“We’re trying to make sure there’s something for everybody,” Morgan continued. “If there is something you don’t know, we’re doing it in our own way so there’s something you can grab onto. If you have heard the song before, hopefully you’ll hear it in a new light.”
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Traveling holiday party
Straight No Chaser, which started as a student group at Indiana University in 1996, has been associated with Christmas since a video of a comical version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” went viral in 2007. The group turned pro the following year and built a following by continually expanding its musical scope while still closing out each year with a big holiday tour.
“It’s really unbelievable how this has grown,” Morgan said. “We talk about that now. We’ve had some of these shows like a recent sold out show in Las Vegas where we come off stage and we’re like, ‘Who are we? This is awesome. What is going on?’ People are loud and having a blast. They’re yelling and just having a great time. It’s like a party we get to host every night. We’re just absolutely loving it.”
Straight No Chaser embraced the sounds of the season with its first two albums, “Holiday Spirits” (2008) and “Christmas Cheers” (2009). Since then, there have been non-holiday releases like “With A Twist” (2010) and “The New Old Fashioned” (2015) and others that are on-theme like “I’ll Have Another … Christmas Album” (2016) and “Social Christmasing” (2020).
A new holiday EP, “Stocking Stuffer,” was released on Nov. 3. It includes covers such as Nat King Cole’s “Happiest Christmas Tree” and Harry Connick’s Jr.’s “I Pray on Christmas.” There is an update of the holiday classic, “The Little Drummer Boy,” and a new original, “Christmas Like.”
“We’ve been doing a bunch of those songs already in the shows and they’re going over great,” Morgan said. “It’ll be fun to get the EP into everybody’s hands digitally. We’re doing a lot of the new music from the EP, but we’ve also got a ton of new music in our non-holiday set. We were inspired by this past summer tour. I think we put in 14 or 15 new songs.
“Adding that much new material is a pretty big undertaking but we had a blast with it,” he continued. “We doubled down this fall and put in probably 12-plus new songs for this tour and they’re going over well. The audience is getting into. We have people hopping up and dancing and singing along so it’s been a lot of fun already.”
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Beyond the holidays
This Schuster Center performance marks Straight No Chaser’s second trip to town this year, following a stop at Rose Music Center during this summer’s Yacht Rock Tour. The group’s latest studio full-length, “Yacht On the Rocks,” was released on June 23. It was produced by Nicholas Niespodziani and features soft rock hits like “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” and “Heart to Heart” by Kenny Loggins.
“That’s music we’ve all loved collectively as a group,” Morgan said. “You’ll often hear those songs from the dressing room so to be able to give them our little spin and do something different was fun. We got to take the suits off and put on some floral shirts and have fun. We got to rethink the show in a different way, which was a lot of fun. We were also on the road with Ambrosia for five or six shows this summer and that was an absolute joy.
“They were so much fun,” Morgan added. “We hope to do more of that in future summers. We got to go back and say, ‘OK, what did we do differently this summer that we want to apply to this fall?’ We like to tinker with the machine a little bit to see how we can always be improving.”
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or donthrasher100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: Dayton Live presents Straight No Chaser’s Sleighin’ It Tour
Where: Schuster Center, Second and Main streets, Dayton
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 28
Cost: $39 to $69
More info: 937-228-3630 or www.daytonlive.org
Artist info: sncmusic.com
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