Welcome to our 6th annual Christmas Roundtable! 2021 has continued to be a difficult time for people all around the world as we are still going through a pandemic. BareBones Ent sat down with a bunch of bands and musicians to talk about Christmas and hopefully spread some cheer. We had so many entries so we are breaking this in to 2 parts this year! Here’s looking forward to 2022 and hopefully getting back to normal!
September Mourning
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
SM: It’s a reminder for me to slow down. I love working but sometimes I forget about life balance, which is super important so that you don’t burn out. The holidays shut a lot of things down so that you have to re-focus and I think that’s a great thing.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
SM: Before I became a professional musician, I was a professional ballerina. When I was in school for that, every year there was the annual Christmas ballet called the Nutcracker that would be cast. I always wanted to play Clara in the Nutcracker. I remember working incessantly for that role. I finally got my chance when i was 11. One of my most prominent memories of my childhood is the scene when the Christmas tree grows and Clara and Dresselmeyer dance together before the Nutcracker prince appears. There is a lift in that section where he carried me across stage and I can still smell the smoke in the air and feel that wind on my face. It was a magical time for me and made me realize that I never want to stop performing.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
SM: My fav Christmas movie has got to be the classic ” A Christmas Story”. It’s hilarious even now. My friends and I have it on in the background every year during get togethers during the holidays. It’s ridiculous, but we love it.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
SM: The Corpse Bride. I’ve been called that when I’m dressed as September Mourning… and even though it’s more of a Halloween thing… that whole Jack Skellington world still permeates Christmas.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
SM: “All I want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. My guitarist Rich Juzwick and I always listen to that if we are on tour during the holidays, so I honestly don’t know if I like it or am just used to hearing it around this time haha.
Mark C Daniel
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
MCD: I love the time I spend with my wife, friends and family. Visiting restaurants, bars and other festive locations couples well with great wine and great IPAs. There is magic in the air.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
MCD: I have many thankfully…too tough to choose.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
MCD: Christmas Vacation!
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
MCD: Rudolf… I feel like a pariah so why not be the holiday season’s number 1 misfit.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
MCD: Everything on Brian Setzer Orchestral’s- Boogie Woogie Christmas
Top Tier
Top Tier Barebones XMAS
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Felix:The fooooood the foooood!! Also all the gatherings with the homies.
B–ry: My favorite thing about the holiday season is without question all the food.
Nico: When I really think about it, the weather and the nostalgia that comes with it. It never gets cold here in Miami.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
Felix:My Best holiday memory has to be getting my GameCube in 2nd grade.
B–ry: The best holiday memory I have is my dad putting on a Santa hat and handing out the gifts like an MC
Nico: Getting my first bass guitar. It was a black silvertone P-bass that my parents got me from I think Sears.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Felix:The Grinch movie from 2000. I find myself relating more and more to the Grinch.
B–ry: Favorite Christmas movie is Jingle All The Way or Elf
Nico: They’re not “Christmas” movies for say, but all the Harry Potter movies. I remember being a kid and watching them all winter long on ABC
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Felix:If I could be any holiday character I’d probably pick Jack Frost for the superpowers
B–ry: I would like to be one of the reindeer pushing Santa’s sled, but not one in the front like Rudolph because he’s doing the most work
Nico: Probably Jack Skeleton cause I’m already kinda built like him so I’d feel at home
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Felix: “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch”. I heard it as a kid and died laughing at how hard the singer was roasting the Grinch
B–ry: My favorite Christmas song is “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” by NSync or anything from the Frank Sinatra Christmas album
Nico: “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”! Just because of how absurd and dark it really is.
Testarossa
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Buddy: Getting to spend time with my awesome family
Jordan: Seeing the family happy.
Blake: Same as the other guys. I like seeing people I don’t get to see too often.
Colten: Halloween, after that it’s all downhill.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
Buddy: Getting my first drum set at age 5.
Jordan: every year is my new favorite..
Blake: One of my great uncles pretended to be Santa Claus when I was a kid & spoke to us from the roof of my great grandmother’s house. It blew my five year old mind haha
Colten: my parents bought me a Kramer guitar one year, it had a Floyd Rose trem on it. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Buddy: It’s AWonderful Life. Hands down!
Jordan: It’s a Wonderful Life
Colten: I’m not very festive. I watched Rocky I, it took place in November.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Buddy: Well, I’m the height of an elf….soooo
Jordan: The abominable snowman, so I could live in a cave alone forever.
Blake: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer because I’d be the subject matter of a Chuck Berry song.
Colten: The kid from home alone, before Michael Jackson.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Buddy: definitely got to be “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”
Jordan: “Zat’ you, Santa Claus?” – Louis Armstrong
Blake: Anything by Frank Sinatra.
Colten: “Christmas Wrapping” – The Waitresses
“Happy Holiday” – Enuff Z’Nuff
“Merry Christmas from the family” – Robert Earl Keen
“Merry Christmas” – Testarossa
Pretty much any Christmas song that could work anytime of the year, not just Christmas. Those are all well written songs
The Man From Alphabet
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Dustin: I like that it gives us an opportunity to take time away from work and prioritize spending time with loved ones. I don’t really celebrate the holidays for traditional reasons at this point in my life, but I enjoy the excuse to eat excessively with friends and family. I also enjoy giving gifts. I usually try to think of something that the recipient and I bond over and buy them something related to that rather than something thoughtless like a gift card.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
Dustin: My band Paria (in Omaha, NE) that I have been in for 20 years went on indefinite hiatus in 2010, then I moved to LA. In 2015 we did a show while I was in town and it was so much fun. Because we started that band when we were all teenagers, it was kind of like an untraditional high school reunion. Friends drove in from all over the midwest for the show too.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Dustin: Elf, but Home Alone and Nightmare Before Christmas are up there as well.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Dustin: Buddy the Elf. I’d love to feel that ecstatic and excited about everything all the time.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Dustin: I’ve got two: “Jesus and Mary Christmas” by Noah’s Ark Was A Spaceship and “Sexy Santa” by Steel Panther
Lielack
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Lielack: It’s cheesy, but I honestly just LOVE the vibe…everything about it..the holiday spirit! But immediately after…Dec. 26th, living in New England I immediately become depressed…what’s that SAD (seasonal affective disorder)?
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
Lielack: Hamsters. My sister and I got hamsters for Xmas one year…and it felt so good to finally have something less significant than me…lol but don’t worry I’ve gone to therapy since then and worked all that out
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Lielack: Scrooged..with Bill Murray..it’s such a great film. Extremely underrated.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Lielack: Yukon Cornelius. That dude was a man for men.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Lielack: The cover of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan…the harmonies are like…god mode
Cavo
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Cavo: All the seasonal items that come out. I’m always a sucker for a limited edition soda or things like that. Sounds kinda childish but I get stoked when I see stuff like that. Halloween and Christmas are the holidays most companies do stuff like that and I’m always pumped for it.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
Cavo: When I was a kid my grandparents always had a huge Christmas Eve party every year. My uncle from LA would always fly in with his husband for it and they always had the newest Nintendo system which seemed so amazing my younger self and my grandfather would always be drunk on Drambuie screaming “save the bows” all night long. Class Christmas memories I’ll always remember.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Cavo: Jingle All The Way. I watch it every year. A lot of people always rip on that movie but to me it’s a classic. The idea of a dad trying to get his son a high demand toy on Christmas Eve, especially in the 90s, is an adventure in itself. And it’s cool seeing Arnold playing just a regular dude in a movie haha.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Cavo: Kevin McCallister from Home Alone 2. Dude is 10 years old walking around NYC at Xmas time by himself. Every kid’s dream. And he had that talk boy thing. I still want one of those to this day.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Cavo: Hands down “Merry Christmas Will Do” by Material Issue. I guess it’s a sad Xmas song but those are the kind I like. I’m such a fan of it that a few years ago my friend John Davis of Superdrag and I covered it together and I think that’s the only version you can stream is ours. I hope we did it justice because it’s one of the greatest songs ever written.
AVAT
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Roly: Picking out the Christmas tree! ???? Hands down best feeling of the year!
Dimitri: Definitely all the food, and the occasional day where it’s below 70 degrees in Miami.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?Roly: Christmas at my Stepmoms is always amazing, massive tree, cocoa, family, and the most thoughtful gifts.
Dimitri: I used to hit up the mountains of North Carolina for Christmas and go skiing down Sugar Mountain. Was pretty rad even if it’s a block of ice.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Dimitri: Die Hard. It’s a Christmas movie, and if you say otherwise, you’re wrong
Roly: Yippee kiyay motherfucker!
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Roly: For me its Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) “The Santa Clause”. The chance to be Santa Clause and experience the magic of it first hand has to be amazing.
Dimitri: An elf but not just any elf, like Will Ferrell in the movie Elf. Syrup and Spaghetti all day every day.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Roly: “Run Rudolph Run”, Chuck Berry
Dimitri: It’s not the holidays until you’ve listened to the Sleddin’ Hill album from August Burns Red at least 12 times.
Viana
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
Viana: My favorite thing about the holidays is definitely just the holiday spirit as a whole. This time of year is so damn cozy and full of love, family, good food. It always puts things in perspective and keeps what’s important at the forefront of my mind.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
Viana: This is a pretty stupid memory, but what can I say it sparks joy. We always do stockings at my house. And every year, there’s a bunch of random stuff in there, including scratch tickets. EVERY YEAR my 87 year old grandma wins on them and it just cracks me up every time. She gets so pumped and I give her a hard time about it being rigged. Picturing the look on her face when she wins is making me laugh right now.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Viana: Oooooh it’s definitely between Elf and The Grinch. I honestly watch those all year round. As far as nostalgia goes, probably A Christmas Story, just because it used to play all day on some cable network that we’d have on at home.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
Viana: I mean, who wouldn’t want to be Santa? His job seems like so much fun and you get to hang out with cute reindeer and fly around the world, being fed treats the whole time. Count me in.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
Viana: For me, it’s probably “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. It’s so soft and sweet and it gets me every damn time.
Sucker Punch
BBE: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
SP: We all really love spending time with family! We all have some traditional dishes and desserts that we all look forward to as well.
BBE: What is the best holiday memory you have?
SP: Many of us got our first instruments when we were younger, which ultimately led to us playing in a band together!
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas movie?
SP: Jingle All The Way and the live action version of The Grinch seem to be the favorites.
BBE: If you could be any holiday character who would it be and why?
SP: Frosty the Snowman, he’s just spreading good vibes all around.
BBE: What is your favorite Christmas song?
SP: “Happy Holidays, You Bastard” by Blink 182. “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” by I Declare War is a close second though
Make sure to check out part 2 of our 2021 Christmas Roundtable!
