Nail finds the sound in Alabama

Working with director Chris Hicky, Nail worked to create the essence of music's ability to capture one's life without reducing the video to a storyline or series of obvious images. "Everyone has that song or songs," said Nail. "That's the most amazing thing about music: the way songs can hold your life. It does for me, and for just about everybody I know... So, I didn't want this video to take anything away from the dreams that other people have in their music."

The team wanted an older theatre, something that suggested the amount of music that had been played there and the number of lives that had passed through the building. They wanted to bring to the forefront the notion of how music marking lives is ongoing. The Alabama Theater, built in 1927, was chosen, in part, because of the strong relationship Nail has had with the Birmingham market since performing unplugged at the Bama Rising Concert, a show put together by the band Alabama featuring The Commodores (sans Lionel Richie), Sheryl Crow, Brad Paisley and the Blind Boys of Alabama.

"The people there are so soulful," he said. "You can feel the music moving through them, and you know it's a part of who they are. We didn't even use extra people in our video, but you can feel their passion for the songs and artists in the air."

With a stark stage and warm light, the music video begins with Nail alone onstage. Slowly, the musicians appear as their instruments rise up in the arrangement. Hicky, the man responsible for the 2010 Academy of Country Music Video of the Year (Miranda Lambert's White Liar), projects footage of Nail from the age of six until now throughout the scene. The slide show displays still photographs of his infancy onwards on various surfaces to cement dreams into music.

Finishing his tour with Gavin DeGraw, Nail now heads out on the road with Billy Currington.