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Now it can be revealed: Johnny Knoxville came back to his namesake hometown recently to work on a commercial for the videogame Rock Band.

Knoxville, nee PJ Clapp, kept the project on the down-low for a while so he could get his work done. But while he was here, he enlisted the help of the colorful customers at the Vol Market off Western Avenue, his parents and a couple of local female impersonators.

“I wanted to shoot in Knoxville because I knew we could get a ton of stuff,” Knoxville says, “and we did.”

He purposely drew on people he knew for the commercial, which took about a day for him to do. “We went down to the Vol Market, got people from the Vol Market and gave (viewers) a little slice of the South,” he says.

“Then we played Rock Band with them afterward.”

Knoxville took cameras to the home of his parents, who live in South Knoxville, and got them to play the videogame.

He topped off the day by going to the Rainbow West Club in Knoxville. He says it was “trannie” night at the club, and he asked local cross-dressers to play the game with him.

And by “the game,” we mean Rock Band.

“They were beautiful transgender ladies,” he says.

Later, he was photographed leaning over a pool table while two of the patrons flanked him. One was in front; the other in back.

The photo was somehow “leaked” to perezhilton.com. What a shocker.

Besides doing the commercial, he also took part in singing a karaoke number with a patron.

“He’s a really nice guy,” says performer Mercedes Alexander, who appears at Rainbow West. “I played a couple of games with him … He took some photos and did one song.”

She says the club’s crowd was “accepting” of him and were “shocked” to see the star at a gay bar in Knoxville.

“I am a fan,” says Alexander. “Even more so now. He was so nice that night.”

The commercial was posted at Vice magazine’s official Web site, viceland.com.

While he was in East Tennessee, Knoxville also shot a music video with his cousin, Roger Alan Wade, in Chattanooga. A 2008 video that Knoxville did for Wade generated buzz in Nashville and was an early contender in the CMA Video Music Award nominations.

Knoxville says returning home, even for work, was nice. “It was a good excuse go to home,” he says.

Whisperings

-- More stink on Mink: Roane State Community College basketball player Ken Mink, who is the oldest player in the country at age 73, says three national TV show crews were on campus this week, culminating with taping of the game between Roane State and Hiwassee College.

The “Today” show had a crew there to talk to Mink as did NBA-TV and ABC-TV out of Chicago, filling a “March Madness” piece.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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