5 Q&A With Ragtag Outfit
What is the creative process like?
We wanted to cover the classic holiday hit "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love. Collectively as a band, we were excited to reimagine this song as a rock version, but we knew we had our work cut out for us. We wanted to honor the song in a way where we didn't change things up too much and kept the same flow, tempo, and cadence of the song. Our guitarist, Jay Sharp tried to mimic the iconic baritone saxophone solo in the song as a roaring guitar solo. This was definitely a challenge to recreate, but Jay is happy with the end result.
Our vocalist, Johnny Velvet, did an initial take to get a feel for the song and that ended up being the final take. There were a few takes after that may have been more technically accurate, but they didn't have the same "raw" feel that we loved, so we stuck with the initial take.
The "gang vocals" in the background probably took the longest to record and mix because these vocals are throughout the entire song. In order to get it to sound like a choir, we had to layer a few different takes, so this process took up quite a bit of time.
Overall, we're really pleased with the way this cover turned out and we are excited to bring a new feel to this holiday classic.
Was there any challenge that you encountered while making "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)?"
We like to have all of our takes be raw and authentic, so we typically stick with one take for each part, rather than piecing together multiple takes. For the vocals on this song, we recorded multiple takes but preferred Johnny Velvet's initial take, which we thought had a very "real" feel to it.
What was your favorite moment in making the music video?
Our videos are of our live takes. This video is the first of several songs we are currently working on, so I think the best part for this one was the creative process and decision making of how to set up the takes and how to piece them together for this video and the upcoming videos. Since these videos are capturing the actual recorded take, we wanted it to have a "cover song" feel.
Can you tell us more about you as a band?
We're a rock band based in the Midwest. We are both a cover band and an original band. We try to create covers that we feel we can really recreate the song in a positive way and pay homage to the originally performed song. We also have originals that are in the works.
Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and how have they impacted your own sound?
Our biggest influences are The Strokes, The Ramones, and Social Distortion. I think there are definitely traces of those influences that come through in our sound.
