The Recently Deceased members (left to right): Imhotep Jones, Dead Guy, Emmy Lazarus, Doctor Shocktor
Columbus’ Halloween band The Recently Deceased returns to the WOSU TV studios for a seasonal encore, wrapping up our last new episode of 2018. We caught up with vocalist Emmy Lazarus to find out why a Halloween band wrote a song about Christmas.
—Emily Thompson
So what was the inspiration for the song?
Emmy: Well, despite being a spooky Halloween band, I also really love Christmas. So what I wanted to draw on were some of my favorite Christmas songs from the ’50s and the ’60s – that kind of style.
I was really channeling the film White Christmas with the aesthetic. For my dress, I was inspired by Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas. There’s this one scene where she has this long, black dress, and I wanted to have that Christmas aesthetic with a little darkness. So I wanted it to be a celebration of Halloween and, you know, could also work as a Christmas song.
For me, the song describes the feeling I had when I went to a few different stores the day after Halloween. The Halloween sections were starting to be taken over by Christmas stuff, but not quite – it was a weird mix of stuff.
Emmy: That’s something I feel like you always see with Halloween decorations – they’re always eclipsed by Christmas. And, you know, sometimes I feel like they need a little bit of room to breathe, too. So why don’t we allow it a little bit more space?
And that was what I was channeling for this as well. You know, we’re so quick to move straight into Christmas, and I love Christmas. But I also love Halloween, and I want to give it its due as well.
It also has a naughty-and-nice vibe to it.
Emmy: Yeah, that was what I was going for. I didn’t want to completely roast Christmas because I do really love the holiday. But I wanted to be like, yeah, well I like the cookies and the cakes. But what I really want are vampire teeth and skeletons and that sort of thing.
Do you think you’ll be writing any other non-Halloween holiday songs?
Emmy: You know, I think I’m just going to stick with Christmas and Halloween. It may be stretching it a little too far if we did, like, an Easter Song or St. Patrick’s Day song.
What’s really fun about our band is that we can kind of do this Nightmare Before Christmas aesthetic, as well. We can give Christmas its place within the spooky aesthetic.
Do you guys have any other shows coming up?
Emmy: We don’t. We are taking some time just to record and write right now. But maybe this spring we’ll have some shows on the docket.