Atlanta's Shawn Mullins spent eight years as a long-suffering indie artist before his gravel-throated ode to the soulless side of city livin' known as "Lullaby" caught the ear of the folks at Columbia Records and landed him a major label deal.

Columbia then re-released Mullins' album "Soul's Core," which is actually his eighth, and whisked him off to shoot his first video. After a DIY past that included touring in a van with his dog Roadie, Mullins was bowled over by the video shoot for "Lullaby" and by his co-star, "Lolita" herself, Dominque Swain.

[article id="1448462"]"The budget... I don't even want to talk about that, and it was supposedly fairly low," Mullins recently told MTV News of the shoot. "When I think about how much money I spent on all my independent records combined, it doesn't even touch the video budget, you know. That blows my mind. It's a wonderful thing to have that kind of funding available and the kind of production help and everything,

and working with Dominique was great. She's amazing. She's really, really talented. My fiancee is in the video, which is really cool." [28.8 RealVideo][/article]

Apparently it all paid off, as Mullins' clip for "Lullaby" was recently granted Buzz Clip status on MTV.