Enter the “Thrift Shop” to Watch JOHNNY & THE BOOTLEGS’ Slick New Music Video [Exclusive Premiere]

Oi! Listen up. Somewhere at a smoke-stained and beer-soaked hole-in-the-wall venue in New York you’re going to run into Johnny & the Bootlegs, a fierce foursome of bluesy punk rockers. The dudes formed in 2016, dropped their self-titled debut in August 2017, and follow-up EP, NYC Rags on May 11th, 2018. (Dudes, the tunes are dope and you can find them on Bandcamp, iTunes, and Spotify.) Today we’re highlighting the John Santiago-led group’s song “Thrift Shop” — the NYC Rags EP’s second single — with its brand new music video.

The “Thrift Shop” video includes a mixture of live footage and scripted scenes depicting the band, in dire need of new threads, taking a trip to their local thrift store called the Urban Jungle. Fun fact: the performance footage are from NYC’s Webster Hall where Santiago was the venue’s GM for six years until it shut its doors last year.

John was also kind enough to send over his own thoughts on the video, commenting:

“The idea for the music video is somewhat of an homage to ZZ Top and their slew of lighthearted music videos. Even though we take our music and performance seriously, we don’t really take ourselves all too seriously and like to keep things light, even after we get kind of serious. Our songs take that ride, usually going from a serious bridge, back into a fun verse or chorus. The idea of us going to a thrift shop to try on ‘somebody else’s clothes to wear our way’ just felt like a lot of fun and relatable. I mean, living in NYC, everyone has thrifted at some point. It’s a necessity of sorts. My personal favorite spot (and the boys now agree) is Urban Jungle in Bushwick and we mention the joint in the song because we’ve popped in there and rummaged their racks plenty.”

In regards to the scenes shot at The Studio at Webster Hall, Santiago added:

“I came up with the idea in the last couple of weeks before Webster Hall closed up and last minute got Dream But Don’t Sleep Productions to jump on board and get what is now the final music video ever to be filmed in The Studio at Webster Hall. We went in on the afternoon of Sunday, August 6, 2017 while there was a hardcore/metal festival happening on the top three floors and captured the live scenes first. We got the filming done and then I jumped into working the event, haha.”