Image: Supplied.
Rock n roll cowboy Sam Brittain is back with another glistening track, Hitchhiker. The evocative track brings all that rock 'n' roll nostalgic goodness, paired with modern sensibilities that add a uniquely Australian finesse.
Inspired by encounter with a hitchhiker on the train across the Nullarbor Plain, Brittain shares: “A few years ago I was travelling east across Australia by train when we screeched to a halt in the middle of nowhere, a few hours out of Perth. The reason for our stoppage was that a passing train had spotted a stowaway on the motorail car. We pulled into Kalgoorlie station and the man was arrested by police. Apparently he simply pleaded not to be sent back to Perth. The man’s actions seemed extreme – it made me wonder what drove him to such desperate measures? What was he running from? The song was born from exploring that feeling of desperation, the fear, and inescapable self loathing.”
The release arrives alongside an official visual, created in collaboration with Mickey Manson (Maya Cumming, Hachiku). Serving as an ode to the cult-classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the 70's inspired visual is a saturated and vibrant mirage, with Brittain being chased across the dessert. “I wanted to create the same feeling of being chased across the desert by your own demons that I imagine the man who got arrested on that train must have felt." Brittain shares. "But instead of Johnny Depp and Beneci Del Toro’s characters seeing hallucinations of bats in the sky, we are seeing visions of our hitchhiker - played wonderfully by our drummer Matt Birkin – as many different characters throughout the video’s storyline – from wanderer to gas station attendant, to traffic cop to prisoner to himself.”
Hitchhiker is out now! Watch the visual below.