Cleverlys Cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘By the Way’

Until the Cleverlys came along, it was nearly impossible to find bluegrass bands writing songs about podophilia (that’s a fancy word for foot worship), sharing tales of milking alpacas and mixing grassed-up covers of songs from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flo Rida and Beyoncé into their vast and delightfully strange repertoire. The Arkansas-based faux-family band (from Cane Spur in the Ozarks – but don’t search for it on a map) is led by musician Digger Cleverly (Phil Harris), whose out-of-date eyeglasses are as thick as his hillbilly accent, but whose comic sensibilities are a hilariously off-kilter hybrid of Homer & Jethro and The Office.

By Stephen L. Betts