You'll be hard-pressed to find a more feel-good video than the clip for Jackie Greene's "Crazy Comes Easy," premiering exclusively below from his upcoming Modern Lives, Vol. 2 EP.
Directed by Sebastian Smith, "Crazy Comes Easy" depicts three-time cancer survivor Martha Halas as an ebullient woman in love, dancing her way through a Florida town -- including a drum circle/music therapy group -- as the song plays. Greene gives credit for the concept to Blue Rose Music managing director Meredith DiMenna, but was fully on board with the idea. "I thought it was so kooky, so not what anyone would expect from me, I was just like, 'Yeah, go for it...'" Greene, whose wife gave birth to their first child (a daughter) five months ago, tells Billboard, "It has sort of a weird little old school Disney vibe to it. I heard the idea and just started laughing. I probably wouldn't have thought of something like this, which is why it's interesting to sort of hand it off. I thought (DiMenna) did a great job. I'm super proud of it."
Greene is also confident that the clip's exuberance well reflects the song, a twangy rocker that opens the EP. "It's an upbeat, fun song," he says. "I'm not trying to be deadly serious or anything. It's just a fun rock song for me. Everything's so serous nowadays I feel good to have a kooky, lighthearted (video) out there."
Modern Lives, Vol. 2 is slated to be released during October featuring another six songs Greene wrote and recorded in the basement of the Brooklyn apartment building he resided in until last month, when he and his family moved to Sacramento, Calif. "The process was pretty much the same; I'd work on stuff in the basement, wait for the car horns to die down outside and record a vocal and just work on it a little each day," he says. "The original idea was to put it all out on one album, but it sort of wasn't finished with all the tunes on the last one, so I figured we'd put it out as two different EPs and it'll work well that way, too." The one-man recording was "arduous" but rewarding; However, Greene plans to take a more conventional approach on his next project.
"I want to go back into a proper studio and producer and make a proper, full-length record," says Greene, who also plans to compile some home recordings of blues covers and traditional songs in the near future, too. "I've started writing songs with that in mind, but I'll always make home recordings, too. It's a good outlet to be able to release stuff at my fancy. At this point of my life and career it's like, 'Why not?' I'm not really beholden to anything, so I'll continue to (record) whether it's EP form or full albums."