See Ty Herndon’s Joyful ‘That Kind of Night’ Video
Ty Herndon will release his new album House on Fire on November 11th, marking his first new music since publicly coming out as a gay man in November 2014. The “What Mattered Most” singer is leading the collection off with the single “That Kind of Night,” the video for which is available above.
The first sound on the track is Herndon’s voice, still powerful some 20 years after his first series of hits in the Nineties. He envisions one of those unhurried nights where everything seems to fall into place, and the contemporary production conjures open blacktop stretching out ahead. “It’s a roll down your windows, ‘Night Moves’ on the radio, kind of night,” he sings in the first verse. Herndon didn’t write the song, but felt like it was the perfect choice to lead off House on Fire.
“You can hear the passion in my voice: ‘I am here to sing for you people. I want to sing for you and this is what I’m gonna do,'” explains Herndon. “Then that loop starts – that very thing that I didn’t want, that I fell in love with – and you’re off on a journey with that song. We wrestled with all kind of different ideas and I was like ‘Guys, this is just a guitar on the back porch, singing with a couple buddies.”
The video stays true to that idea, featuring Herndon and guitarist Travis Howard in a front porch-like setting, performing the song. The clip was shot in Los Angeles and is the first of five videos that he filmed ahead of the House on Fire release.
“We filmed in Chinatown, in the back of this really cool studio,” says Herndon. “We hauled all the cameras out there and everybody just had fun. Because the music’s really loud when you’re making a video, you notice if the camera man’s tapping his toe, they’re probably loving the music.”
Herndon co-produced House on Fire with Erik Halbig (along with Drew Davis on six tracks) and aimed to put forth a newfound vulnerability and honesty. Nestled in with the lighter numbers like “That Kind of Night” and “If You” are tracks like “House on Fire” that address Herndon’s inner struggles over the last few years. It’s a new look, but one that suits him well.
“This album was a new education for me for my future, investing in my life as a songwriter and a producer and getting outside of my comfort zone,” says Herndon. “And lord knows I got outside of my comfort zone when I came out, but I came outside of my comfort zone to move into a life of pure authenticity. That was most important to me.”