Michael Gaither

It really did start with a trip to Boise. Last year I went to Idaho to gather with a group of other songwriters at a retreat. Me and my pal Glenn MacPherson flew out a day early with a stopover in Boise. We left San Jose, landed in Boise, and were nicely struck by how quiet it was and polite the people were. One attendant even walked Glenn’s full-size guitar out to him, so it “wouldn’t get damaged on the conveyor belt”. I said, “Dude, people here are really nice.” Glenn said, “Yeah. I feel like we’re regrouping with the remains of humanity up in the mountains after some horrible disaster.”

I said – because this is where my mind goes – “Yeah, like the zombie apocalypse”. That night, we wrote “Moving to Boise”. (When you get an obvious bit of inspiration like that, you run with it.) We wrote the lyrics together, and Glenn played it as a traditional blues tune with a bottleneck slide. I kept playing it long after the retreat and eventually moved the song to my banjo – also with a slide. It’s a weird, fun song. This just made it weirder and funner.

I’ve recorded the song as a solo piece for my new record, “Hey Karma”. The record should drop in January, but I wanted to finish this as a preview track, especially with Halloween just a few weeks away. The song needed sound effects (“zombie footsteps”), and as I was walking around recording my shuffling boots at a nearby property, I saw this old shed and thought…wait…video!

I immediately snapped and sent photos of the place to my pal Richard Newman of Newman Video Works. He’s done several pieces for me, including my “Highway 17” video. Richard loved the location, the song, and we quickly discovered I have many friends that love to play zombies. They play them VERY well, almost too well, in fact. When the zombie apocalypse does hit, I’m leaving town.

So what’s the song about? You tell me. The story is about zombies. It’s also a metaphor for leaving a bad place behind. If you watch the video closely, however, it’s just a lesson that zombies hate banjos.