Nathaniel Rateliff Is a Circus Ringleader in ‘All or Nothing’ Video

Nathaniel Rateliff sings in a creepy winter wonderland in the new video for “All or Nothing.” The soulful track is off his new album And It’s Still Alright, released last February.

Directed by Doug Spencer, the clip features Rateliff’s silhouette against snowy mountains as a circus appears. A headless man balances his skull on his palm, while performers on a flying trapeze swing by. “Too much time spent alone/Trying to pull yourself under,” he sings over sparse guitar. “Is that thunder or the/Sense that someone calls your name?”

For the video’s concept, Spencer envisioned a traveling circus with Rateliff as the ringleader. “From there we built a dream-like world populated by performers, moving landscapes and a little magic using my smoke techniques, projections and animations,” he said in a statement.

“I’ve always loved Doug’s art and how he plays with shadow and light,” Rateliff added. “I had gotten one of his pieces and was looking at it at home and called him to ask if he would want to try using his art to make a video. I love what he came up with and I loved being a part of the process.”

Rateliff recently performed songs from And It’s Still Alright — his first solo album in seven years — for Rolling Stone‘s In My Room, an IGTV series in which musicians perform songs from home amid the coronavirus pandemic. His headlining tour has been postponed, rescheduled for after his summer tour with Bob Dylan.

Rateliff had originally wanted to call the album All or Nothing, but settled on And It’s Still Alright. “It ties the record together,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s a struggle to grow and you end up stranded on the ledge and burying people you care about. But when you really look at it, I’m still alive, everything’s still good in my life regardless of hardship and what’s been happening. So that’s what I want the theme to be, not ‘all or nothing.’ I want there to be hope.”