Caylee Hammack Rocks ‘Just Friends’ Video With Everclear Front Man
She got '90s alt-rocker Art Alexis to co-star!
Caylee Hammack channels one of her alternative-rock heroes in the new video for “Just Friends,” and even gets him to co-star in the clip as well.
Directed by Justin Clough and paying homage to one of Hammack’s early musical favorites — the ’90s alt-rockers Everclear — it finds the country star acting out a fantasy with none other than the band’s front man, Art Alexis. Everclear became famous for chart-topping singles like “Everything to Everyone” and “I Will Buy You a New Life,” and Hammack’s “Just Friends” feels like a creative descendant of those edgy romantics. It’s a rowdy rocker with fuzzed-out guitars and plenty of attitude, as Hammack sings of a relationship restart that never should have happened. But her video goes even further.
Borrowing elements of Everclear’s original clip for “I Will Buy You a New Life” — with Hammack and her band dressed in crisp business suits and arranged in a diamond formation — she lets her inner rock star free and destroys a green room, before ultimately taking over her own talent audition.
“When I was in the writing room and studio working on my debut album, I got to sneak lyrical and sonic Easter eggs throughout the record to pay homage to the legends who have shaped me and my music,” Hammack says about the video. “Considering ‘Just Friends’ partly came from a Everclear binge during a breakup, I dreamt that Art Alexakis could star as an Easter egg, mystery character in the music video. ‘I Will Buy You a New Life’ was one of the first songs and music videos that stuck in my head as a kid. I knew I had to reference that in someway. Then the idea popped in my head to just ask his number of a mutual friend and call him. I’m glad I did. He is a wonderful creator and even better human.”
“You should’ve never come over / You should’ve left early and kept your hands to yourself / You knew better, you should’ve never promised me bliss / If you couldn’t keep it, we should’ve stayed just friends / Just friends,” goes the sneering chorus.
The video comes as Caylee Hammack is riding a hot streak that has her career heating up. She won an ACM award for Music Event of the Year this year with her “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” collab with Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris, Ashley McBryde, Tenille Townes and Elle King, and released her debut record, If It Wasn’t for You, in August. “Just Friends” follows the loving laughs of “Family Tree” from 2019.
