Exclusive: Here’s the new Trampled By Turtles video, starring Har Mar Superstar

Trampled By Turtles built a reputation playing expertly arranged songs that were heavily inspired by bluegrass, but the Duluth, Minnesota band has spent the past few years coloring outside those lines. The band’s upcoming album Wild Animals, out July 15, was produced by Alan Sparhawk of Low—another Duluther—and its textures and moods vary wildly. Just witness the title track, a slow, somber lament that sounds much more like Band Of Horses than Ralph Stanley. We’ve got an exclusive look at the video; it stars R&B-influenced bad boy Har Mar Superstar—though maybe he’s the more serious Sean Tillman here—as a NYC cab driver who seems to be on the edge of a breakdown. It’s definitely a different vibe for the band, and TBT fiddler Ryan Young had this to say about it when he asked him: “‘Wild Animals’ is classic Trampled By Turtles at its core, but the talents of Alan Sparhawk, engineer BJ Burton, video director Phil Harder, and Har Mar Superstar helped create something unlike anything else we’ve done before. Hopefully it is as enjoyable to watch and listen as it was to make.”