How The Rock Ended Up in Chris Janson’s New Music Video

Chris Janson released the music video for his new song, "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get," on Friday morning (April 19). One quick look, and you'll notice an appearance by the 2020 and 2021's world's highest-paid actor, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Let's dive into how The Rock ended up in a Chris Janson music video. I had the chance to speak with both The Rock and Chris Janson at the same time, and got to the bottom of this.

The two were leaving an event that they both happened to be attending, and they were waiting on their cars to pull up so they could get in and leave. Janson was with his son, who saw The Rock and wanted a picture.

Johnson described the moment, and talked about how Janson did not fanboy one bit.

"No 'If Ya Smell,' nothing. [He said] 'Hey DJ, good to meet you, I'm Chris, can you take a picture with my son?'"

The Rock continued, "He was so cool, but by the way, so much so that we laugh about it now. We were talking for 10-15 minutes and just shooting the breeze. Kelly came up and said, 'I'm so sorry to interrupt, he's never gonna tell you, but DJ, I know you love country music, he sings country music.' I was like, 'What?'"

The Rock was still clueless as to who Janson was at that moment.

"Usually when you hear that kind of stuff, maybe it's, oh he just started ... oh, good for you, kid, however I can help you out. It's usually that."

Janson sat quietly while The Rock was talking about the first time the two had met.

"It's like pulling teeth out of Chris. Then I come to find out that, I said, 'Well man, I love country music.' A lot of my growing up was in Nashville. I wanted to be a country singer. I tried to get into Tootsies and all these honky-tonk dive bars when I was 15 years old."

The Rock described how their conversation then turned to Hank Williams Jr.

"I just happened to go — 'cause again, I thought he was maybe just starting out, so I sang, 'I'm just a singer,' and he starts singing and was like, 'Yeah, I sang it last night at my show last night.'"

"I was like, what show?" The Rock continued. "Then, I come to find out he's this big country star, he's tight with Hank Jr., wrote for Hank Jr, has No. 1 hits, and a member of the Grand Ole Opry, just blew my mind."

In the new music video for "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get," Johnson joins Janson as they spend an afternoon in the deer stand, muddin’ in a vintage Ford pickup and enjoying some good ol’ Southern boy downtime.

"Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" launched as the most added song on country radio at its debut, and it's poised to be the country song of the summer as its more than two million streams continue to grow.

Evan Paul is the host of Taste of Country Nights, a syndicated radio show heard on more than 130 country radio stations nationwide, every night from 7PM to midnight. He plays the best new country music and interviews today's top stars, like Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Lady A, + more!