WORLD PREMIERE VIDEO: Whitman's "Tacos Like E'ryday" (feat. Clark 8)

Tacos. Full. Of. Money.

Do I really need to say anything else about this delicious, minute-long new video?

I’m very proud that SEANCARNAGE.COM is hosting the world premiere of Whitman and Clark 8‘s video for “Tacos Like E’ryday.”

Whitman, aka Chris Payne, has been a great friend during my time in Los Angeles.

Musically, he’s definitely stood out from the crowd not just for his spooky anarcho folk but also because he’s so ambitious. Planning elaborate shows and (sometimes messily destructive) stagings, running a record label, releasing music in a zillion different formats (from cassettes to custom lathe-cut vinyl records), and executing some of the best fliers and screenprints I’ve seen.

Now, in a flash of ambition that leaves all his prior endeavors in the dust, Payne has collaborated with Clark 8’s Rich Seymour to create the funnest (and funniest) video I’ve seen in awhile. Here’s what Payne had to say about “Tacos Like E’ryday”…

Hey Chris how old are you, where are you from and where do you live now?
I’m 25 and I grew up in a small town in the desert called Cherry Valley. I currently live in the Byzantine-Latino Quarter of Los Angeles.

When did you start playing as Whitman?
I started playing shows as Whitman my Sophomore year of High School, in 2002.

When did you start Folktale?
I started Folktale Records in 2004 as a means to release my own music as well music that my friends were making.

For the record, how did “Tacos Like E’ryday” (the song) happen?
In October of last year I was on tour with my friend Rich Seymour, who performs in a pop punk/’90s style alt rock band called Clark 8, and who often accompanies me on cello. We were making daily video blog entries and putting them online for our friends back home to watch. It was something I’d never done before and was pretty fun. In addition to our video entries, which told of our day to day experiences on the road, I would make up short songs, mostly raps, while we were driving. Rich would beat box or find some way to make a beat and we’d record them. “Tacos Like E’ryday” was one of these songs. I think this started to happen partially out of getting bored in the car. A good chunk of that tour was going through Texas, where I have a warrant for my arrest for a speeding ticket I didn’t pay like three years ago, so Rich was doing all the driving.

It’s been a long time since there was a song title with “E’ry” in it…
Well funny enough that was sort of inspired by a Beyoncé song. Personally I can’t stand Beyoncé’s music, but Rich (who is a Beyoncé fan) played me some song of hers about how she is in love with her stereo or something and one of the first lines in it uses the word “E’ryday”. For some reason that got stuck in my head and I found myself using that term a lot on that tour.

And how did this video happen? Is it the same recording?
The recording used in the music video and the one which was released digitally is not the same as the live recording we did in the car. We re-recorded the song a few months after getting back from tour just for fun, and we were joking around about making a music video for it. Nathan Lay, who directed the video and is also Rich’s roommate, offered to make that joke a reality, and we were like “why not?”

Did you eat real money in the tacos?
I didn’t actual eat the money but the money in the tacos was real. The taco shell really disguised what was going to my mouth in a way.

The part that was really gross for me is there are a few shots where there is money falling out of my mouth. For those I stuffed my mouth full of change which I gradually spit out. Luckily Nathan had though to bring some mouthwash along.

Please share with us the story of the video shoot(s).
The video was made in two separate shoots. One was just Nathan and I walking around downtown LA. We actually had a pretty easy time getting the footage we needed and we’re only asked to leave a couple of places. I think on of my favorite parts of that shoot was trying to get actual business men to give me high-five’s when I walked past them. I got about five people to do it, but I got a lot of funny reactions in that process.

The second shoot was at a taco party and we held at Rich’s house in order to get the party footage. I decorated his living room with as many streamers and balloons as I could and then we made taco’s for all our friends that came. After everything, we ended up getting way more footage that we actually needed to fill the 57 seconds of the song.

What happens now?
Now that the song has a music video and an official release I think we’d like Del Taco or Taco Bell to pick the song up for use in commercials. We’ve also discussed releasing a DJ 12″ of the song with 40 or so remixes of it by different artists. The song is short enough that we could really cram a lot onto a record and probably still have room for an instrumental and a cappella version. If anyone wants to help make either of these things happen, please let us know.

I gotta ask: What’s your favorite place to get tacos? And what do you order?
Living in Los Angeles I am lucky to be graced with an abundance of places to get tacos, so this is a really difficult question. There are all kinds of awesome taco trucks, but for simplicity’s sake I will stick to a physical location. For soft shell style tacos, like what you might get off a taco truck, I like El Jalepeno on Vermont. Their carnitas is really good but I also like the asada. On the other hand, for hard shell tacos I like the chicken tacos from Lucy’s on Hoover and Washington. They are massive and really delicious.

Ok I hope you are hungry—it’s taco time!

Watch “Tacos Like E’ryday” by Whitman (feat. Clark 8)