Okkervil River Release Second ‘Stay Young’ Video, Continue Celebration of Youthful Idiocy

A sentiment as quintessentially rock 'n' roll as "stay young" deserves a great song. Oasis wrote one back in the '90s, and Okkervil River mastermind Will Sheff has followed suit, penning a so-titled single for his latest album, 'The Silver Gymnasium.' Yesterday, Sheff rolled out a totally tubular video for the tune, featuring crazy New Hampshire kids raising hell on motorized vehicles, and today, he's unveiled a single-take alternate version, set to a remix done by his electronic side project Lovestreams.

Both 'Stay Young' clips, directed by Sean Dunne, warrant "don't try this at home" disclaimers, as booze and things that go vroom-vroom don't tend to mix. But hey, no one gets hurt, and as Sheff explains, the music and visuals hark back to his childhood.

“In the 'Stay Young' video and on 'The Silver Gymnasium' in general I wanted to portray a different side of New Hampshire, one more in line with my memories of kids growing up there," Sheff said. "Four-wheelers and snowmobiles were the coolest things going for NH young people when I was a kid, and I thought it would be fun to make a video that was just this total four-wheeler and ATV fantasia."

To capture the action, Dunne mounted cameras on the vehicles, and while most of the video's participants -- real-life New Hampshire kids grabbed from a local ATV store -- just tooled around for a few minutes, one couple motored off into the woods, unwittingly inspiring this second video.

"When Sean and his producer Cass Greener started looking at what they’d shot over the weekend, this single-take journey spoke to them as a surprising little mini-story buried in the footage," Sheff says. "We decided it would be fun to release this couple’s little ATV trip as a stand-alone film.”