Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
April 5, 2020
Joshua Axelrod
Some of the most prominent figures in Pittsburgh came together this weekend in an effort to get everyone to stay strong and, more importantly, stay home.
On Friday, Vault Recording Studios released a music video called “We Will Rock You Pittsburgh” featuring three Steelers — Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Heyward and JuJu Smith-Schuster — some of the city’s biggest non-sports names and a few medical workers designed to implore Pittsburghers to remain in their homes as much as possible to avoid contracting or accidentally spreading COVID-19.
The video also included two other former Steelers in Brett Keisel and Charlie Batch, as well as actor (and Mt. Lebanon native) Joe Manganiello, YouTube star Pittsburgh Dad and even Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, among many others.
It opens with Pittsburgh Dad tapping a can of Iron City beer. He is quickly joined in a split screen by a scraggly Roethlisberger banging a drum, Heyward — who recently championed the same message in a Players’ Tribune article — clapping while mean-mugging for the camera and Peduto slapping a podium to the rhythm.
From there, the video transitions into a stitched-together cover of Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” with all the celebrities on hand plus locals singing that classic tune’s first verse.
Manganiello, who recently was one-third of an extremely Pittsburgh Hollywood photo at the 2020 Oscars, brought home the video’s main message by thanking medical workers for being on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and urging Pittsburgh residents to help them by not going out any more than necessary.
“Stay hometown strong, and stay home,” he said.
Steelers receiver Smith-Schuster immediately echoes that sentiment before a medical professional comes in to really hammer the point home.
“Your lives and the lives of your loved ones, and mine, depend on it,” she said before the video ends on a black screen with nothing but the rallying cries #STAYHOMEPGH and #STAYHOMEPA.
