Basak Erol pulls out all the stops for Nothing But Thieves' Real Love Song, creating an epic fantasy around the heartache and turmoil that surrounds love and sex in the modern world.

The live action story of a love triangle is given a dreamlike hue in lurid neon, intercut with the band's equally dreamlike studio performance. Then the imaginations and frustrations of the protagonists are given free rein as they become animated versions of themselves in an alternate dimension.

Erol utlised her own skills as a 3D animator, and also collaborated on the 2D animation with hugely talented illustrator and animator Raman Djafari. The end result is a breathless whirlwind to match the band's latest emotional piledriver. 

BASAK EROL:

It's about love... the painful and unrequited kind. 

“We wanted to make a narrative video with performance woven into it. It’s a video about love, but not an idyllic one we are used to seeing on the screens. It is rather a dark and ironic love as the track’s lyrics refer to it as “Feral” and “Dirty”. Quite miserable, the painful and unrequited kind.

"It’s the surreal story of three characters seeking for love in the wrong places. A different perspective to relationships in the digital age with themes of confusion and losing the grip of reality on what’s real and what’s not, and the darkness it brings into our lives.

"Working with Nothing but Thieves and Sony Music/RCA Records was an absolute pleasure, and the whole production team, from crew on set to animation and post-production worked incredibly hard to bring these ideas to life. I feel lucky to have worked alongside a dream team of passionate people who brought so much craft into it. We were all excited about the project, supported one another and powered through it."