Reader Q&A No. 2
(a Stoop Chat 📢)
Hello, and welcome to September. If it’s not September where you are, please let us know in the comments — that’s very curious.
Today we bring you our second Reader Q&A, this time in the patented Stoop Chat format. That means that we cracked a few beers, sat ourselves down in a couple of comfortable chairs, erected an expensive and elaborate microphone, and went through every outstanding question in the “A.M.A. Dropzone.”
Topics covered include but are not limited to:
The changing lyrics of “Textbook.”
Keeping pets off your record player.
Our all-time favorite support acts (sorry, Billie).
Whether a W.A.S. Christmas song is likely.
How we stay in such remarkably great shape, despite an egregious lifestyle.
The story behind those Lobes visualizer videos.
Bon appétit!
If you’re among our beneficent paying subscribers, you can and should leave questions for future Q&A episodes right here.
Now, eat a sandwich? (Optional.)
💕,
Kron ‘n’ Lant
OK. My kids are in bed. I have digested your answer to my Christmas song question twice. I have taken notes and carefully crafted my response, which is:
Keith and Chris, thank you for answering my question with such sincerity. Because the question itself came from the same place.
Yes, I would love for you to do this. But for sound (and selfish, I guess) creative reasons that I will try and outline as briefly (and as non-unhingedly [hingedly?!]) as possible.
The emotional intensity of romantic love and physical desire is universal.
But how about the emotional intensity of other relationships? The connections we have with our friends, siblings, parents...and the relationship we have with 'home' - whether that be a place or simply a feeling? And when do so many of us come into contact with all of these relationships the most? At Christmas.
What prompted my question was a trawl through the Spotify archives as I began to curate a playlist for my own Christmas-related creative project (a trope-twisting festive rom-com) and realised there's a huge WAS-shaped hole in it (the closest track of yours to the book's vibe is the very beautiful Want For Nothing).
My story is about romantic love, sure. But it's also about platonic and familial love. It's about what happens when 'home' is lost and rediscovered again in unexpected ways. And how the emotional intensity of returning home for Christmas can bring all of this together in one big, beautiful, alcohol-drenched and nostalgic mess. So...how's that for reframing the prompt?!
(For anyone interested the book is called Fake Snow and as yet I've not formally announced it. I'm aiming to publish in roughly a year).
Thank you for reading, and thank you again for answering!
So, I started writing what I thought was a Christmas song because 1) the song was literally written before a large family get together I didn’t care to be a part of and 2) the chorus mentions the holidays. But, the more I listened to that chorus with the mere mention of “holidays,” I hated it. It felt...cheap? Gimmicky? I rewrote it because the emotional potency was just what I wanted. Now the song is now a rock-driven angry little thing that still encompasses those feelings that emerged out having to be around my estranged family during Christmas. So, arguably, knowing that? You could say my song is quite like the movie Diehard--undefinable.
This was a very long winded way of saying: I see your apprehension. And no one could do it better than NSYNC, anyway. That’s a timeless Christmas record that can’t be played enough.