With so many unique things on the horizon for Christmas 2020, a pandemic inspired Christmas song has been released by Dillon Currie to share a message specifically for December 25, 2020.
Currie, the lead singer for the League of Wolves, branched out into a solo project when he was inspired to share a message of support this Christmas season. He quickly became passionate about recording and releasing the song Staying Home This Christmas in order for his song to make a difference this month.
“I think that it’s timely. It’s written for this Christmas. It’s not a song I really want to be relevant by next year,” Currie admitted in an interview the day before the song’s release on Wednesday. “It’s about this sacrifice that we need to make this year to keep each other safe, and the hard times that people are going through and the extra fear.”
Currie felt he had a special song on his hands when he sat down at the piano on November 20 to start writing the song. He finished the song the following day, and by November 30 the master version of the recording was completed.
“Instead of sitting down for lunch I parked myself at the piano for a few minutes and this came out instantly,” he said of the writing process for Staying Home This Christmas. “It just seemed like that’s what was going to happen this year is we’re probably going to be in small groups, small gatherings, and spending it at home.”
His song includes the verse:
“Remember the spirit of the season means Giving love—spreading joy and spreading cheer;
Having hope and understanding, in spite of what we fear. It’s letting go—of the hate that holds us back,
And as we look towards a New Year,
It’s believing that it can be better than the last.”
“Those lyrics that came so naturally and easy, that doesn’t always happen, so when it does it’s kind of like ‘this is right’ and it’s a good time to share this if you can. I’m happy it worked out and I hope it resonates with people this year.”
With the song flowing out so effortlessly, he sped the production process to get his music out at quickly as possible.
“I thought how can I bring a little bit of hope to people this year when we need it. Maybe next year will be a little brighter. That’s really why I wanted to get it out there now because I know that this year has been tough on people’s mental health. I find a lot of the songs I write I’m finding that I’m writing about that in just supporting each other.”
“Christmas is difficult for so many people regardless of what’s going on. It’s a tough time of year for so many people. So I really wanted to get this song out. It just took prescient over the other songs I’ve been writing because of that.”
Currie turned to fellow League of Wolves bandmate Aspen Beverage to speed the completion of the song, with Beverage piecing together the song at his Skullcreek Studios in Saskatoon, producing, mixing and mastering the song. He also provided some of the backing tracks by recording the drums, acoustic guitar, some electric guitar, base, and even some jingle bells and tambourine. Additionally, the keyboards and organ tracks were provided by Ross Fokerson from his home in Saskatoon.
Swift Current’s Stacy Tinant from the Moonrunners assisted with the audio engineering of the vocals by helping set up a microphone in Currie’s basement bedroom which was the most suitable location for the best acoustics outside of a professional studio.
“In a matter of three days the recording was done, and Aspen mixed and mastered it himself.”
Currie noted he benefited from a SaskArts grant which supported the mixing and mastering of the song, plus to get a lyric video produced to accompany the song. The song will also be featured on on SaskMusic’s Home for the Holidays session.
“Things have happened very fast but its been a pretty fun ride so far.”
Currie reflected on the entire year and the challenges it provided to musicians.
“It was unusual, like non other I’ve been through.”
The League of Wolves had an early 2020 tour, booking an 11 date Western Canadian tour spanning from Vancouver to Winnipeg between January 10 to February 21 in support of their EP Southwest Sessions.
“In retrospect we just snuck that tour in because it was just shortly after that that everything shutdown. I haven’t played a show with the guys since March. So its been a very different year.”
He said when Saskatchewan’s Public Health Order closing all entertainment facilities was issued back on March 20, he actually found inspiration when routine things began to disappear.
“I went straight to the piano and wrote a song that night, I sort of started my solo thing happened on that first day.”
“Right from that day on, I’ve never really written so much music before. But for me, the isolation thing it was kind of like a catalyst that just set me off writing on my own. So in that way that was a silver lining for me where I had that extra time and focus to really write.”
Staying Home This Christmas was released on Bandcamp (dilloncurriemusic.bandcamp.com) on Thursday, and the lyric music video is now posted at https://youtu.be/UI_r7Ei5EmI via @YouTube, with the wider release of the single scheduled to be released on Apple Music and Spotify on December 15.
