By Kris Demeanor
Three years ago, I got a call from a theatre friend who scouts for a local talent agency about a television commercial being shot in Calgary that required a man to play guitar and sing. I auditioned for the McCain’s International Series Thin Crust Texas Barbecue Chicken Pizza ad, waiting in a holding pen with the majority of the city’s roots-rock singer/songwriters. Most of us were wearing country suits and western hats. The commercial’s story arc was brilliant: a young cowboy rises spontaneously from a long table of pizza-eating family and friends and woos a pretty cowgirl at the head of the table by singing “Yellow Rose of Texas.”
I hammed it up when it was my turn, getting down on my knees as though I were pleading. I played the song faster and more energetically than the original and was called back to audition again for the commercial’s director, an L.A. industry type with blonde, shoulder-length hair and a tangible air of self-assurance. (I overheard people say that he’d just come from working on a movie with one of the lesser Baldwin brothers.) “You really want this, hey?” he asked after I laid the cheese on thick, which made me feel both encouraged and ashamed. My third audition was in front of the McCain Foods board, who had flown in from Halifax to make the final decision. They seemed pleased, but it was lunch hour and most were tucking into sandwiches. (The catering got better at each subsequent audition.)
I wasn’t informed I had the part until getting a call at 8 p.m. Go to the Currie Barracks parking lot at 3 a.m., I was told. The barbecue in the commercial was supposed to be taking place at sunset, but for our purposes sunrise could masquerade as sunset, giving us two chances to film the spot in one day.
The amount of equipment and size of the crew on location was ridiculous for a one-minute ad, I thought, knowing how excited my filmmaker friends would be to have such resources for one day. We filmed the courtship scenes dozens of times, from all angles, but I wasn’t allowed to eat the pizza because it had red pepper on it which could get caught in my teeth. All the other actors and extras were told to take bites out of their slices during each take, to chew and nod like they were enjoying it. Pizza with a barbecue sauce base doesn’t taste right at 6 a.m. – one of the girls had to purge behind the barn. The pizzas were replaced when the cheese hardened and started to sweat, usually every other take. Two women doctored the frozen pies by adding freshly cooked green and red pepper and pieces of white chicken breast. One of the ladies at the table said she was so sick of the song, she wanted to smash my guitar, like in that Juicy Fruit commercial.
At 3:30 p.m., the director was calling for the last shot, and by 3:45 p.m. the skies unleashed one hell of a wind and rain storm. As the crew scrambled to cover their gear, I had to go into a barn with the sound guy to record the song another dozen times. Most of the actors had done a number of commercials before and said this was an unusually smooth shoot. “You’re a principal,” I was told over and over. “You’ll get a whack of cash for this.” I shook off the hat head and waited for the royalty cheques to roll in.
A couple of months later, when the commercial first aired, my e-mail inbox was full of “Is that you?” notes.
Corb Lund saw the commercial and he told a mutual friend of ours, “I would never do that.” And of course he shouldn’t. Corb is a cowboy. A real cowboy might seriously damage his stature as a country music artist were he seen dressed up as a Hollywood cowboy, hawking pizza. I, on the other hand, do not play country music and am not a cowboy, therefore my career as a singer/songwriter and my stint as the Pizza Cowboy do not conflict. Very often.
At one of my shows not long after the spot started airing, a nearly hysterical woman and her sister approached me. They had seen the commercial and discovered my true identity. They asked me to please, please, please play “Yellow Rose of Texas.” They were disappointed it wasn’t on any of my CDs. They were at a Kris Demeanor show, but all they wanted was the Pizza Cowboy.
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