ABC/Mark LevineWhen Brad Paisley drops his video for “No I in Beer” on Wednesday, it may very well be a country music first: a clip made up almost entirely of footage from Zoom sessions. 

Brad released the song early in the COVID-19 pandemic, as a reminder that we’re all in this together. Since then, he’s been steadily gathering footage for the video — one he even edited himself. 

“Most of the things that I’ve spent my time doing over the course of this pandemic kind of work for the theme of the song,” he explains. “… coloring my wife’s hair, to all of the stuff with my friends and collaborations, it all just kind of worked.”

“And so to have all these foreign countries, all these people everywhere from Ireland to Wuhan, China on this video gives it so much more gravity,” he adds.

For the West Virginia native, the video’s a time capsule of a period that’s brought him closer to his fans.

“I don’t remember five people out of seven hundred in meet-and-greet,” Brad admits, “but I won’t forget any of these Zooms.”

“If you pause this,” he continues, “there’s a Zoom with grocery store workers at a Wegmans in New York where they dressed up as superheroes to go to work. 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.”

True to form for Brad, there’s also plenty of comedy and celebrity cameos. Most of the funny business comes from beersketball, the viral phenomenon where you bounce a beer off the top of a basketball and try to catch it.

A who’s who of stars, including Tim McGraw, Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood, Peyton Manning and more trade lines on the song. 

By Stephen Hubbard
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