Keith Urban had to go to some pretty extreme measures to film his new “Out the Cage” video with rising country trap star Breland and funk icon Nile Rodgers. The country superstar was forced to get creative to film their scenes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Urban and Breland filmed their joint scenes in Sydney, Australia, where local lockdown rules dictated that they had to quarantine for two weeks prior to shooting. They filmed their scenes in a room that’s filled with lights and smoke, with Urban switching between guitar and ganjo in the energetic video.
Rodgers filmed his parts separately in Connecticut, and he was thrilled at the chance to work with Urban.
“I get a phone call from Keith — and he’s my bro — so of course I jumped on the call,” Rodgers shares in a press release. ”He says, ‘Hey Nile, I got this song that I’m working on, can I send it to you?’ I listened for about 5 minutes.”
After that, Urban adds, “He called me 10 minutes later and said, ‘Yo brother, this song is sick.'”
The song is one of four that Urban wrote during his downtime from the coronavirus, and yearning for freedom is its central theme.
“I really wanted this to speak to liberation of all sorts,” Urban states, “even if somebody in a dead-end job, somebody stuck in a relationship that’s going nowhere or someone who’s imprisoned in their own mind.”
“Out the Cage” appears on Urban’s most recent album, The Speed of Now Part 1.
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