Indie-folk singer-songwriter Austin Basham is gearing up to release his debut full-length album, You And Me For Now, on July 27th. In advance of the release, he is premiering the track “Elephants” here at The Big Takeover, along with the DIY video he made for it with no label funding and just the help of his friends.

After graduating with an engineering degree from UT, the Texan-native decided to put a traditional career on hold to pursue his lifelong passion of music. A chance online encounter with an international producer then led him to spend his mid-twenties traveling the globe writing and recording.

The songs on the record were shaped by his experiences navigating foreign towns, long distance relationships and the ups and downs that come with leaving everything you know behind. Basham relates, “The scenery in Norway alone is inspiration enough to write an album, but better than the scenery are the people,” It’s often hard to differentiate between the stories that are his and the stories he tells. In addition to Oslo, Norway, Linton, UK had the next biggest impact on Basham. In 2016, he even titled his self-released EP, the Linton // Oslo EP after the two small cities. The single “All Is Well” from that first release became a viral hit, led to his signing with Nettwerk, and currently has over 44 million plays on Spotify alone. The song will also be featured on You And Me For Now.

As for the vintage-looking video, Basham details the backstory behind the footage he used, explaining, “This music video was shot with some friends at Inks Lake, outside of Austin, Texas several years ago. We didn’t end up using it for whatever reason, so it just sat in storage for years. I had actually completely forgotten about the footage until I started thinking of video ideas for “Elephants” and I suddenly remembered. Honestly, I decided to cut and edit it myself because I thought it would be the most efficient way, but ended up really enjoying the process.”

Basham concludes, “To me, the song is more metaphorical than literal. Its about people’s endless search for meaning and truth. To feel something. Yet, so often we veer away from this noble path and instead, we tend to have an affinity towards exploiting things (or people) and destroying them in the process. “Elephants” urges us to acknowledge and appreciate all of the innate good around us, rather than constantly searching for ways to use and benefit from it.”

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