Danny Golden has a good night to be bad in the video for “Hangover,” premiering exclusively below in front of the release of his new album, Old Love.
“The song came from a pretty organic place of waking up one morning feeling the pain of the hangover and just kind of writing about it,” the Austin-by-way-of-Pittsburgh singer — who drinks at a house party, snorts with aliens in a tent and winds up staring down a disgusted girlfriend in the video — tells Billboard. “It’s a simple song. It’s about the party getting out of hand, and the music video is a farcical taken on it.” Despite that, Golden has found “Hangover” resonating with audiences more than he expected.
“I’ve been doing that one live and after shows people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, man, that one hit close to home. It was a little too real,'” Golden says. “The song is really about my kind of fascination with people’s relationships with substances. I have so much empathy for people who go through that struggle. I think a lot of times addictions and things like that can be met with a lot of judgment, but I really see the humanity in that sort of endless cycle of self-loathing and self-medication that comes with it.”
Trending on Billboard
Golden isn’t drawing from personal experience, however. “I’ve never had serious problems with any of that stuff,” he says, “but I have a lot of friends who have, and I found them very inspiring. The more you learn about the disease of addiction the more empathy you have for people who go through it. Being in Austin and being surrounded by musicians all the time, I’ve found a lot of people I’m close to have stories about addiction and recovery.”
Old Love marks Golden’s second album, following a self-released debut in 2016. Due out Nov. 2, Golden recorded Old Love in Austin with members of Black Pumas, White Denim, Glorietta, the Golden Dawn Arkestra and other groups. “I wasn’t really in a rush out make a record or anything,” Golden says. “I was just kind of gigging around and was really inspired by the relationship I was in to start writing, kind of exploring the ups and downs of that. But I’m really proud of this one.” And Golden feels confident that the album will be something of a launch pad for his fledgling career.
“Yeah, this really feels like a moment of kind of knocking on the door of the real deal,” he says. “This is a record I think people will be interested to really connect with. It really feels like a big leap forward for me as an artist and a professional musician.”