Pistol Annies band mates Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe have been wanting to make a holiday record for some time, but apparently, the third member of the trio, Miranda Lambert, was the hold-out.
Miranda simply felt that a lot of Christmas music feels cheesy and overdone, the trio explain in a new interview with People. But things changed when she heard pop star Sia’s 2017 record, Everyday Is Christmas.
“It was like, ‘Oh, fresh and originals,’” Miranda says. “That got me loving Christmas music again because it was fresh. It opened my heart.”
The rest is history: The group got to work on their new album, Hell of a Holiday, a Christmas project that blends classics with originals and is chock-full of the Annies’ signature storytelling.
“We weren’t going to force it. We never force it. But we got in the spirit big-time,” says Ashley.
For example, Miranda brought some Christmas cheer to the record-making process in the form of hot toddies and holiday sweaters. “We got all warm and fuzzy,” she remembers, adding that — unlike a lot of singers, who make their holiday albums earlier in the year in preparation for Christmas release dates — they wrote many of the songs during holiday seasons past.
“I think it helped that we did write a lot of the meat of the record at Christmastime when the tree was up,” Miranda notes. “It was a little easier than writing it all in July.”
Hell of a Holiday is out now.
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