Caught in the Carousel

Fred Schneider

By Alex Green

Fred Schneider

Musicians love to add a Christmas album to their CVs at one point in their careers. Never mind that Jessica Simpson's new holiday album failed well before Christmas even came in 2010, artists like Bright Eyes, The Boy Least Likely To, Sufjan Stevens and Rosie Thomas have all put out respectable Christmas albums that contain both originals and interpretations of the classics. Of course, no one can touch A Charlie Brown Christmas or A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, but it's always entertaining to hear folks like Mariah Carey or Josh Groban give it a try. Although you definitely want Fred Schneider at your Christmas party next year, you may not have always wanted a Christmas album from the B-52's frontman. However, after one listen to Destination Christmas, you'll be glad that the singer decided to throw his hat into the Christmas album ring. Teaming up with Floridians Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall, and calling themselves The Superions, the band's first effort is an instant classic. From the buoyant "Christmas Conga" to the infectious "Fruitcake" to the irresistible "Santa's Disco," Destination Christmas is filled with peppy blasts of holiday-themed jingles, jangles and rum-in-the-eggnog vibes. It's an endless Christmas dance party that grooves long after the old guy gets himself up that chimney and out into the night.

After all of his holiday reveling, Fred Schneider was kind enough to sit down with CITC for a chat:

Fred Schneider

Caught In The Carousel: To my ears, Destination Christmas is an instant classic.

Fred Schneider: Yeah, we wanted it to become a perennial chestnut.

CITC: But you know, you've entered into a milieu where there are a lot of perennial chestnuts. There are some pretty legendary Christmas albums.

FS: And there are some stinkers. So let's push them all aside and make room for The Superions.

CITC: It sounds like you had a blast doing this record.

FS: Oh, it was so much fun! Sometimes we had to stop because we were laughing so hard. To try to sing those lyrics and be serious—sometimes it wasn't so easy.

CITC: What was it like to work with Noah and Dan?

FS: Working with them was so inspiring because if you give them a direction they'll come up with music and I'll just put words to it off the top of my head.

Fred Schneider

CITC: Have you wanted to do a Christmas record for a long time?

FS: For like the past ten years and finally I found the right people to do it with. I mean, the band (The B-52's) didn't want to do one and now that I've got The Superions on the side, I have free range to do whatever I want.

CITC: What was one of the first songs you did?

FS: I came up with "Crummy Christmas Tree" about ten years ago—I started singing it at parties; after a couple of glasses of "egg nog" I came up with that song; the melody is a very basic sing-a-long. When we recorded in Orlando, we did nine songs in eleven days. We even wrote a Halloween song. We can really crank out the goodies.

CITC: This is such a spirited record; I don't think it only has to be played at Christmas.

FS: Oh, no...I used to bitch when they were playing Christmas music in October and now I'm going, "Let's play Christmas music in September!"

CITC: How did you hook up with the Superions?

FS: My friend owns Rock and Roll Heaven, which is like the biggest record store in south Florida and Dan and Noah are vinyl nuts and they knew my friend so he introduced me to them because they were fans of the B-52's. We got to be good friends and I stayed with them whenever I was in Orlando. One day they came up to me and said they had a track for me to put words to and I did and it turned into "Totally Nude Island" and then we did "Ham."

Fred Schneider

CITC: You seem like you work well with those guys—will there be more recordings?

FS: Oh yeah—we have that Halloween song, we have four videos and I've been wiring other songs with them so hopefully we'll have a full album by next fall and maybe a Halloween E.P. and more and more Christmas songs. But I'll let this one become a favorite before we embark on another one.

CITC: Was Christmas a big thing for you as a kid?

FS: Oh, yeah! I was traumatized when someone said, "There's no such thing as Santa Claus, it's your mom and dad. All of a sudden I realized all of the things that were hidden around the house. I had to pretend that I still believed. That was many of the major early shocks of my life. That and polio shots.

CITC: And once they figured out you were on to them?

FS: After a while there were so many kids that my mother would just hand us a Sears catalog and say put down the page and the item and the number and the price and maybe you'll get what you choose.

CITC: A lot of people get bummed out around Christmas. Might Destination Christmas be able to help?

FS: Here's a record that's not going to make you depressed. Therapists should prescribe The Superions' CD. Play the record, dance and have fun with your friends!

Let Destination Christmas bring you year-round cheer.