Matt Sweeney & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Resist the Urge

 

Video artwork and editing by Kevin "Spanky" Long
Directed by Kevin "Spanky" Long and Atiba
Filmed by Atiba and Spanky
Will filmed by Elsa Oldham
Sweeney filmed by Chris Shonting
Styled by Kaysie Bergens
Color by Cleigh Reed

"When I was talking to Matt, Will and Dan about video concepts and cool ideas for this new record, I knew I had to involve Spanky because we’re both longtime Superwolf fans. I have directed a couple music videos involving skateboarding, but I always wanted to see a full video part with just one skater, and once I got asked to work on a video for this record, I knew that Kevin “Spanky” Long was perfect, in more ways than one. If you follow Spanky on Instagram you will see one of the most visually creative artists I have ever seen. His way of cutting out, resizing, moving and manipulating photos and videos is amazing, but also he is an amazing pro skater so the combo was perfect. I asked a lot of Spanky: I wanted him to star, direct, edit, film and do all of the artwork! It was a tall ask but I know his love for Matt and Will would shine thru. I am mostly a still photographer and I did film a lot of skateboarding in the mid 90’s, so I knew that it wouldn’t be hard to film Spanky. This video was made in the pandemic so it was just me and him going out and shooting together. We shot around LA for 14 days over 4 months. I wanted to shoot the skating on a Canon R5 at 24p giving it a film look. We also shot scenic stuff on Super-8 to give it that film look, then we had Cleigh Reed color it so it all flows. It was great to work so closely with Spanky’s vision but still have him in front of the camera. This collaboration of directing together was great because we are 2 different generations of skateboarders, but both coming from the pro skater's perspective. When I thought of this, I wanted a music video that was Spanky by Spanky but not is a selfie way, but a way he was directing me when I was filming. But now it's time to hear his perspective!"
–Atiba

"This was just a great excuse to make a skate video with a best friend for my favorite band. I ran the high def footage and super8 film into my iPhone where I painstakingly cut frame-by-frame, with relatively low-fi digital tools, to execute the stop-motion animation and digital collage elements. It was, in the end, the only way to achieve this look we were after. And we weaved in the layers of sea and sky to meet the big themes in “Resist the Urge”. COVID restrictions made things tricky to get Matt and Will in there, but we revel in limitations."
–Kevin Spanky Long

Big thanks to: Daniel Wheatley, Carmelo the dog, Dan Koretzky, Louise Long.