Watch Bartees Strange Showcase ‘Backseat Banton’ on ‘Kimmel’

Bartees Strange stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live for a rousing performance of his new song “Backseat Banton.” Strange and his live band showcased the upbeat, blues-infused number, augmenting the song’s frenetic energy with red-tinged visuals and mirrors placed around the late-night show’s stage.

“Backseat Banton” previews the artist’s upcoming third album, Horror, due out on Valentine’s Day via 4AD. The album was co-produced by Jack Antonoff and acts both as an ode to scary movies and a look at Strange’s own life and background through that lens.

“I was always kind of a nervous kid,” Strange told Rolling Stone of his inspiration for Horror. “I grew up with all the stories of my parents’ upbringing in the South, and they started to prepare me and my brother and sister for a similar life. I started watching horror movies as a way to train myself to be good at being scared. Then I fell in love with them.”

Horror is a follow-up to Strange’s breakthrough 2022 LP, Farm to Table. He noted that, “My last record was more like ‘Here’s where I’m from, here’s my family, here’s the things that have made me who I am.’ Now that you’ve seen where I’m from, let me show you the underbelly of those same places and those same people and those same feelings. Things that I would talk to a therapist about — I realized that that’s what the songs were becoming about.”

Strange is playing a series of shows in support of Horror‘s release. He’s set to perform at the Paramount in Los Angeles on Feb. 13, followed by shows at D.C.’s 9:30 Club on Feb. 15 and New York’s Bowery Ballroom on Feb. 19. He’ll head to London for a concert at Oslo Hackney on Feb. 26.