Chris Housman Has ‘High Hopes’ Amidst Troubling Times (Exclusive Music Video Premiere)

Emerging country music star Chris Housman — whose song “Guilty as Sin” has been a big hit with listeners — recently dropped his debut album, Blueneck, and now he’s giving fans a brand new music video for the album’s lead track, “High Hopes,” and PopCulture.com has the exclusive premiere! 

The musical clip begins with Housman reading “The Troubling Times” newspaper, while a voice warns of “Marshall Law” being enacted in the nation. Rather than let the doom and gloom get him down, Housman and his band head off to a carousel for some fun. In addition to the music video premiere, PopCulture had an opportunity to chat with Housman and get all the behind-the-scenes details about “High Hopes” and it’s accompanying clip. Check it all out below!

On Writing “High Hopes”

I’ve had that idea for a long time and I brought it into a couple writing sessions that people just weren’t as excited about it as I was… But anyway, kind of accidentally wrote this one.

I went in with my producer to record a different song on the album. Well, that’s what I thought we were doing, went in what I was thinking to record “The Dog”, and next thing I know we’re talking about needing a high energy song on the album, or he was just like, “Oh, I wish there was a really high energy song on this album.” As we’re wrapping it up. And I was like, “Well, I’ve got this idea that I’ve had for years. I don’t know if you’re down.” And next thing I knew, we wrote this song, High Hopes. And honestly though too, we were just having a conversation. It was so easy to write because we were just kind having a conversation. Anymore, it just feels like there’s a new catastrophe every day.

But at the same time, I have all this exciting stuff going on and it can feel like daunting and it can weigh on you when you let the stuff going on in the world bring you down. And I’m definitely not trying to say like, “Oh yeah, just ignore that stuff.” By any means. But the one thing that all this crazy stuff going on can’t do today, is take away your hopes for a better tomorrow. So that’s really where the idea, and it felt very, again, still just very personal because I take all that stuff to heart, but you got to press on. And that’s kind what this song is. So we needed it to be high energy. Of course, then it has the high, I love a play on words too.

We’ve got a little play on words with that. Whatever it takes, a coping mechanism to get you through the day.

On the “High Hopes” Music Video

“This music video…which I’m so excited to be premiering with Pop Culture, that was just a really fun idea that honestly, the producer, and co-writer, and I had the idea. We were just talking about how, “Oh, I wish I could just be on a horse, just walking.” The horse doesn’t need to be running, just sitting, in a Western attire or something…. like, “Dang, that’d be awesome.” Then he threw out the idea of, “Oh, what if you were on a carousel?” They were like, “Yeah, let’s find a carousel.”

It’s really fun, that was one of my favorite music days ever trying to dance around and sing, and we took the band that’s actually playing on the song and they’re on the carousel, it was just so fun. Yeah.

Finding The Perfect Carousel

That was a really hard thing to find actually, because I took that to my manager and video and photographer director Ford Fairchild, and he took that idea to his producer who, she can just find everything, Rebecca Adler. Turns out, there’s four carousels that are operating in the state of Tennessee.

We found this one in Chattanooga, a hundred-year-old carousel in a state park right there in the middle of downtown Chattanooga. But we couldn’t do it during their opening hours because there’s kids riding it and stuff. So we had to film between 7:00 and 9:00 AM which was hard to be chipper and stuff that early. Or at least for me. But we found a way.

It was so fun. I love that there’s a random frog and there’s an ostrich with an American Uncle Sam hat thing, it was so fun. It was really one guy that has passed, I believe, but he handmade all of those, every part of the carousel. So, it’s a really cool story behind that and stuff too, so it was nice to highlight that as well.

Click here to check out Chris Housman’s website, which offers links to his music, merch, tour dates, and social media sites. Stay tuned to PopCulture for more of our exclusive interview with Housman!