to the same toy car driving through vibrant scenery that reminds us of those dear road trips.
Greg Hoy mentioned that one of the backdrops is the colorful visionary of Salvation Rock in California, which further emphasizes the video's memorable and nostalgic feel. We love the playful and feel-good approach to this video, as it ends on a bright note with Greg Hoy's soulful performance while holding those sweet memories close to his heart.
Take a ride through "Highway 101" with Greg Hoy's latest music video, now available on YouTube.
Welcome to BuzzMusic, Greg Hoy. We love the feel-good and nostalgic approach you've taken with your music video for "Highway 101." What inspired the subject matter within the single itself? Here's a story within the story of the story: there's this hip group that runs The RPM Challenge (https://www.rpmchallenge.com/). Participants agree to write & record a whole album in a month. Now, back in 2010 when 'Highway 101' was originally written, I wasn't in the greatest head space personally. And as one does, I committed to some things to avoid dealing with that personal pain. Since my creative well was a bit dry, I relied on something I do I call 'BluePrince Recording'. This process involves having my mics set up & ready on my drum kit. Then I record myself just playing along to Prince songs through headphones. These skeleton drum takes to become the backbone for creating new songs. 'Highway 101' arrived out of these February RPM 2010 sessions. It's actually written around me playing drums along to Prince's 'Take Me With U'. The rest of it was me noodling to that drum take until it made sense in my brain as its own song. The lyrics are about my first trip to California when I was 14, being driven around by a beautiful older girl in a convertible, and generally feeling some feels, as Lou Gramm of Foreigner might sing, for the first time. We re-recorded it at Tiny Telephone last summer with the full band during the 'Cacophony' sessions. Some people have expressed that it's their favorite song on the LP.
How did you come up with the scenes of a toy car driving through picturesque scenery within the music video for "Highway 101?" Oh, the grand ideas I had for this video! A planned trip down Highway 101 a month or so ago had epic visions of massive drone shots, cliffside vistas, and sweeping beach tinglers. There was a plot I'd even white-boarded with a man driving to meet an online date for the first time, post-pandemia lockdown, driving in a Jeep with an iPad of her sitting next to him going to meet her. Then it rained during my trip. And like most things, it played better in my mind, anyway. So with a deadline looming, it became that little Matchbox station wagon with a string filmed in front of a green screen. But you get the idea. Did you work with any video editors when editing your music video for "Highway 101?" What was the video's process like behind the scenes? My dear musical friends from Pittsburgh, Tom Emmerling and Paul Labrise, were coming to meet me above Duluth to work on new material a few months ago. We stayed in the cabin for a week to cut the new LP. Then a friend of a friend hooked me up with a local photographer. Laura Muus, near there that came by — she shot some photos capturing our time there (https://lauramuusphotography.pixieset.com/greghoyandtheboys/) and you can see her cameo in the video with us. You could say we all shot the video since we all had our iPhones recording at once. As far as editing goes, my iMovie skills remain defiantly unchallenged and consistently unremarkable. Doing a little bit of everything is a part of the DIY aesthetic of the independent artist, I suppose. Why did you want to capture scenes of you and your band jamming away to the song within the video for "Highway 101?" Do you feel that these scenes give the video a more organic and personal feel? Songs and videos become a snapshot in time for me. Sometimes they resonate with other people, too. There's a nostalgic feel in 'Highway 101' that I haven't really explored much in my songwriting. The video's snapshots and woody walls helped augment it. Playing with friends I've had for 20 years helped, too. (After I sent Tom and Paul the video edit, I called it a '4 minute documentary about the Older, Unhipper Beastie Boys'). The timing of the single for 'Highway 101' happened to coincide with our making a brand new record for 2022. So you've got a song that's over a decade old with an audio recording of me & my San Francisco rhythm section - Jason Slota on drums and Ian Miller on bass - that's about a highway in California and accompanied by a video filmed in Cook County, Minnesota, featuring musicians that have never performed it before. This all makes sense to me. What's next for you? My guitars and amps are being fine-tuned by some nice fellas in the Bay area of northern California. The band is rehearsing to tour 20 or so cities in the US on the 'Move Along' tour in August & September. There are 15 or so new songs in various stages of completion ready for 2022. One album is the 10 we recorded up at the cabin in Minnesota - it's a concept record about the first couple / Adam & Eve on Mars tentatively titled 'Mars Mellow.' The other is my 'classic' Van Halen tribute EP — not covers of their songs, mind you, but a group of songs inspired by Eddie Van Halen's songwriting. And assuming the avoidance of another cultural catastrophe for a few years, expect more shows, videos, albums, and witty interviews like this one.