Chris Mills has been on a journey. One that has lead the singer-songwriter to one of the most deeply personal records of his career, 2014’s stellar Alexandria. And in the haunting new video for one of the album’s finest tracks “Wild Places”, he explores that in great depth with stunning, epic visuals shot in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree National Park and directed and conceived by Peter Alton.
The song confronts the idea of feeling untethered when you’re trying to stay grounded to your roots. It touches on the importance of finding, losing and returning to yourself, and finally, feeling at home with yourself. As men in animal heads wander across dry, cracked earth, under bridges and on highways, stumbling and falling and treading treacherous ground, Mills plays his song at a desert campfire, looking the part of a lost wanderer himself. “I have wandered in the wild places/I have brought a message back for you/Hold onto the ones that love you/to your heart always be true,” he sings. Mills’ powerful, pain-inflected vocals go hand-in-hand with the world-weary wisdom he imparts in his lyrics. He’s seen and experienced things, but nothing comes close to your own personal context. The video’s gritty sense of loneliness and solitude conveys that beautifully.
Alton says of the video, “I always found the song to be loaded with regret. There’s love too, but to me it always sounded like the song’s lessons were learned too late. To me, that translates well to the struggles of animal hobos.”
The final shot of the video finds these “animal hobos’” journeys intersecting, and one removes his animal mask to reveal his true self. It’s a subtle, but moving touch. “I think Peter got to the heart of the song,” says Mills. “It’s about living a sort of lost, otherworldly life, and finding some comfort in the lessons that you’ve learned.”
He continues, “We all feel a bit weird and out of place, but if you’re lucky, you eventually get to know who you really are. And hopefully, you stay true to that, and to the people who love that genuine part of you. I think having all these weird animals wandering across these landscapes and eventually coming together really mirrors how people feel sometimes when they’re able to find comfort in their shared otherness.”
Alexandria is available now at www.chrismillsmusic.com.