Interview: Christmas

Christmas is a psych-punk band from Olympia, WA. This past summer, I stumbled upon their wild daytime set at the Helsing Junction Sleepover. I’m pretty sure I was put under some sort of black magic, because I’ve been thinking of the show on and off ever since. It’s interesting that a group of witchypoos would have such a festive, Christian-sounding band name.

“Like some of my favorite band names, ‘Christmas’ doesn’t really tell you anything about what the music sounds like,” Dave says. “I guess it also has something to with the way people’s attitudes change around the holiday season. Every year it makes big promises about joy and togetherness and shit and makes people go crazy and drive their cars to the mall in a snowstorm to buy stuff.”

“Easter was too religious, Thanksgiving was taken, so we chose Christmas,” Pat adds.

Pat Scott-Walsh and front woman Emily Beanblossom were in a class together at The Evergreen State College. Without previously knowing each other, they ended up going on a trip to Poland the following summer. They bonded during their Eastern European adventure, and decided they’d like to start a band after getting back to the states. After that things just sort of fell into place. “We asked Dave [Halegua] to join ‘cause Emily kept on saying he was ‘funky.’ He proved to be pretty funky, she was right.” Pat says. “Then we needed a drummer ‘cause we sounded awful. Looking back I realize how shitty it was before Jake [Jones] got there. So I remember seeing Moon Runners and knowing Jake was a ripper. He came over, and we had so much fun. I remember Jake only had two drums and used a glass of water for a ride cymbal.”

“Everyone is from somewhere else. We all came here originally to go to the school. But Emily is done and I dropped out. Jake and Dave still go,” Pat explains. “I’m from Wisconsin and grew up with a dirt bike. Jake is from Yelm, right outside of Olympia, and grew up with a skateboard. And Dave is from Jersey and you can tell — that is both a compliment and an insult. Emily grew up in Illinois and had a farm and tells me she ate a whole shitload of hearty food growing up. But now, it’s Olympia. But Jake lives in Lacey with his dad who has the cleanest house I’ve seen in my life. I have no clue how Jake got so messy.”

Christmas released their debut 7” on Endless Latino in early 2009. They credit their success to Brian Formo, who runs the one-man operation.

“[Brian Formo] met Pat and I on our return from Poland,” Emily says. He’s really into promoting local music and working his ass off so bands like us can dick around and do what we love to do. He even tracked down an awesome artist who did our cover art — Ethan Pignataro.”

Jake adds, “I’m really glad to have worked with Brian, he’s someone I feel really knows what he’s doing, even though I think we have more fun than he thinks we should, sometimes — he’s sobering when we need it most.”

“Some have asked us what he got out of it,” Emily says. “If you’ve ever seen Brian Formo’s dance moves, you’ll know. We provide for him the beat with which to shake his bones.”

Emily grew up singing “fairly intense Catholic choir hymns” when she was small. “In high school, I found the Misfits, and then a guy who could shred on guitar introduced me to The Damned and Iowaska and Phantom Limbs…and now, Slavic women and oscillators” She also claims to be influenced by psychedelics, mysticism, bad breakups, Andalusian music, people who aren’t very sociable, Bollywood, and No Wave.

Pat says, “For me, there is an underlying attitude I’m influenced by. You know the band Pussy Galore? It’s something like that — but I don’t think we take it to that level. It was how they contrasted the DC hardcore scene that made me love them so much. They were outlaws only because they didn’t want to be like everyone else who thought they were different than everyone else. Pussy Galore was the most punk ‘punk band’ there ever was. I don’t know.”

“Sounds weird, but They Might Me Giants were a huge influence on me in high school,” Jake says. Both him and Dave also cite skateboarding as an influence. “Skateboarding influenced my music in a way I can’t really explain — I just feel the music the same way I feel skateboarding. Both of which I think I do in a slightly different way than the average person,” Jake adds.

A couple months ago Christmas got back from their first tour together.

“Tour was great,” Dave says. “We toured with Jake’s other band, Moon Runners, on the way down, but mostly with K Records band, Desolation Wilderness.”

“Nic Zwart of Desolation Wilderness asked us to go on tour with him at our second show. So we did the West coast with those guys and it was funny. Santa Cruz was the most memorable and least at the same time, if you catch my drift,” Pat says. “I guess once we met up with them it kinda became a giant party. Freaky Z was climbing on car and just being a crazy dude.”

“Desolation Wilderness are a bunch of really, really fucking adorable boys,” Emily adds.

The world has yet to see a Christmas LP, but Pat assured me that there’s one on the way. “[In] January we plan on recording a bunch of our new stuff. I don’t know what we’ll do with it at this point. I asked an extremely talented and awesome Olympia musician to produce it all — I was drunk and he was on some sort of drug so I don’t know how binding that is. But so far, nothing official. Summer?”

From what Emily says, it sounds like they’ve found something special and they intend to keep it going. “I really like these boys,” she says, “Jake’s really good at skateboarding, and I’ve never seen anyone role a cigarette like Dave. And Pat’s got some fucking legs!”

They’ll definitely keep partying though, that’s for sure. Jake concluded the interview saying, “I think that every month should be 30 days on the nose, and at the end of every year there [should be] a four or five day grace period where we all just party, and no clocks work, and there is literally no date or time, just hang out and party for four days straight.”

Click here to download “Santa Cruz” from Christmas