Remember that the nice, pleasant, folky type singer that Bobby Long used to be? Not on the British-born troubadour’s new video for “Nautical,” from Long’s latest album, Sultans.
The clip, directed by pal Arthur Douglass, depicts Long as a creepy, cardigan sweater-wearing stalker who drugs and kidnaps a musician — played by collaborator and Sultans co-producer Jack Dawson from a club and holds him captive, Misery-like, in a barn shed, forcing Dawson to play a mock concert with him before an audience of mannequins and lambs. Dawson eventually escapes, but the video ends with a twist that shows us Long’s sinister character is not yet finished.
“I wanted to show a different side of myself — a bit more carefree and less serious,” Long, who now lives in Jersey City, N.J., tells Billboard. “I’ve done, like, one music video before, but I wasn’t in it. I wanted to play on the relationship between myself and Jack Dawson, who’s one of my best friends. When we made it, I hadn’t done acting in a long time. I really turned into Johnny Deep making Pirates of the Caribbean; I was, like living the role for a day. It was really fun making it.”
The two-part title track that bookends Sultans, Bobby Long’s fourth album, playfully pays homage to Sgt. Pepper and the music he heard at home growing up in rural southwest England, while this taut new 10-song set of original material effectively traverses his signature love, loss and heartache milieu. Sultans finds Long expanding on his spare, singer-songwriter arrangements for a more adventurous Beatle-esque sound with psychedelic flourishes, electric guitar and keys. The vinyl version will be available on March 29th.
The Fat Angel Sings 