News and Interviews

Rousing, heart-breaking and foot-stomping in equal measures, the band are better known for producing what they call 'lyric-driven dirt-swing', so it’s a surprise to find them up to their knees in Christmas trees for their single, Writing My List.

The Black Velvet Band in full Xmas mode

Lead singer Louis agrees it’s not what you’d expect from the band, but explains that it all came about because he doesn’t like missing an opportunity to get them some exposure.

"It all started last year. We had absolutely no desire to go down that festive route but out of the blue, we got a message from a small label saying they were putting together a Christmas compilation of alternative-sounding bands and wondered if we had a Yuletide ditty which we could submit.

"Of course we didn't, but Steve Adams from the Broken Family Band was involved and we're fans of them, so we were really keen to be involved. Naturally I replied with a pack of lies saying that we had a song ready."

One week's work

That 'pack of lies' nearly back-fired when the label said they needed the track within a week, but Louis says the band easily rose to the challenge of such a tight deadline – even if it almost did end up being for nothing!

Black Velvet Ali in the video

"We asked when they wanted it. They said five days. So it got composed that night, rehearsed the next day and recorded the day after.

"Hannah Miller, from The Moulettes and Modernaire, was living with us at the time and contributed some gorgeous cello - which I think is the best part of the track - so what started as a pretty chaotic rush turned into a song that we're all really fond of.

"Unfortunately, the label promptly went bust on the day of release and we were stuck with a song rapidly approaching the end of its shelf life. So we're releasing it ourselves this year in the hope that we might be propelled along by it in the same way as The Pogues were after releasing theirs."

'A little peculiar…'

Faced with such a short window to write a track in might have stumped some songwriters, but for Louis, it wasn’t that difficult a task, as he had some experience to draw upon.

"It turned me a little peculiar, so I wrote a duet where a rather sinister Santa gets through the whole dreadful process with the help of all the sherry donations, while a typically expectant child at the other end, who is a fully paid up member of the 'Isn't Christmas Magical' philosophy, is waiting dreamily for his arrival.

"They don't meet in the song - that's left open to suggestion, but anyone who's familiar with our music will know that nothing good is likely to happen."

Playing 'evil Santa'

His slightly odd turn didn’t end with the writing of the song. When it came to making the video for it, Louis jumped at the chance to play the ‘evil Santa’ – an experience he describes as being "very, very hot."

The Black Velvet carol singers

"The set was absolutely baking because we had all these over-sized Christmas lights blinking around us. Add to that the fact that I'm wearing an ankle length fake-suede pimp coat with hairy collar and a long woolly hat and you can see why I sweated buckets and had to get my make-up reapplied after every take.

"The whole thing could've been dreadful. I mean, being engulfed by wrapping paper at 24 frames per second is pretty boring, not to mention uncomfortable, but we had an awesome director in Joe Mannion and I'd recommend it to anyone."

'Naively terrifying'

The promo isn’t all live action. There’s also a charmingly strange animated section which sees the small child and the sherry-ed Santa almost coming together, done by local animator, Sam Alder, who Louis says the band are hoping to work with again.

Sam Alder's Writing My List animation

"He's an absurdly talented man, as well as a good friend of the band. His company, Plastic Zoo, recently made Aidan Smith's latest video and they've just started working with a band signed to Lucky Number 9, so they're really going up in the world.

"We're hoping to work with them on a new song we just recorded, which is a sort of chain gang waltz. It's going to be in the Betty Boop cartoon style - naively terrifying!"

That’s a description that could be given to the band themselves. Another is brilliantly odd. Whichever you plump for, one thing is sure – with evil Santas, Betty Boop cartoons and the rest, you could never describe them as dull.

Writing My List is available for download from Monday 24 November.

The band play Matt & Phreds (and an acoustic session for BBC Manchester Introducing) on Sunday 30 November