The country superstar heads to Maui with his band for a wildly colorful video built on custom suits, iconic locations and pure, unfiltered fun.
Kenny Chesney heard “Goldfish” and knew almost immediately: this was not a song you hear every day. Written by double GRAMMY winner Tia Sillers, two-time JUNO Award winner Tenille Townes and ACM/CMA Award winner Gordie Sampson, the song takes heartbreak and turns it into something wonderfully weird, witty and wildly entertaining. Its tumbling metaphors, old-school wordplay and lavish Hawaiian steel guitar practically demanded a video that refused to take itself too seriously. So Chesney took it to Maui.
Fresh from his historic second residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere, Chesney flew straight to Hawaii with his band to shoot a visual celebration of the song’s freewheeling spirit. The result is shaping up as part music video, part tropical postcard and part gloriously chaotic road trip.
Behind the scenes of Kenny Chesney’s “Goldfish” official music video. | Photo Credit: Allister Ann
The crew headed upcountry to the Rodeo General Store, along the Hana Highway to Ku’au Bay and to the legendary Mama’s Fish House, capturing the island at its most colorful and cinematic. Hula dancers, breaking waves, golden sunsets, sunrises and plenty of straight-to-camera swagger fill the frame. Chesney and his band turned up in custom Western looks inspired by a particularly flamboyant era of country music, giving the video an unmistakably retro personality. When guitarist Kenny Greenberg couldn’t make the trip, the band improvised—literally bringing along a cardboard cutout of Greenberg and dragging him through the adventure. Because “Goldfish” is supposed to be fun. “To hear something so creative, something that breaks all the rules and brings back that classic old school wordplay, you want a video that’s just as much fun,” Chesney says.
The song itself is built around a contradiction: a man drowning in heartache while describing his misery with an almost absurd lightness. He’s “drunk as a skunk,” but the song never sinks into self-pity.“How do you capture that?” Chesney asks. His answer was simple: don’t overthink it. “And that’s why we decided to do something really carefree, really innocent and just show the spirit of this band, kicking back and having fun together,” he says. That chemistry is a big part of what Chesney and longtime collaborator Shaun Silva are working to preserve in the edit. Rather than creating a traditional narrative, the video embraces the song’s sense of movement, a visual ramble through Hawaii where the locations, the clothes and the personalities become part of the story.
As Chesney puts it, “To have as much pure fun as we did shooting this, seeing the video coming together and really nailing the vibe and energy we had is pretty cool.” It also fits neatly into Chesney’s history with the music-video format. From the good-time energy of “When the Sun Goes Down” with Uncle Kracker and the freewheeling “American Kids” to the soulful “Spread The Love” with The Wailers, the boardwalk nostalgia of “Anything But Mine,” the breathtaking “Wild Child” and “You and Tequila” with Grace Potter, Chesney has repeatedly used visuals to expand the emotional world of his songs. “The Boys of Fall” took that idea somewhere even bigger, turning memory and community into a cinematic anthem.
With “Goldfish,” he’s going somewhere brighter, and considerably more mischievous. The video arrives as Chesney prepares for the September 25 release of Silver Sands Marina, following the August 28 release of “Goldfish” as a grat track. And if the finished visual matches the spirit of the shoot, expect less conventional country music video and more Technicolor Hawaiian fever dream with a killer band, great suits and absolutely no interest in standing still. “To me, video should make the song more, take you places and make you feel something even deeper,” Chesney says. “It’s a chance to take people places they might not get to go, but you always want to make sure you leave plenty of room for their own stories, their own feelings…” Then comes the real mission statement: “Kick open their imagination, and let the song fly.” Go check it out now!