SPEAK Head to the Desert to Cover Neil Young's 'Tell Me Why' -- Video Premiere

On a recent tour, the synth-pop foursome SPEAK undertook a 16-hour drive from their hometown of Austin to Los Angeles. The trip took them through Texas hill country and scenic Southwestern desert -- environments just right, they figured, for filming a cover of Neil Young's 'Tell Me Why.'

As drummer Jake Stewart explains, the group had been toying with the tune for weeks while Young's classic 1970 album 'After the Gold Rush' earned heavy rotation on the van CD player.

"'Tell Me Why' quickly became the unofficial anthem of our trip," he tells Spinner. "We listened to the album several times on the way up to Michigan and first began organized attempts at singing it on our way out from Denver. This practice continued throughout the trip, as we tried to hone our harmonies and keep voices nimble."

As the clip opens, the young rockers are rolling through Texas at dawn, and later on, they stop for coffee at McDonald's, where they make friends with two wolves and their affable owner.

SPEAK shot the performance part of the video in the New Mexico desert. The experience proved somewhat harrowing, as a thunderstorm forced them to scrap their original location and head further into the desert.

"We managed to get in two good takes before the storm -- which had evolved into a sandstorm -- caught us and forced us into the van, covered in dust," Stewart says. "Afterward, we were treated to a horizon-to-horizon rainbow and the taste of sand in our mouths all the way to Tucson."

Watch SPEAK's 'Tell Me Why' Video

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