Most people know Mark Seliger as the famed photographer who shot some of Rolling Stone’s most memorable covers over the last three decades. (That one of Jerry Seinfeld posing as an Elvis impersonator? That was him.) But for the last few years, Seliger has also moonlighted as the frontman for the country-rock group Rusty Truck. This month, Seliger and his crew have released the slow-burning record Luck’s Changing Lanes, which also features collaborations with Willie Nelson and Gillian Welch and production from Lenny Kravitz and Jakob Dylan.
Many of these songs were inspired by Seliger’s youth growing up in the Texas panhandle and the slow transformation of once-vibrant cities into desolate ghost towns. “You’ve got real storybook kind of towns that are almost like the Last Picture Show in terms of their visual decline,” Seliger says. “There’s a lot of tumbleweeds and this idea of a vanishing America. And I felt like the music was written to focus on it being so lonesome.” As a compendium to the disc, Seliger also shot a set of hauntingly beautiful music videos, featuring stark footage of an old cowboy smoking a cigarette in solitude, as well as slow-motion footage of horses galloping across open fields in the early twilight of the morning.
But the highlight of the videos came courtesy of Seliger’s father: “So Long, Farewell” features vintage home videos — shot by his dad — of Seliger as a child. “I hadn’t looked at those movies in 10 or 15 years,” says Seliger. “And to go and really dig deep into it, we just found so many amazing little moments. I think people can relate to this, when you see old photographs or old film or video, from when you’re growing up. There’s a common thread here.”
Click above to watch the video for “1000 Kisses” and check out four more Rusty Truck videos right here:
“Never Going Back”
“So Long Farewell”
“Luck’s Changing Lanes”
“Cold Ground”
