Looking for your new favourite Christmas song? Look no further, because Novacrow are here to properly start the festive season with their new Christmas themed single, ‘The Krampus, ‘The Krampus’! Original Rock talks with Kitty to dig into the track…
When did the initial idea for your latest single come together?
We’ve always wanted to do a Christmas song, but every year December would just roll around and we would be Christmas-song-less. So this year we had the brilliant idea to just re-vamp one of our most popular (and arguably catchiest) song to be Christmas theme.
How would you describe the track, to a reader that is unfamiliar with the band?
Hmm it’s a pretty interesting one. Genre and arrangement wise, it’s got this ragtime-metal feel to it with sultry overtones. Some of the main inspirations for the arrangement and overall feel for the original song were Diablo Swing Orchestra, Moonshine Limbo by Trepalium, Bad Devil by Devin Townsend, and the Voodoo lady music from the Monkey Island soundtrack. To Christmas-it up a bit we added sleigh bells, tubular bells, and glockenspiels.
Can you tell us a bit more about the meaning behind the track?
Kitty initially wanted to make the song about Santa and how kind of creepy the dude is in concept – he sees you when you’re sleeping, he’s kissing mommy, all that stuff. But then making it about the Krampus fit the song much more, giving it a more cryptid vibe (similarly to how the original track was about Medusa). It also fits our image a lot more with the nod to spooky and horror themes.
How would you say that the track compares to anything you’ve done before?
It suits us perfectly. The song itself is great, catchy, and is a great showcase of our skills as songwriters/composers/arrangers, and thematically it’s just as tongue-in-cheek as we like to be. You can have fun with it, whilst also appreciating it as a good piece of music.
What was the hardest part about putting it together, and why?
Trying to make it sound more Christmas-y without compromising too much of the original arrangement was a bit tricky as the original song was already quite full, instrumentally and harmonically speaking, hence why we just decided to keep it simple with the sleigh bells. Otherwise, coming up with a good concept for the accompanying video was also quite hard; we had loads of really fun ideas but in order for us to have the video ready in time (and without bankrupting us) we had to simplify it a bit. Still, we’re really happy with the result and we think both the track sounds great and the video came out perfectly!
Why should a reader check out the track?
Because it’s great. You will definitely have it stuck in your head for years to come. This world also needs more horror-related Christmas songs and we feel this track fills that void perfectly. It’s such a fun song, and you don’t hate fun DO YOU?
What else can you tell us about the track, that we haven’t covered in this interview?
We really wanted to add the lyrics “You better not hide, you better not run; The Krampus is here, and he’s got a gun” but we thought that was a little bit TOO stupid to add. Would have been pretty fucking funny though, and it would have meant we’d have had to get sillier with the video.
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