Kitsch Canadian electrofunk duo Chromeo recently flew down to LA to film the video for "Tenderoni", the second single from their talkbox powered sophomore album, Fancy Footwork. Directed by Rozan and Schmeltz, the team behind Justice's award winning clip for "We Are Your Friends", the aim was to make a gangsta love story that paid homage to A-Ha, Robert Palmer, and that most ancient of aphrodisiacs, pepperoni pizza. Dazed Digital hitched a ride in the Tenderoni delivery van to record the madness.
D&C: So we're in Venice Beach and P-Thugg has been driving a pizza truck around for over 10 hours. You've had it pretty easy so far Dave.
Dave-1: Yep, P has done pretty, pretty good.
D&C: So how are you feeling P?
P-Thugg: I'm tired man, I'm fucking tired. I started at six in the morning. I couldn't sleep until one in the morning and then I had to get up at five.
D&C: Tell me about where this whole idea came from and why you chose to kind of go with Surface to Air.
Dave-1: This is what's crazy. Surface to Air have art directed the whole of Fancy Footwork, as far as the visuals are concerned. It's been awesome working with them. They're cool. They did the 12" for the UK and then the record cover. It was time to do a video and at first I wanted to work with the guys who did the "Needy Girl" video.
D&C: Who did that?
Dave-1: They're called Tomorrow's Brightest Minds. I wanted to work with them again, but that didn't work. Surface to Air sent us a treatment because I hollered at them and when we got it, we both felt it was better suited to our song "Bonafied Lover", not for "Tenderoni'". We needed something for MTV.
D&C: Okay.
Dave-1: So we went ahead and put out an official call for treatments, you know, to get everybody to submit. Jeremy (Rozan) gets the call and was like, 'Yo! What's up with that?' So I just told him to submit his idea. He told me it on the phone while I was in Sweden and I thought it was incredible. So I told P and he said, 'That's incredible.' We thought it was incredible. So we got all of the other treatments in and after everything had been said and done it remained our favourite, so we went for it.
D&C: Is Bobby Brown going to make a cameo appearance?
Dave-1: No! But what's cool is that the title, "Tenderoni" is like a nod to the heritage we come from because we come from like, Bobby, Michael Jackson, The Lost Boys. Even O'Brien, this obscure 80s funk dude had a song named "Tenderoni". So for those who know, it's like our lineage. For those who don't know, it's just this weird Italian-sounding word with a kooky track behind it, but it's got that little secret code.
D&C: P-Thugg, in a years time will we be seeing you collecting that Oscar?
P-Thugg: Yeah! This is the first time I've had to act. This is my big break. Actually I'm so tired, I'm not even thinking straight. I need to eat something.
D&C: Lets go get some pizza.
P-Thugg: No pizzas man.
www.myspace.com/chromeo