Sam Hunt has released a new song, “Locked Up,” along with a new official music video for the song.
Starring Sam, his band and his beautiful wife Hannah, who was pregnant with their second child, Lowry, the clip — directed by Tim Mattia and shot at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee — has the country superstar reimagines Johnny Cash’s infamous 1968 concert at Folsom Prison.
“We found a really cool old prison in East Tennessee, and we had this idea originally to recreate the Johnny Cash Folsom Prison concert that he did back in the day and dressed up in all black, a suit, and I got a bunch of local guys to come out and dress up as inmates and had a really good time with it, sort of a period piece idea, I guess you could call it,” says Sam. “I don’t know if I did Johnny Cash justice. I doubt I did, but I enjoyed making the video and had my family out there with me and met a lot of cool folks who came out to help us with this video, so that was one of the more fun video experiences I’ve had.”
Sam co-wrote the song with Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne, Jerry Flowers and his producer Zach Crowell, and he says the tune began with a title he had. “I had that title in my phone. I wanted to write a song called ‘Locked Up,’” he says. “I had no idea about what it may be about, although I have had a few run-ins with the law in my lifetime. My producer was playing me some music, he had built some tracks and was playing through a few songs, and I was looking at my phone, and I saw the title in the songs. The music sounded like the title, which is always a good start, and I just started singing that chorus. I think I filled in, 30-40 percent of the lyric in one take.”
He is set for his performance debut of “Locked Up” at the 2024 CMT Music Awards on April 7th airing Live on CBS from the Moody Center in Austin, Texas.
Sam, who is making his way to the top of the country charts with his latest single “Outskirts,” is currently on his Outskirts 2024 Tour, which makes stops in Duluth, Minnesota today (March 22nd) and Grand Forks, North Dakota on Saturday (March 23rd).
