Emerging folk singer Marlon Williams on baring all and being beaten for new music video

AS he smoulders in ABC’s The Beautiful Lie, Marlon Williams’ music fans are raving about the nudity and violence in his video for his new single.

MARLON Williams is getting beaten up. In a couple of minutes, he is stripped bare and still copping a barrage of punches.

You can’t help but gasp and flinch as you watch the violence as anonymous men and women keep ambushing him. And occasionally giving him a cuddle after slapping him around.

Williams is being abused in the name of art, the video of new single Hello Miss Lonesome. Think Sia’s Elastic Heart, which starred American actor Shia LaBeouf and young dancer Maddie Ziegler, meets Fight Club.

The New Zealand singer and songwriter has piqued the world’s curiosity with his self-titled debut album, a collection of Americana-flavoured roots music.

His acting chops have been more recently on display on the ABC series The Beautiful Lie.

MARLON WILLIAMS SMOULDERS IN SEXY MINISERIES

A fight coach on the Hello Miss Lonesome set choreographed the scenes and instructed Williams and his co-stars on how to throw fake punches and fall without getting too bruised.

But reality inevitably intruded on the shoot and Williams was sore and sorry the following day, with his lanky frame squashed into a seat on a flight to Los Angeles.

The 24-year-old musician is quick to point out that it was “very cold in that warehouse” when I mention viewing him naked and beaten up in Hello Miss Lonesome.

He explains the clip’s director Damien Shatford seems to like storylines involving Williams copping a hiding, having orchestrated other violence in the clips for his previous band The Unfaithful Ways.

His assailants, and occasional comforters, in the video are designed to represent the various characters of his emotional psyche.

But you know — and Williams knows — everyone is going to focus on the nudity and violence.

“Every video (Damien) has done involved me getting beaten up so he thought we would go the whole hog here. It’s just about my psyche beating itself up,” he says, laughing.

“I was so sore and I had to fly to Los Angeles the next day; it was a very uncomfortable flight.

“Hitting the floor was the most bruising part. The punches weren’t meant to be connecting but every now and then there would be a stray one.”

Williams’ star is on the rise as his classic country and folk songs strike a resounding chord with an audience won over by his emotive voice and his resemblance to the younger version of Brando, that other Marlon.

Witnessing the effect of his music and the performance of it on an audience is “weird”.

Universal appeal ... Williams’ take on everything from honky-tonk to classic country is finding an international audience. Picture: Supplied

“I feel alienated from the song before I have even finished writing it,” he explains.

“So from an ego perspective, it’s weird having it consumed and twisted around and digested by people.

“You don’t want to start being a parody of yourself by looking in the mirror of public appreciation and let that impact on why do it.

“But you have to back yourself as the creator of it.”

America is calling this talented young man, with the album released there in February as he embarks on his first headline tour.

While it may seem a challenge to take Americana roots music back to the US, coals to Newcastle, as we say, Williams explains it’s like “accents”.

“If you are an American and go to New Zealand, when you go back to the US, people will tell you that you sound like a Kiwi. But when you are in New Zealand, people think you sound like an American,” he says.

“With the album coming out in a few months, I am going to be spending at least the first half of next year in the US and England.

“Folk music has that universal appeal and I think that’s an advantage for me.”

Old Hollywood ... The Kiwi’s smouldering young Brando looks have translated to the small screen in The Beautiful Lie. Picture: Supplied.

Before his next great adventure, Williams will complete a national tour and front for his first ARIA Awards in Sydney next week, where the Melbourne-based Kiwi is up for Best Blues and Roots Album.

“It’s lovely for a night out but it’s a bit of a distraction in a lot of ways. I just want to focus on what I am doing,” he says.

As for future acting opportunities in the wake of The Beautiful Lie series and that new music video, Williams isn’t lining them up.

“The whole TV stuff came out of the blue and it’s not something I ever expected to be doing.

“If cool things come up, I will be pleased about doing them.”

SEE: Marlon Williams and the Yarra Benders, Oxford Arts Factory, Sydney, Saturday; Prince Bandroom, Melbourne, November 27. He will also open for the Day On The Green concerts starring Paul Kelly, Lucinda Williams and Kasey Chambers from November 28 to December 13. For more info, marlonwilliams.co.nz

Originally published as Emerging folk singer Marlon Williams on baring all and being beaten for new music video