Hobo culture is part and parcel of Jake La Botz's life; His grandfather Jinx Putnam, was, after all a "bona fide hobo," riding the rails and later on sharing his adventures with his grandson.
So it's not surprising that La Botz had something special in mind for the new video for "Hobo on a Passenger Train" -- a gritty track from La Botz's award-winning 2017 album Sunnyside -- which premieres exclusively below.
The inventively animated and trippy clip features La Botz in hobo mode enjoying his own adventures, including on a train that flies around the sun (trust us, it makes more sense to see than to read about). It was put together by the Albany couple Colleen and Tom McWatters, the latter a big La Botz fan who's traveled to check out the Chicago troubadour's gigs. "Tom's an artistic type guy and he makes these stop animation videos," La Botz tells Billboard. "I put out on Facebook one day to see if one of my director-type friends might want to make a video for 'Hobo.' Tom hit me and said, 'Look, man, I do stop animation. I've got this idea...' So we talked about it a little bit and I got real excited.