Tales of the Virgil Pt. 1: Real, Live Crocodiles

Crocodile Mile

Crocodile Mile

I have a taxidermied mounted crocodile head (who doesn’t) set up where we shot the video. Usually it wears an old school Riddell Green Bay Packer helmet or my Elvis sunglasses and sits on top of a bookshelf in the corner. The day of the music video, we realized it could be an eye-catching, weird visual element to add, so we perched the crocodile head on top of my guitar amp. We decided to have Virgil hit it with drum sticks at one point, though I don’t believe that footage made the cut (see the full video here). But, the crocodile head isn't the star of this story, it's the conversation that it inspired. In between filming shots Virgil turned to me and said:

“You guys need to do crazy shit when you play live. You need to blow people’s minds. You should get a real live crocodile and have it come out on stage right when you’re jamming.”

Virgil did some air guitar, actually more air bass to really drive the point home at this juncture. I readily agreed with these suggestions not because I agreed but just to see what would happen next if I pulled the string.

“I’ve been in show business for thirty years. You gotta blow people’s minds!” Virgil continued. “But, you should probably keep that crocodile in a cage because you wouldn’t want it biting anybody. You know, that’d cost a lot, there’d be a lot of legal fees.”

Shit, it’s craziest enough to work. Anybody have any live crocodiles out there I can borrow?