Filmed on location at Abbotsford’s Lulie Tavern on one sweaty September evening, Ben Mastwyk’s ‘Country Club Cousins’ celebrates Melbourne’s alt-country music scene and the colourful folk that inhabit it.
Shot and directed by Stuart Mannion who worked with Mastwyk on his last three videos, ‘Country Club Cousins’ captures the rapturous mayhem that Mastwyk & His Millions have come to expect at their shows.
The camera guides us into the dark club where Mastwyk and his flashy cast of Millions (Mitch Power, Katie Bate, Patrick Wilson, Michael Hubbard, Dan Brodie, Tom Brooks) shimmy and shake as an adoring crowd of cowboy-hatted punters twirl each other round, dance on tables and generally misbehave.
The clip concludes with the band huddled in the gritty bathroom before we’re pushed out and the voyeuristic journey is brought to an end.
Country Club Cousins, produced by Michael Hubbard at the Shrimp Shack, is the first single off Mastwyk’s forthcoming fourth studio album, and is an ode to country music and the wild and wonderful people that gather around it. The misfits. The outsiders. Those with a little twang in their hearts. As a life-long urban cowboy Mastwyk has watched country music weave its way through the pop culture zeitgeist.
“It seems to me that country music comes in and out of trend every 15 years or so and appears to be on an upward swing again right now. More and more bars and venues around Melbourne are looking to country music to draw a crowd and western wear is back in fashion. Melbourne has always had a smattering of cowboys, but these days there are a lot more hats around town. As someone who has been into country music from a young age, I find this comforting and as a musician playing country music, it’s really exciting because the audiences are growing. This is my ode to all the western-wearing big-buckled two-steppin’, twang-lovin’ cowfolk: my Country Club Cousins,” says Mastwyk.