Paradise (Peponi) African Style

Version of Paradise by Coldplay performed by ThePianoGuys with Alex Boye.

Filmed on location in Southern Utah.

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Story behind the song:

Each time we write/arrange a tune we take a journey. We have to admit—this journey took us a lot further than we expected. Retracing our steps reveals several factors that made this a reality. As we started arranging it we had serious writer’s block. Perhaps some of the worst we’ve ever had. In fact, one day instead of writing we went around the entire studio with a can of WD-40 and coated every piece of metal to ensure that we were a squeak-free studio. Then on a whim we decided to back away and take an entirely new approach to the song—an African approach. It may seem random in retrospect, but at the time it was an exciting way to restart the arrangement. It was working, but our journey still was on foot until we called in Alex Boye, one of the most talented people we’ve ever met. Alex has this contagious energy that gave new life to the song and to us. He sings the tune in 4 different languages: Swahili, English, Yoruba (his mother’s native language), and Alex’s own African “scat” (we’ll call it…Scafrican) =) Most of the words you hear are translated from the lyrics in the original Coldplay Tune. We’re huge fans of Alex — We bet you are now too!

Follow Alex on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/alexboye.music

When we had finished the arrangement we all agreed that listening to it was like taking a journey to somewhere remote and ruggedly beautiful. How were we to depict this with a cello, African percussion and, most difficult of all, a grand piano? We took a risky, but oh-so-valuable turn when we called in helicopters to air-lift us and our instruments where none had gone before! (Please excuse the Trek reference). Since no one had ever done this before where were we to go for advice? Well, we can tell you that Home Depot didn’t have a lot of answers (how disappointing) but we did clean them out of their strongest cable they had. We don’t mind telling you that when that helicopter began lifting our brand new-never-before-played grand piano into the air we couldn’t help close our eyes and cross our fingers. We consider a blessing of Heaven that it worked. I guess we figured that if it didn’t, maybe it could still be a viral video — “PIANO MOVE FAIL” =)

We’d like to thank from the bottom of our hearts, Duane Fielding who offered the helicopters and SkyHawk http://www.skyhawkhelicopters.com for not dropping the piano…:-) Half-way through the first day of shooting we discovered that, as typical guys, we had forgotten to bring ANY food or water to this remote location. We had two options: one, wrestle a mountain rodent and harvest cacti or two, starve. Duane, our head pilot, took pity on us. He took off (literally) and moments later landed in a Wendy’s parking lot, ordered 5 of everything (sadly, he couldn’t use the drive through)…took off again and brought us chicken sandwiches and hamburgers via airmail. Thank you Duane! Flying in your helicopter was a dream come true for us despite the lack of doors. =)

Filming location:

http://g.co/maps/mker7 (Southern Utah)

All the instruments you hear are REAL instruments. We wanted to be authentic about this. The following percussion instruments were used:

Djembe (drum)
Agogo bell (like a cow bell)
Udu (the porcelain vase-looking drum)
Guiro (gourd scraper)
Djabarra (shaker)
Rain stick
Pangi seed shaker (“goat toenails” or Unas)

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ThePianoGuys hail from Utah, one guy on piano (Jon Schmidt) and one guy on cello (Steven Sharp Nelson), aided and abetted by Paul Anderson, Tel Stewart and Al van der Beek.

The name comes from a music shop in St. George, Utah, which was called The Piano Guys, selling pianos.

Looking for an unusual way to promote The Piano Guys, Paul Anderson hired the only pianist he knew Jon Schmidt, who in turn enlisted the help of cellist Steven Sharp Nelson, to film a few videos. Al van der Beek had a studio and helped with arrangement. Tel Stewart, a piano mover, proved to be a cinematography genius.

Tags: Alex Boye, cello, Coldplay, music, Paradise (Peponi) African Style, piano, ThePianoGuys