Chris Stapleton’s powerful “Fire Away” video is used as a conduit to help bring mental health awareness to light. In the video, a young couple battle with the woman’s mental issues until it finally drives her to commit suicide.
“[The idea for the video] was just a notion, and then it became real and useful and something that can hopefully make the world a better place,” says Chris. “The song is kinda about loving somebody unconditionally through not so easy times. The concept of the video kind of came to me as that would be the hardest possible space in which to love somebody. I’ve been a huge fan of Ben’s [Foster] for a long time and so we tried to track him down and he was kind enough to take the phone call. And then it kind of grew from there,” says Chris. “It was just a notion, and then it became real and useful and something that can hopefully make the world a better place.”
Chris first came up with the “notion” when he was trying to figure out an idea for a music video, and then he wanted real actors to be in the clip…so that led to Ben Foster (Lone Survivor, Six Feet Under) and Margarita Levieva (The Blacklist, Revenge) (pr. Le-vee-va) coming on board and then bringing on ChangeDirection.org.
“It’s a subject matter that is very close to me and means a lot to me, and to be able to tell that story and to share it with so many people and to bring that character to life for me was tremendously important,” says Margarita. “So, as soon as I heard the whole outline and how we were going to shoot it and the story that we’re going to tell, I was immediately drawn and really looking forward to doing it.”
Check out the behind-the-scenes of the video and interviews with its stars, as well as director Tim Mattia and President of Change Direction, Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen below.
Chris is currently making his way up the country charts with his latest single, “Parachute,” a song from his award-winning album, Traveller.
