Weighing in at about two and a half minutes, Okey Dokey’s video for its new single “When They Get Older” is “a wacky video with all our friends in it,” according to group’s Johny Fisher.
The clip, premiering exclusively below and directed by Casey Pierce, accompanies a track from the Nashville duo’s upcoming sophomore album Tell All Your Friend. The song features Rayland Baxter on vocals and Cage the Elephant’s Nick Bockrath on guitar. And that’s Bockrath’s fiancée, Nashville artist Katie Schecter, starring as the woman in the chaise lounge, relaxing as a secret dance party swirls around her. “She’s far more photogenic than any of us guys” Fisher tells Billboard. “It’s hard for me to look at myself on camera and be pumped about it. So we were like, ‘We have to call Katie, she’ll look great and everybody will be happy.'”
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The remaining “background dancers” cast of “When They Get Older” features Okey Dokey musical friends from around Nashville who Fisher says are “just a bunch of people, young and unheard of, a bunch of different bands we love. When we get a chance we just grab ’em and throw them into stuff. Even if they’re our age and peers, we’re still jealous of some of their natural ability.”
That community spirit is reflected throughout Tell All Your Friend, which comes out March 29. Besides Baxter and Bockrath, the 12-song set — filled with psychedelic flavors and pop noir textures that Fisher credits to keyboardist/engineer Jeremy Clark — features more musical friends, including Liz Cooper and string players who have worked with Cage the Elephant. “Our whole mantra is collaboration,” says Fisher, who formed Okey Dokey with singer Aaron (Ron) Martin. I think the dream for us is we want everyone in our community to feel included. I think a lot of times people tend to only care about their own group because they’re worried it won’t work or someone won’t give them the credit they deserve. If you try to include everybody and don’t leave anybody out, then everyone may gravitate to you or feel less threatened because you are including everybody. We want everybody to feel like Okey Dokey is a band for everybody. If we know you, we want you to be part of it.”
And the fact that Tell All Your Friend sounds cohesive, Fisher adds, is a bit of plain dumb luck. “It’s a little more of a high production than our first album (in 2017) with really bad sounds — if that makes sense,” he explains. “We pride ourselves on sounding like we don’t know what we’re doing, and then we throw it through a filter and it turns out alright.”