Comedian Matt Rife meets a woman on a bus, forges a bond, and then lets her get away in the music video for the Red Clay Strays’ new song “If I Didn’t Know You.”
Directed by Matthew Coleman, the brother of Strays frontman Brandon Coleman, the video becomes a Sliding Doors-like search for the couple, with both Rife and his interest, played by Mariah Morse, struggling in vain to find the other: One is walking into a bookshop while the other is walking out. At one point, he chases down the bus he sees her board and finally is reunited.
“The music video for ‘If I Didn’t Know You’ is pretty much about a guy who feels kind of lost and alone, not really sure what he’s supposed to do with his life or who he’s going to spend it with. One lonely day, he’s on the bus and this woman – played by Mariah Morse – walks on and just seems to be the answer to everything he’s been missing,” Rife says in a statement. “They have an immediate spark on this very short bus ride and then get off without really finalizing their interaction. So then my character kind of goes on this quest to find this woman who made him feel the way that she did, and hopes that she feels the same way.”
Strays guitarist Drew Nix wrote “If I Didn’t Know You.” In a statement, he says it’s inspired by his own love story with his wife.
“One day, I was thinking about how thankful I am to have someone who made me want to, as Johnny Cash put it, ‘Walk the Line.’ I was quite the heathen before my calling, and some of those qualities stayed with me until my wife…made me want to become a better man,” he says. “She had high expectations of what her husband should be, and I finally decided to grow up. I don’t know what my life would look like if I’d never known her, and honestly, I never want to find out.”
The Red Clay Strays, who broke out in 2024 with the viral hit “Wondering Why,” will play Stagecoach festival in April and also headline Madison Square Garden in August, along with two shows at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena in October.
