Nashville artist Hayden Joseph has hit back at country music’s “bro” culture with a cheerful, gay new video titled “Backwoods Candle.”
Joseph unveiled the video on August 20 as a rebuttal to the ubiquitous tropes in country music that typically focus on beer drinking, feminization, and driving in oversized trucks. Instead, Joseph imagines a group of gays frolicking around a woodland setting, sipping White Claw and getting wet by squirting on each other… with water guns, of course.
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“For obvious reasons, I’ll never be able to write about this model and feel remotely authentic,” the 27-year-old gay singer told HuffPost. “As a form of subtle protest, we created a song that fits the stereotypes of country music, but also stays true to me. And the result is a ton of fun.
For Joseph, the video also pushes back the homophobic harassment he suffered from other country artists.
“I suppressed veiled remarks for years about my appearance, my sound and my lyrical content,” Joseph recalls. “But it was, unfortunately, a situation where I couldn’t do that. I was surprised, however, that it came from an artist several years younger than me, rather than an old school cadre. I was upset for a few days but got past it. I love the result of the video, and we were able to pull it out of the final cut seamlessly. “
Joseph joins a handful of growing country (or adjacent country) artists, including Lil Nas X and TJ Osborne, who have come out as gay and are hoping this will eliminate homophobia within the genre.
Watch the video. Prepare to get wet.
