The Tragically Hip are back with their first single in years, along with a star-studded music video featuring some homegrown talent.
The music video for “Ouch”, produced by Revolver Films, was directed by Sara Basso and stars actor/director Jay Baruchel (“This Is The End”), his wife Rebecca-Jo Dunham-Baruchel and comedian Rick Mercer (“The Rick Mercer Report”).
Baruchuel plays a biker who rides into a roadside bar, where Mercer is the sole customer, playing cards with the bartender (Dunham-Baruchel).
For fans of the band, more than 30 Easter eggs have been hidden throughout the video, offering subtle nods to the band’s storied history.
After downing a shot of whiskey, Baruchel’s biker then points to a bottle of top-shelf Three Pistols liquor (a reference the the Hip song). When the bartender balks, he reaches into his bag and piles stacks of money atop the bar; she gives him the bottle.
After a few shots, the biker isn’t doing too well, and when he finally leaves and hops onto his chopper he’s nothing but a skeleton.
It is my absolute honour to get to be in a @thehipofficial video. Like I can't believe I even get to type that sentence. And to get to be in it with my better half @youthin_asia makes a special thing even more so. Once in a lifetime, dream come true kinda thing. https://t.co/JfJpT2IHqC
— Jay Baruchel 🇨🇦 (@BaruchelNDG) June 3, 2021
The wait is over! We hope you enjoy this film as much as we enjoyed making it for you. A special thanks to our all-Canadian cast: @BaruchelNDG , @rickmercer
and @youthin_asia.https://t.co/NJNxyiXxBg— The Tragically Hip (@thehipofficial) June 3, 2021
…& got the whole world listening. We planted easter eggs throughout the video for fans to connect with The Hip mythos. The track has a rebellious & audacious tone, which I felt required an off-beat narrative; a tongue-in-cheek thriller, contemporary, with nods to 30 years ago." pic.twitter.com/sjvcuzuJWo
— The Tragically Hip (@thehipofficial) June 3, 2021
Fans are encouraged to take to The Tragically Hip’s social media platforms to share which Easter eggs they managed to find.
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“Ouch” is the first single off the band’s recently released album Saskadelphia, featuring six previously unreleased tracks written back in 1990.
“Welcome to Saskadelphia: the record that stayed in the wings as Road Apples hit the stage. The title, a term coined by the band in a nod to the extensive touring they were doing in the early 1990s, was the original working title for Road Apples before it was rejected by those same label execs as being ‘too Canadian,’” the band explained in the announcement.