Bellamy Brothers ‘Hot’ New Video Ruffles Some Feathers
Country music legends the Bellamy Brothers debuted their hot new video, ‘Jalapenos,’ last month, and it has already become an internet sensation, racking up more than a half-million hits just through word-of-mouth. The brothers’ no-holds-barred video takes humorous pot shots at politicians, celebrities and even that little pick-me-up pill, Viagra. [Watch the video after the jump.]
Howard and David Bellamy are no strangers to hit songs, having released over 50 albums in the last 35 years and charting 20 No. 1 singles, including their signature crossover smash, ‘Let Your Love Flow.’ So it’s no wonder their current song exploded on the Internet after the video was released in early June.
One small problem: radio (so far) isn’t touching it. ‘Jalapenos’ is virtually getting no airplay on country stations. “It’s mostly banned,” David laments to The Boot. “There are a couple stations here and there that are playing it, but I don’t know that anybody has added it in like any kind of rotation. For the most part, it’s banned from radio.
“What’s really funny about this song,” he continues, “I was talking to one of our promotion guys, and I said, ‘What do they want us to do, bleep out the word ass?’ He goes, ‘No that doesn’t bother them; it’s just the word erect that bothers them.’ I said, ‘Have you seen these ads on television?! It’s like every three minutes. That’s what we’re making fun of. Every few minutes they’re on TV … people in bathtubs!’ We had one lady from a radio station that actually emailed our office. Our assistant showed me the email, and she said, ‘I really love this song. I’m just waiting for permission from my boss to see if I can play it.’ [laughs]”
‘Jalapenos’ also takes jabs at a few politicians and sports figures with infamously wandering eyes.
“I wrote this song [because] I got sick of all politicians and pretty much all media in terms of just social and political [mores],” David laughs. “I don’t even know what I consider myself anymore. I think the political climate is so toxic … among everyone, not just one or the other party. I had been messing around with that jalapeno idea because I had heard that line, so I thought that would be a funny song. We haven’t done a crazy, funny song in a while. I thought it was time, and this was timely. We’re just bombarded with so much of this stuff, then the Tiger Woods story was breaking and the John Edwards story was breaking. I guess I was watching too much news! I was toying around with the jalapenos idea, and I kind of applied it to all the social and political mess that goes on in the world. I just tried to poke fun at it. I tried to offend as many people as I could think of. [laughs] I think everybody’s being way too uptight about all this stuff.”
The video was actually a last minute thought. The Bellamys were stuck in Ft. Worth, Texas for a couple of days, so it just seemed like a good idea to shoot a video, except David thought it would be hard to get Tiger Woods and Sarah Palin lookalikes. “One of my buddies told us we could get some masks,” says David. A quick call to his buddy who owned a cantina provided the venue.
“We shot the whole thing in one afternoon,” David explains. “Everybody was having a real good time. So we went on out west and did some dates, and my buddy edited it. We called him. He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Let’s go ahead and release it. Man, it was like overnight people started hitting it like crazy. It really surprised us. We hadn’t even thought about doing a video in the beginning.”
The video has now scored over 600,000 hits. Watch it below.
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Posted by Pat Gallagher
Photo by: Rick Diamond, Getty Images
