A Thousand Horses Are Back with a New Song, a New Music Video — and a Few New Members of the Family

A Thousand Horses couldn't wait any longer.

"We wanted to skip the announcement of the announcement," laughs A Thousand Horses' guitarist Bill Satcher, 34, in a recent interview with PEOPLE about their newly released country anthem "Broken Heartland." "We were ready to go."

Granted, it is the band's first new music in two years, as the band not only went through time off the road due to the pandemic shutdown, but also a label shift to Highway Sound, a record label imprint launched by A Thousand Horses' four members. But now, the music-making men seem more than ready to embark on their next musical chapter.

"Sometimes when you're making an album, I think you kind of find your anchors of songs in the collection," remarks Satcher. "And 'Broken Heartland' was definitely that song that we wanted to record first."

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Unfortunately, there is a bit of bitter sweetness that seems to hang from every note of "Broken Heartland," as it was written with songwriter Andrew Dorff right before his death in December of 2016.

"It was one of those classic days in the studio with Andrew," remembers A Thousand Horses' frontman Michael Hobby, 35, of the song he and Satcher wrote alongside Dorff and fellow songwriter Jonathon Singleton before the pandemic shutdown of 2020. "Dorff got everybody sandwiches and we ate, and then got in [the studio] and created this fictitious place of heartache and loneliness, where all broken-hearted people go and experience that process. It's kind of the place where your soul lives."

And it's this fictitious place that fans can find themselves in forevermore with the release of the music video for "Broken Heartland," premiering exclusively on PEOPLE.

Zack Knudsen A Thousand Horses

"With the 'Broken Heartland' video, we wanted to create that place and that tension of heartbreak," explains Hobby. "And we had some really good friends who are actually actors to help us do that."

In fact, these actors were Satcher's real-life neighbors — married couple Chris Mason and Spencer Locke.

"Yeah, they are some of my best friends," says Satcher of the two who take on lead couple duties in the music video for "Broken Heartland." "When it came time to do the video, I was showing them the storyboard and the loose concept we were putting together, and they volunteered to be in it. We're just really grateful for such good friends to lend us their talent like that."

Shot over the course of just one day, the so very relatable scenes of the so very relatable music video were filmed in a multitude of places, including The Underdog in East Nashville, Wendell Smith's Restaurant in Nashville, and Betty's Grill in Sylvan Park.

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"Those are places that we loved ever since we moved to town," says Hobby, who first hit it big with A Thousand Horses — whose bandmates also include Zach Brown and Graham Deloach — back in 2015 with their addictive hit "Smoke." "We would always go eat breakfast at Wendell Smith's and we'd go sing karaoke at Betty's. We always thought those vibes in there were killer, so it was so cool to get to include it in the video."

Certainly, it's another piece of the musical journey of the band that has put their time off to good use, with multiple members adding multiple children to their families over the pandemic break. (Hobby and wife Caroline had welcomed daughter Sunny in 2019.) And yes, the changing look of their personal life has certainly taken ahold of their professional life, as the bliss over their growing families is most certainly finding its way into the new music that they are feverishly working on now.

"Naturally, with our lives changing and the world changing and everything that's been going on the last few years, it all comes out of us in a creative way," says Hobby, who is once again working with producer extraordinaire Dave Cobb on a new A Thousand Horses album now. "Subconsciously, it always has. Our music has always been a real element of our lives and the stories that we put into our music is always evolving and growing."