Ottoman Turks Put on Their Tinfoil Hats in the Music Video for ‘Conspiracy Freak’

Ottoman Turks open the hatch on the bunker and offer a peek at the crazies in their new video for “Conspiracy Freak.” A blast of skronk-blues that also blends punk with country twang, the song appears on the Dallas, Texas, band’s upcoming album Ottoman Turks II.

In the video, Turks singer Nathan “Mongol” Wells does his best Alex Jones impersonation, hunkering down in his basement surrounded by radio components and spewing wild theories about “men in black” and the powers behind the throne. As lyrics, it’s batshit-crazy stuff, but they cozy up nicely next to the unnerving bass-and-drum rhythm of Billy Law and Paul Hinojo, and the guitar leads of Joshua Ray Walker (who filmed the video on his iPhone with Wells).

“Listen people, I am telling you the truth and that is why they are coming for me,” Wells shouts at the start of the song. By the end, he’s hypnotically repeating that “Bush did 9/11.”

“I initially wrote the song several years ago. I’d always been a fan of reading about conspiracy theories, aliens, hollow earth, pretty much all of it. Never subscribed to any of it, really, although there’s elements of truth being stranger than fiction here and there,” Wells said in a statement. “When I write songs, I usually find it easiest to delve into off-kilter or difficult subjects through satire, becoming that character and trying to see things from their perspective. Turks is the perfect band to embody that. Half of what we do, we’re doing with a wink.”

Formed in 2009, Ottoman Turks — who described their sound as “outlaw-country-garage-rock” in a 2020 new-artist profile for IndieLand — will release Ottoman Turks II, the follow-up to their self-titled debut album, on April 2nd via State Fair Records.

“We wanted to be a country band, but we realized none of us were good enough musicians to pull that off,” Walker said then of the group’s vibe. “So we got louder and faster and turned into what we sound like now.”