Rate This Boston Accent and Anti-Yankees Music Video

The Adam Ezra Group was recently voted as one of the area’s best musical acts, taking home the “Band of The Year” title and bragging rights at the 2013 New England Music Awards.

And rightly so.

The latest music video from the Boston-based “roots and rock” group takes the well-known tune of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and swaps out the Southern twang for a Boston accent—and makes the devil a Yankees fan. The idea came to frontman Adam Ezra while the band was on tour recently, and was originally a parody song he had planned to play just for fun. But when country music fans started asking about the song, and he saw how much people enjoyed it, they decided to turn it into a music video complete with dancers and a fiddle player.

If you ask Ezra if he ever thought he would be in a music video with line dancers, speaking in a thick Boston accent, while bashing the city’s most-rivaled baseball team, he would have told you “no way.” And although the accent is fake, he admits, there are some points in the song (specifically about Quincy), where he gets a lot closer to nailing it down than Jon Hamm in The Town, or Jack Nicholson in The Departed.

The difference between Ezra’s accent and those of Hollywood stars, though, is that Ezra is actually from the area.

Just a warning, though. Much like the mouths of residents at sporting events, the swearing gets heavy. So put some headphones on before watching “The Devil Goes Up to Boston.”

What made you want to put this particular video together?

So I wrote the parody last fall while on tour, opening for country artist Corey Smith.  The first time we played it was in front of a 1,500 country fans in the midwest who didn’t know a thing about Boston.  Even still, they loved it.  It’s all we heard about after the show. We played it every night for the rest of the tour—same reaction every night. By the time we were heading home to Boston, we had scheduled an “emergency recording session,” and had begun working on ideas for the video.

How long does it take to film a video like this? 

Ironically, we filmed it in Harlem, at this great old theatre our amazing director, Ben Tishler, found.  Filmed it all in one day. Them dancers are all from the cast of Broadway’s “Mama Mia.” If six months ago you’d told me I was going to have a video out with dancing girls, I would have laughed in your face.

What was the inspiration for the Boston-centric lyrics?

We’d just started touring heavily with a fiddle player.  I’d been writing a lot of original music that incorporated that sound.  One day I was listening to the radio or something, and Charlie Daniels’ amazing song came on.  I mentioned to the band that I should try writing a Boston version of the song.  We all laughed at the idea.  Twenty-four hours later it was done!

A lot of people botch the Boston accent. In some parts you nailed it in this video. Real or fake?

Fake, in that I don’t normally sound like that. Real, in that it comes from hanging around Boston people my whole life.  Shouting sh** out in a Boston accent is one of my favorite hobbies. Now I get to do it on stage every night.

What’s the reaction been from people who have watched the video?

Hard to tell.  It’s literally only been released for a few hours.  People seem pretty excited though.  Makes me happy!

How come the Devil is the Yankees, and say, not The Blackhawks?

[First],we shot the video in January, and while we obviously knew the B’s would make it to the Stanley Cup finals, we didn’t know who they’d be playing. [Second], the Yankees can suck it.

The group is playing a show Saturday, June 15, on a boat in the Boston Harbor. They were originally scheduled to play at 7 p.m., but because they wanted Bruins fans to be able to catch Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, they switched it to 3 p.m., says Ezra.