Brad Paisley’s ‘No I in Beer’ Video Is Packed Full of Secret Cameos
Brad Paisley's new music video for "No I in Beer" satisfies the senses on a number of levels. First: Beer. Second, the come-together spirit that the song and a heartwarming Zoom bring to the masses. Third: the celebrities and hidden celebrities.
There are several blink-and-you-miss-them, unexpected cameos in this video. Carrie Underwood's appearance is hardly a surprise, because she and Paisley are good friends, former CMA co-hosts and frequent collaborators. Tim McGraw, Darius Rucker and Jimmie Allen all fall in as friends in the genre, as do Kelsea Ballerini and Brett Kissel.
But who knew Paisley had an A-Rod connection? Yep, Alex Rodriquez appears in the "No I in Beer" music video with a beer in his hand — although Jennifer Lopez is nowhere to be found.
That's a short-lived bummer because of all the other surprise guests. Peyton Manning is predictably hilarious, but he's not the only future Hall of Fame athlete to appear. Did you see Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw? He kind of looks like Florida Georgia Line's Brian Kelley and appears throughout this new music video. So too does Nashville Predators star Filip Forsberg and gymnast that looks too talented not to be famous. Is she?
Former Saturday Night Live actor Fred Armisen not only appears in the video, but he keeps the beat for Paisley during it. From the political world comes Mayor Pete Buttigieg and George Stephanopoulos and their partners, plus Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw. Barack Obama must have been busy, because you know he'd have been down for a beer.
Keep an eye on the guitar players. While Lindsey Ell is the only famous picker (beyond Paisley) in the group, several others (like Texan Hayden Baker) show impressive talent. In fact, Paisley told media that he had them teach him his own solo because he couldn't remember what he played in the studio while recording "No I in Beer."
"A lot of them have become good friends of mine in this pandemic," Paisley says, referring to Ramon from Germany, Luke from Australia and Dominique from Nashville, who's a guitar player in a group named Dixie Jade. "It's been a lot of fun to get to know them and again, I wouldn't know them otherwise. This pandemic brings people together in a weird way. The same way it isolates it's causing new friendships, which is fun."
Two crazy beer-centered revelations came from this video and Paisley's subsequent chat with reporters. The first is that Underwood will drink a beer on rare occasions, something the former Male Vocalist of the Year winner felt honored to be able to share with fans. The second is that he does, too. Paisley — who has hits like "Alcohol" and "Whiskey Lullaby" — has long preferred Yoo-Hoo and cigars to booze, but he says like so many of us, he's taken a swig to help him through this pandemic.
"I do drink in moderation," he shares. "I'm a newer drinker. I'm not somebody that you'd associate with kicking out the footlights at the Opry stage or passing out in the middle of an encore ... it's such an important part of this pandemic."
Paisley edited this music video during quarantine. More than 230 people from 30 countries appear in the four-minute-long clip, and he says he kept most of the outtakes in, including the moment at the end, when wife Kimberly Paisley asks him for his wallet. Rucker and Allen liked that quite a bit. Much of the footage comes from Zooms he's bombed for one reason or another.
"I'd love to know how many Zooms I've been in," Paisley says. "I'd bet it's hundreds ... and we used some of the most poignant."
This is what Paisley will remember from the video and editing it.
"If you pause this, there's a Zoom with grocery store workers at a Wegmans in New York," he says. "They dressed up as superheroes to go to work. That's in there. There's a Zoom with a woman who it was her last day of cancer treatment, named Trina, that I will be friends with for life. Her husband is the one where the little boy bounces the basketball and he catches the beer from the little boy ... also it's her mother or mother-in-law that jumps out of the truck and sets the six-pack on the sidewalk next to — that's because they were celebrating her last day of chemo."
"It looks in the video like just footage, but it's truly very memorable stuff for me."
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