Most people don’t expect to open their garage and find a homeless man taking up residence there overnight. And they certainly don’t expect that man to be Dave Matthews.
But that’s what happens in the video for “Hey Man,” premiering exclusively on Billboard today (March 6) from Danny Barnes’ new album Man On Fire, which was executive produced by Matthews. In the poignant clip — directed by Dave Matthews Band video director and lighting designer Fenton Williams — Barnes discovers the well-disguised Matthews, who flees back to the streets for some truly heart-wrenching scenarios. The video does, however, have a decidedly sweet ending.
“Matthews] and I were thinking that we ought to do a video, and he’s such a good actor,” Barnes, who wrote the song after hearing about a similar real-life situation, tells Billboard. “Dave’s really great with facial expressions and stuff like that. I thought it would be cool to do and he got all his people involved and it turned out really great. I love the way they treated the color palette and the editing and made it kind of herky-jerky. I think it’s really brilliant. It’s a really interesting story.”
The banjoist and former Bad Livers member says Matthews was hands-on with Man On Fire, which is also out today on Matthews’ ATO Records label. “He was there in the studio] when he could be, ’cause he stays pretty busy, but we sent him a lot of stuff and he was in constant contact about everything with the record — all the graphics, everything,” says Barnes who, like Matthews, resides in Seattle. Matthews sings and plays piano on Man On Fire, and Barnes was also joined by Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones on bass and mandolin, Bill Frisell on guitar and Matt Chamberlain on drums.
“I’m lucky to have guys like Matthews] and Frisell and those guys,” Barnes says. “They care about my work and then try to help me pick the good stuff and make sure we get the right tunes. It means a lot to have access to people who have super-discerning ears and are also close buddies of mine. They’re all super brilliant cats. I’m not a legend myself, but I get to work with some, so I’m blessed.”
Barnes will be touring mostly solo, per usual, to support Man On Fire starting March 13. Logistics and finances make it nearly impossible to do a band tour, particularly with the band that plays on the album, but he enjoys the intimacy that he achieves as a one-man act on the road.
“A lot of my poetry is about being stuck in that moment where you don’t really know what you’re gonna do. It deals a lot with someone trying to find dignity as a poor person and this collision of the old and the new — and that really resonates when I’m playing by myself, I think,” Barnes, who’s also part of David Grisman’s Dawg Trio, says. “I have a small audience that comes, and they pretty much buy all my records and stuff. It’s a good scene. There’s a real kind of connection there.”
The video for “Hey Man” is below.
