It’s been an amazing story for the band. The song is already a number 1 bestseller on Amazon Music, had over 1 million video views On Facebook and is 16-1 with bookies to be this year's Christmas number 1.
“We’re just buzzing that it’s out there and being well received,” says Olly. “We’re a DIY band on a tiny budget and we've really put so much work into this. Seeing some of the bookies having us in the running for Christmas no. 1 is crazy. Seeing your name next to James Blunt himself...”
“It’s nice that people are understanding the message as well,” adds Jonny. “People get the humour but also the more serious aspects which we’re trying to highlight.”
The story of the song started in over 18 months ago, back in March 2018. “The title just popped into my head and it made me chuckle,” recalls Olly. “I’ve always wanted to a Christmas song and it pretty much all came together in my head in a couple of hours. And then we recorded it around Christmas so we were in the festive spirit. We pulled out every trick in the book: choirs, bells, strings, brass - the works.”
Then they got Inbetweeners star James Buckley to lend a hand for the hilarious video. “James has been a long time friend and supporter of our music. I always envisioned the music video to be a guy sat on his own, lonely at Christmas and I thought who better to play the part than James, he’s the only BAFTA award winning actor I know!” Olly laughs. “He made a joke about why don't we do a tribute to Last Christmas.”
“And before we knew it he was dressed as Roy Wood from Wizzard and I was dressed up as Boy George” laughs Jonny. “It was a fun but bizarre couple of days..: we did half the budget on wigs.”
But they’re also keen to stress the serious message they want to get across in the song too.
“There’s obviously a massively comical side to the lyrics and the video but it's actually a very sad song when you hear back about a guy who's very lonely and depressed at Christmas,” says Olly. “So once the idea was complete it just made total sense to reach out to CALM.”
“The statistics are so shocking at the moment, with suicide being the biggest killer of men under 45. It’s just something we can all massively relate to. I’ve had my battles with my own my own personal mental health throughout my life.”
“I’ve lost two young men in my family in the last five years to suicide,” says Jonny. “We’re all from Essex and it’s a very uber masculine, macho culture. Football watching, beer drinking and people just bottling stuff up, hiding behind booze or making fun of each other. It seems to be a thing that we don’t put our arms around each other and that’s what I loved about the CALM marketing - it was really no nonsense and how you talk to your mate. It really spoke to us.”
And they’d love a little help from the famous singer they name check to get the message out even further. “We’ve not heard a whisper from him so far. But he’s quite a self deprecating guy and he often jokes about the cockney rhyming slang. It’d be nice to get a tweet off him.” Olly laughs. Come on James - do the right thing!