Sage Galesi and Kristen Stewart and Short Mountain Distillery
Back on a cold afternoon in February, Short Mountain Distillery had some serious VIP visitors. Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame, made her directorial debut creating a video for friend Sage Galesi of Sage + the Saints, a Nashville country band, on the farm where the distillery is located in Cannon County.
“We chose Short Mountain because it’s a place where our fiddle player, Maria, and I had spent a good amount of time,” noted Galesi. “It’s a beautiful Southern landscape, and the song, called ‘Take Me to the South,’ is about how all the glitz and glamour of big cities don’t intrigue me like the laid-back culture of the South.”
Stewart co-directed the video with David Ethan of Starlight Studios. Shapiro and his team at Starlight produced the video using funding from Buffalo David Bitton clothing brands’ “Blank Check Series.” The company is giving moderate sums to artists to tell stories in different formats. Hot rapper Macklemore and producer Ryan Lewis recently used some of these funds to release a short docu-series about their life on tour.
Galesi has been a friend of Stewart for a number of years, and according to a recent story in Rolling Stone magazine, she is the one who talked Stewart into fulfilling a dream of directing she has had since she was 10. According to Stewart, Galesi told her to “just do it.” Soon they found themselves away from the L.A. glamour and out in the muddy foothills of the distillery’s farm with the sheep, and warming themselves by hanging around the still.
“We love the moonshine and everything the distillery at Short Mountain does,” Galesi said. “They were good enough to help produce the video and provided us with everything we needed to create an authentic country feel for the video. They have a great piece of land and their interest in music artists fits so well with what we are doing. They have a new stage they have built at the distillery where up and coming music artists will be able to perform. We are planning to have a premier party for the video there soon.”
“Take Me to the South” will be released as part of an independently produced CD available for pre-order at pledgemusic.com/projects/sageandthesaints.
For more information about Short Mountain Distillery, moonshine and how to enjoy this slightly wicked back hills brew, visit shortmountaindistillery.com.
