Local musos produce ‘the xmas musicalendar’

9 December 2015

The anticipation of Christmas is often more exciting than the day itself. Capturing that excitement is the main motivation behind a unique musical advent calendar produced by local musician, Duke of The Main Guy & the Other Guys. Duke has rallied 50 artists he met on his travels around Australia, to each take on a Christmas themed song and create a video for the calendar countdown. We had a chat to Duke about the musicians involved, the song choices and that sax solo!

NL: What gave you the inspiration to produce the xmas musicalendar?

DUKE: Growing up in Norway, my mum and dad always had an advent calendar in the house for me and my brother & sister. It is a very common tradition in Europe and I was somewhat surprised how rare it seems here in Australia. I must admit, having lived here for almost 16 years now, I STILL struggle to feel any ‘Christmas vibe’ in the heat…I think Christmas is very much based around nostalgia and family so I dare say what you experienced as a child will be your idea of it forever. To me, the build up to Christmas is actually more exciting than the day itself…it is all about getting excited and preparing surprises for your loved ones…baking and making…the day itself can sometimes be overwhelming and too stressful…

Last year I thought about making a calendar by doing a song myself for every day…I soon discovered this was going to be way too hard so I roped in my friend Sam Cupitt (whom this year has made the animated opening sequence) to help me…we decided to rather go with a comical angle and called the project ‘Duke & Sam Butcher the Carols’ and we made 9 woeful versions of xmas songs before we got tired and went home…still, as we released them sporadically during December 2014 we got a great response amongst our friends and I myself felt ‘the vibe’ creep back doing this…you know…giving something purely for the fun of it;)

I put a reminder in my phone for October 1st 2015 to make sure I would organise a proper calendar this year… I did forget about it but fortunately, on October 1st, it popped up and I put the idea back into action…

NL: How did you go about getting all the musos involved?

DUKE: The selection was based around singer/songwriters I have met over the years….people I knew and loved and was hoping to get on board…many of them are from the Newcastle area as this is where I live, but this was not a rule or part of the concept. There are people from Melbourne, Sydney and the Mid North Coast in this years calendar as well…and some of these acts were suggested by others whom were unable to participate so even I have discovered some new favourite performers!

Also, I did not think through the list TOO much as I sent it out there… so many friends/singer/song writers I also do love would not even have been asked…for this I apologize profusely!! I just sent the message to about the first 30 that came to mind, hoping some of them would be keen…but to my surprise 90% of them wanted in thus I never got to go back and do a second batch of invites…

Next year I’ll do auditions! haha

A big part of this, for me, was 24 different artists also exposing/sharing themselves to each others fans thus hopefully gaining new friends and fans along the way. It seems to work already, which is fantastic!

NL: Were there any rules for artists taking part?

DUKE: I asked them all to each pick a song (a cover or an original) and the only rule was: It had to have a Christmas theme and they had to film themselves performing it. I was pleasantly surprised that only twice did anyone pick the same song (thus someone had to change their choice) and I think we have about 5 or 6 originals, which is incredible!

NL: Will Duke make an appearance?

DUKE: I haven’t so far…only one way to find out 😉

NL: There’s been so many great videos already, but one of the highlights is Zackari Watt’s sax solo in O Holy Night. Who shot it? Who’s idea was it and why is it so AWESOME!

DUKE: Having known Zack for nearly 16 years now he was a natural choice for me. What a voice and what a performer! I thought: “if I can only manage to make him keep his pants on, this could be great!” …unfortunately I failed in that respect, BUT the clip still turned out great! haha

Zack was actually the first person to respond too…his message simply said: I’m in if I can do ‘Oh Holy Night’…it’s both of ours favorite carol and, considering Zack’s amazing voice, this was a real exciting concept. He then asked if I could help him film it, so we decided that he would find an instrumental version of the song online and sing along to it. In his research of a backing track he came across the outrageous sax-solo, and decided he wanted to incorprate it somehow…the idea at that point was to just put him on top of roof or similar and just film it from the ground…like a crappy Kenny G shot. We both thought this would be funny cause we both have a weird sense of humor;)

Anyhow, I had lent a light to another friend of mine, Peter McDonald (whom is hands down the best camera operator I have ever met and who runs his own freelance video business – he filmed The Main Guy & the Other Guys’ ‘Game of Thrones’ video too), and called him up as I needed my light back to film Zack’s video…he said ‘No Probs dude…do you need anything else? I’v got this week off” and so I said, laughingly: “Ah, it would be awesome if you got your new drone out and helped me film Zack pretending to rip a sax solo” to which he replied: “Sure! I need to practice my Drone-skills anyhow” … it was literally that spontaneous…two days later we shot it, and I kid you not…I was actually screaming with laughter the entire shoot…and i KNOW that standing on top of any kind of cliff in a shot like that has been one of Zacks top 5 dreams to achieve…he was beyond himself with joy!

It just all came together and worked so well…BUT I still knew that Zacks skills as a singer would be highlighted AND that he could still top that shot with those incredible notes at the end…

NL: Can you give us a hint of what’s to come?

DUKE: Well there will definitely be more songs that are Christmas-themed…and videos…and a different artist each day…I can tell you that much!

NL: How will you be spending Christmas?

DUKE: With my partner Lisa and my son Oscar. We will head to Sydney and spend the day with Lisa’s grandmother;)