With record sales continuing to slide and the licensing of music becoming a bigger piece of the puzzle for musicians vying to make a living, placements in television and film can have a tremendous impact on the career of an artist.

[Photos by Martelli Photography]
For Bobby Long, a talented singer/songwriter from the UK with a penchant for music by Elliot Smith, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan and the Felice Brothers, one particular song placement launched his career up into the night sky. Teen dreamboat Robert Pattison performed his song Let Me Sign (co-written with Marcus Foster) in the first film of the insanely popular Twilight series. The rest is history.
Now, Long plays for heaps of fans, many of them of the young female variety. Surely that’s not much of a dilemma, but curious to hear if this felt more like a blessing or a curse, I jumped at the chance to chat him up.
Ryan Dembinsky: At your university, you were working on a degree in film/video with an emphasis on writing soundtracks, correct? Is that in any way related to Twilight? In other words, did Twilight drive that decision to study soundtrack creation or alternatively, did your connections there help land the placement in the film?
Bobby Long: No not at all. I always kept my Uni and my music separate to the point that a lot of students at my Uni didn’t know my name. I only really studied to be in London and so I could afford to live there with my student loan.
READ ON for the rest of Ryan’s conversation with Bobby Long…