“No More Tequila For Santa” is now available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and all the usual digital platforms.
It started with a title. Christmas Night circa 2018, a friend of ours grabbed a decoration that looked like a present. I told her it was just a prop, and she said, “Oh no. No More Tequila For Santa”. Sometimes – more often than not, actually – that’s all it takes for a song. I wrangled my pal John Cirillo – who’s writing up a storm with half of Nashville these days – and we Google Doc’d and Skyped together what we decided would be our own “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”. However, we wanted something with more of an edge to it. John and I literally typed out almost 10 pages of lyrics and story ideas. (Yes, there was a bit of detail. But it’s easier to cut what you don’t need, rather than be stuck for song fodder.)
Inside info: John and I have a perfect cowriting relationship. We’re good friends and we trust each other. Our approach is, “No egos. Whatever makes the song a better song is acceptable. Toss in everything you can think of. And no hard feelings if one of us edits out something the other writes.” And if one of us has a phrase that just HAS TO BE IN THE SONG, we make it work. For example, I was adamant that the lines “apologies for all the misdirected gifts / but you should see the viral photographs…hashtag drunk santa gifs” had to make it in somewhere. John liked it, too, fortunately.
Cut to spring/summer: Me and my New Best Friends gathered at The Compound, a studio in Ben Lomond CA, with Henry Chadwick at the board. Henry’s a local singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He’s well-known as being the drummer for the Coffis Brothers and The Mountain Men for 8+ years, but he’s so much more. I interviewed Henry last year on my “Songs and Stories” podcast and learned he’s also an engineer. We hit it off. I wanted to work with him.
If you’ve never recorded, this is pretty standard, and it’s and the approach that we used:
- I did a scratch vocal/guitar, playing with Jeff Baker on drums and honorary “New Best Friend” Mark Hall on bass to get the basic rhythm tracks.
- To get clean guitar and vocals, I redid my rhythm acoustic guitar on a dedicated track. I then resang the song, and we double tracked the vocal.
- Joe Bac, our guitar player, played his telecaster on the rhythm track, then layered in something really sweet with his Rickenbacker on an additional track.
- Eliza James, our harmony singer, came in for another session, sang her regular harmony (that she performs when we play live) and added additional harmony parts on additional tracks.
- Henry, Joe, and I edited the whole thing down to a four-minute masterpiece. Full disclosure: Henry edited it – he’s a master at Pro Tools. Joe and I listened and advised. 😉
All for a four-minute ditty about a drunk Santa Claus. It was just that easy.
Complete Credits (including photos and video): “No More Tequila For Santa”
- Written by Michael Gaither (ASCAP/MAryLou Tunes) and John Cirillo (ASCAP/St Cruz Mtn Publishing) / All Rights Reserved
- Rhythm guitar and vocals – Michael Gaither
- Lead guitars – Joe Bac
- Harmony vocals – Eliza James
- Bass – Mark Hall
- Drums – Jeff Baker
- Video – Richard Newman
- Photos – David L. Hays Jr. and Richard Newman
- Produced by Michael Gaither and Joe Bac
- Engineered by Henry Chadwick