Purple pride is lending a hand to a pop sensation.
Toronto-area singer songwriter Shawn Mendes has gone from Internet phenomenon to a chart-topping pop sensation and his latest video has a London connection.
The song, "Something Big" has a marching band and drum line vibe so when the call went out looking for a marching band to appear in the latest Shawn Mendes video, the Western Marching Band stepped up.
But some didn't realize what they were stepping into.
"My sister came running up and said, 'Oh my goodness, you're going to be in a Shawn Mendes video!' So, I knew that it was going to be something but now that its really exploded I'm sort of excited and shocked a little bit," says Reid Schneider a first year band member.
Mendes just turned 16 this summer but even before his birthday, he became the youngest artist ever to debut in Billboard's T op 25 with his single "Life of the Party."
Even though the band members are doing the instrumental equivalent of lip synching they wanted to do a good job and have it reflect well, not only on them, but on the university.
The band members actually had the song in hand a month before travelling to Brampton, Ont. for the shoot.
"We took the song and broke it down, we broke it down for the different instruments so we figured out how to play the actual song so that we could choreograph it perfectly for the music video," says Connell Miller, band member.
"I think it brings us to a different audience. It sort of takes marching band - they're not as big in Canada as they are in the United States - and maybe makes it seem a little bit more popular," says Elizabeth Jewlal, band president.
