Premiere: Ha Ha Tonka’s ‘Just Like That’ celebrates getting older
Ha Ha Tonka. // image courtesy the artist
Beginning with an energetically strummed mandolin and ending with soaring guitar work, Ha Ha Tonka’s “Just Like That” opens the band’s sixth album, BloodRedMoon, with a meditation on aging and loving and all of the other things which come with being a grownup.
BloodRedMoon was self-released by the band on October 20, and marks Ha Ha Tonka’s first ever self-produced and self-released record, recorded in “barns, garages, basements, hotels and Element Recording Studios,” according to frontman Brian Roberts.
To kick off the band’s tour, which starts tomorrow, November 2, we’re excited to premiere the first video off BloodRedMoon, which is for “Just Like That.”
“The primary footage was shot in Chicago at a club called Fitzgerald’s,” frontman Roberts explained via email, also mentioning that’s were Ha Ha Tonka plays their Chicagoland Thanksgiving show on Saturday, November 25. “However, a lot of the footage comes from old vids and pics from years and years on tour. We definitely want to mention the director Adam Moorman and his production company All Day Breakfast. They’re amazing to work with and did a great job.”
As to why this is the opening track for BloodRedMoon, Roberts says that the band collectively felt that “Just Like That” was a fitting opener because “It’s a good representation of a lot of the themes we have playing out throughout the whole album…plus that mando lick just rocks.”
We saw the track as a grown folks song about raising a family but it could also be about being in a band, and Robert confirms our interpretation of the tune as spot on.
“It was inspired by the passage of time, a gratefulness to be able to witness said passage & an awareness that the older one gets, the less you think about time in days, months, years and more about memories, family, kids, friends, lost loved ones, etc.,” Roberts says. “We’ve tried to convey a hopefulness too, that with age comes wisdom and when one dream ends, a new one can always still begin.”
Ha Ha Tonka’s BloodRedMoon is out now and available via the band’s website and most major streaming services. They play their 13th annual Tonka’s Giving show at RecordBar on Wednesday, November 22, with openers Miki P and the Swallowtails. Details on that show here.
