Switched on Pop - "Did I mention that it's Christmas in this club?" (w Matt Rogers)

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Holiday album releases sometimes have a sense of pandering to them. "I'm a pop star. Here's me singing the nineteen-millionth cover of 'Jingle Bell Rock.' Please give me money." The comedian and singer Matt Rogers understands this dichotomy of the holiday hit—part grotesque cash-grab, part unfathomably genuine cheer—better than anyone. His new album, Have You Heard of Christmas?, mines that tension for tragicomic gold. "Also It's Christmas," the album opener, announces this satirical spirit blithely, with an exhortation to "play this song seasonally!" "Rum Pum Pum" turns the little drummer's beat into a sexy club anthem: "Saw your name on the naughty list highlighted in red / Now you're up in the club in someone else's sweat." Over the course of Have You Heard..., Rogers poses questions that poke at the edges of Christmas lore: "Is it weird to hook up on Christmas day?" "How does it feel to be the hottest female in Whoville?" And, "Why does Santa needs so much lube for his sleigh?" Matt joined Nate and Charlie to share how his pop writing draws from sketch comedy rhythm, the influence he drew from both Ariana Grande and the Lonely Island, and how he accidentally created a sincere holiday hit in the middle of making a comedy album. Sign up for the Switched On Pop Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Hardy. And our guest today is an actor, a comedian, a host of the brilliant podcast, Los Culturistas with Bowen Yang, and as of this year, with the release of his festive album, Have You Hear You Hear of Christmas?

He's the newest holiday hitmaker to hit the scene. It's Matt Rogers. Very happy to be here, guys. Thank you so much for having. It's me, the Queen of Christmas. Don't let Emera Carey tell you otherwise. I got to cue some sleigh bells. Matt, here at Switch on Pop, we are fascinated by the sound, the culture, the business of holiday music.

So we are still excited to talk to you about your new seasonal release. I think we should begin by listening to some music together and where better to start than the first song on your album. Also, it's Christmas. Perfect. I've never heard a holiday song that is so directly coming at Mariah Carey. Just like, I am going to take the top spot every year. I said I need a big, sexy Christmas pop single. If I'm going to do this, I got to grab everyone with a big sexy hook and a big uptempo number.

Honestly, it was just, I started this whole project in 2017 when I was just doing it as a comedy show. And I literally thought the funniest thing would be, okay, what's my first single for this Christmas album that's like, the whole bit behind the whole project is like, yeah, sure, it's a Christmas album because that's what every pop star does at some point in their life. They just get to that point where they record a Christmas album. I'm just getting there first.

I'm just doing it first. I'm not recording any normal albums. My first offering is my Christmas album. So I thought, let's get a single together. And so I wrote this in my head, at least. I only did it with a piano back in the day, but it was like this David Getta, Zed, you know, those big club dance singles,

which have, like, a featured vocalist, but it's not their song. It's like Zed featuring Marin Morris. Very the middle. Very, like, that vibe. And so I was just like, you know, I guess the bit of it will be, we're at the club.

I'm trying to fuck. You know, I'm trying to get into it with people at the club, but also it's Christmas. Which is kind of the whole thing with the album, too. Christmas as an afterthought. The reference to Zed, Marin Morris, the middle, not a connection I made, but now I'm hearing it, Matt.

One of the signatures maybe of Zed's production is something we've called the anti-chorus before. You reach the pinnacle of the chorus, and then the energy drops out. And that's exactly what you do in the first chorus of this song. Let's listen to that. Christmas in this club. Oh, so it's Christmas. Tonight is the night we celebrate his son. It's Christmas.

You really brought Jesus into it, too. I sure do. I mean, he's kind of, you can't really ignore him around this time of year. You know, you got to acknowledge. But, you know, I guess, like, for me, it's like, yeah, it is a stylistic nod, but it's also a thing to isolate the comedy of the first chorus. Like, what's really cool that I discovered actually years. ago is that how hand-in-hand pop music songwriting goes with sketch comedy writing. And just like the three-act structure of a song, if you will, like, and the three beats of comedy sort of are

really hand-in-hand. So in a first verse, you're like stating your idea, you're stating your intention, you're setting the scene, and then the first chorus should be just like, you know, your first game hit, as they call it in comedy, which is like, how are you complicating the premise? And so that's essentially like, that's where the first chorus comes in. And so we didn't want to take some of the air out of it so that the comedy hit so that then the song could heighten as it goes. So it works as like an homage to that genre while also helping me get the comedy across. You're amping up this moment. Another song I was really looking at when I was doing this was into you by Ariana Grande, just like the sort of like pulsing, throbbing, if you will, intention

of the song musically and lyrically. And then pulling it out to reveal By the way, it is Christmas. And if we do go back to my house, we're going to have to sort of hustle past my sister and her kids who are staying in a room next to me. Wow. I feel like I almost want to stop here and just launch immediately into either a course on songwriting for sketch comedy or sketch comedy for songwriters. I used to teach that course actually. No. Wait, really?

Yeah, I did. I did. I did some workshops. So one of my origins in doing all this is I was in a musical sketch comedy group in my early 20s called Pop Rulette. And what we did was we would just write sketches and put them to song. And honestly, like, we would teach this. Like, I would literally go around and I would just look at a popular pop song. And I would just sort of break down the ways in which even if you just took out some intentions and some content

and replaced it with comedic intention, like you have like a pretty naturally rising sketch to music. And I think that my early inspirations and my early influences were like The Lonely Island and Beau Burnham, obviously. And anyone that's like a musical person and a funny person can do this. And it's just really interesting how interlocked they are. What makes it work, I think, is that, and talking to you, you understand it a little better. These are funny songs, but they also genuinely work musically. And they are studied and practiced. and they are hooky and catchy, and they hit, the melodies grab you.

So it works on a few levels, like those, I think those other artists that you mentioned, The Lonely Island and Bo Burnham. It's all I ever wanted was to like, when I was like coming up, really when I was like 18, 19 years old, I became obsessed with Saturday Night Live. I used to go on the standby line when I was 18 years old. I would not hang out with the other freshmen at NYU. I went to school at NYU in New York City. I would go to 30 Rock on Friday morning at 11 a.m.

And I would wait all day and all night until 7 a.m. on Saturday when they handed out standby tickets. And a standby ticket for the show did not guarantee you entry. But I was so obsessed with Saturday Night Live at the time and so positive that I wanted to try and make it in comedy that I started going. And this was a time when Andy Sandberg, Akiva Schaefer, Yormitakia, Akie, the Lonely Island, were really having. a lot of fun and doing extremely cool things with, I would imagine, a pretty gnarly budget to make their music because the songs went so hard. Like, there is a song called Jack Sparrow, which is they have Michael Bolton on the track. The beat goes so hard.

Like, they're sung Mother Lover with Justin Timberlake. That is such an incredible song, just like they were turning out to say nothing of Dick in a box. They were turning out like big, really effective pop and R&B and hip hop songs that were so funny and so undeniable. And it was just like so inspiring to me. And at the time I was like, if I could do anything even similar to this, I'd feel like it was the coolest thing ever.

Something that separates this project from those influences is that right in this very first song on the album, I think you announced this is going to be an experience. explicitly queer Christmas album. Let's go to the second verse of Also It's Christmas. Great. I walk up to a gay stranger whisper right in his here. Some small talk say it's been a warm winter, but it's warmer and a year. Why was it important to you?

Gay stranger. Matt's holding up. I'm just showing the guys. I am selling gay stranger merch. You can get your gay stranger t-shirt. because if I'm doing this pop star thing, you know I'm not going to come out of here with no merch. So I have gay stranger t-shirts,

terrified the people in your life with a gay stranger t-shirt at Matt Rogers Official.com. What a plug. It's almost like we set it up. Why was it important to not hide the sexuality on this album? It wasn't that it was important to me. It's just that that's who I am. I put,

Have you heard of Christmas out as a comedy special first that aired on Showtime last year? And for me, It's like I'm lucky enough to come up in a time, at least like now that I'm like a developed comedian and like someone who's like out here, you know, making things that people could see. I'm not like throwing things at the wall anymore, like a young developing comic. Now where I'm at and I think where we're at is people can kind of just pretty much be themselves in their comedy.

You don't have to do too much cowtowing to whatever is popular. Whereas when I was younger, I think that when I was in middle school or even high school riding the bus to my cross-country meets, the only thing we were listening to was Dane Cook stand-up. You know what I mean? It felt like there was like one comedian and one sensibility, whereas now that's not really the case. And so last year when I ultimately released my special and it was this, or like the more cabaret, less pop-produced version of this, a lot of people were asking me like, so what made you want to make this so queer? And I'm like, I am who I am. Like, I didn't try to make a queer Christmas album. I tried to make a Christmas album, like a produced pop album filled with the kind of shit that I think is funny.

And a lot of my observations and the things I go through are informed by my actual life. And so it's less a thing of like the reason why I wanted this to be queer is because and more, this is queer because I am. Yeah. Well, regardless of your intentions, the result is an entirely fresh perspective on a holiday that you'd think had had. had every possible iteration covered in the countless holiday cash grabs by

various stars over the years. And yet, when we go through your album, we find new ways of thinking about the sound of Christmas. Let me just recite for the listener some of the tracks that you will encounter here. We've got lube for the sleigh.

Nobody asks why Santa has so much Loub Loob for the sleigh The loo for the sleigh We've got Hottest female up in Whoville Correct

I'm the only hot hole up in Whirlville Men know if their wife won't I will He's trying to get this Mouth of me Who Whoville sex is what I do

And Every Christmas Eve Parentheses Mrs. Clauses Which is one of my prides and joys. You've been bad. I know that when you and your reindeer boys gear up, that you'll look back. You'll say it's 24 hours.

I'll see you later, but I did the math. This also stood out to me, Matt, on the album, because I had this moment where I was like, I've never heard a song from Mrs. Claus's perspective before. And how about that? Because one of the things I always felt was like, you know, she's probably the most famous, like, female character of Christmas. And yet we know nothing about her. And so basically I did this whole, you know, deep dive, as it were, about the fact that, like, what if she, I think I had just seen Hamilton the musical. And there was a song in Hamilton, the musical called Byrne.

You have torn it all apart. I'm watching it. I believe it's when Eliza Hamilton has basically been thrown under the bus. by her husband who like comes clean about the fact that he cheated on her like for political reasons it's gonna and she has this ballad this like searing ballad very much in the style of like you know what Beyonce used to do in terms of ballots and this like sort of like big r&B pop ballad where she was like fuck you I don't need you anymore I was like what if we gave mrs. Claus this moment like she finally got a calculator and crunched the numbers about Christmas Eve and was like there's no

way this man is seeing every house in the world on Christmas Eve he is lying to me so I essentially like let that inform this like big diva ballad response from mrs claus who is not often heard from so where do you go with the christmas you can't unhear that you you will not think of mrs claus in the same way after listening to this song i mean that was kind of the intent i was like let's consider her a little bit differently when we think about her every year like christmas eve should be a huge day when we think about mrs claus and what she's going through You gave her a seething want song that has allusions to rent. And to your point about what you're saying of the quality of the lonely island, this is like,

if this were playing in the background of Target while you're doing your holiday shopping and you weren't tuned into the lyrics, you might think it's real. This fits perfectly, this is right next to an Adele song. This is a real song. It is a real song. Thank you. It's very emotionally potent. I love it.

What's so crazy is, like, we write these songs or I've written these songs. I've had them for such a long time now. And then you get to the point where you're like, I'm working with Leland and Gabe Lopez, my producers, and they worked on Troy Savon's album, and they work on all these great albums with so many amazing artists. They're amazing. And then we're just working with real intention on this song,

and the lyrics are what they are. You know what I mean? And like, you forget. And then, like, we're all listening to it, like, for the sounds and the harmonies and where we can add in, like, more vocals and stuff and more BG. and then you actually step out of it and listen to the song and you're like, oh yeah, this is that same nonsense I've been singing for the whole time.

But in that way, I think that it strengthens the comedy for it to be as real as possible. I mean, to harken it back to the Lonely Island, what I loved probably just as much as the comedy were the songs. Like, I loved the song. So I love this song. I love performing this song, and when I perform it, I'm not thinking about how it's funny.

I'm just trying to embody her, to be honest. You got a cello motion, yeah. Yeah. Another song that walks that line of earnestness and comedy is everything you want featuring Katie Gavin of Muna. Yes. Love Katie, friend of the pod. She's just incredible. I hope you get a cold brew.

Call you order Chinese food or until you like Italian, I don't know. What you'll provide? Another song where the wheels start to kind of fall off over the course of it. It's only when I think when we get to that moment at the end of the chorus that we realize, oh, the song is not what we thought it was about at the beginning. Yeah, this is one of the ones on my album that I think sits for a little bit longer than the typical comedy song. And I just think that probably speaks to the fact that, like, it sounds weird to say this, but it is like the most quote unquote personal of the songs on the album because I actually did go through a really, really rough brain.

up earlier in the year and I really associated him with Christmas because we spent the whole Christmas holiday together last year and so I was thinking about putting my album together and I thought you know I'd really like to have something on the album that at least like took the power back for me for this a little bit because I know I'm going to be on tour I'm to be reminded of him but at the time like I had no sense of humor about this relationship ending I was heartbroken I was devastated I didn't think it was fair I didn't understand I tried a million in different ways to try to write a funny song about this experience. And then ultimately, I just sat down and I was like, what if I stopped trying to crack myself up about this thing I have no sense of humor about?

And I actually just like try to write something true, which was at the time that if I could not provide for you what you're looking for, I hope that you get that from someone else. And I hope you get whatever you want, you know, for Christmas, in life, et cetera. I thought that was like a simple enough premise. And then in starting, to try and write that song, I realized I have forgotten so much about this person because our relationship was not long. We were mostly drunk during the holidays when it happened. I think it was like some degree of like love bombing on his part and also some degree of just like completely me, rock and roller coaster zero to 60 past any red flags, just like only feeling how good the sex was, only understanding how nice it was to be with someone during the holidays, not actually

getting this was like never in the cards so then when i come up for air months later and i'm writing this song and i don't remember what this person would want for christmas i don't remember what his interests are i'm like oh maybe this is the comedic idea of the song then you know let me really sit down earnestly wish you well i just don't know how because i don't remember you and i had never i had never really heard that before and um i guess that's an important thing when it comes to like building out the album is it's like it has to work with my other songs it can't repeat a comedic idea i would like it to not repeat a musical idea because i think on a comedy music album that's one of the things that you get the luxury of doing is exploring different genres because it just heightens the comedy in different ways

so i hadn't had a song like this on my album or in my show and so i added it it's now one of my favorites and when it was done brett and i leeland and i were like it'll be insane if katie from Muna was on this, because we realized we had kind of written a Muna song. I'm such a huge fan of theirs. And I was like, yeah, for sure. Maybe I'll send her an email. He was like, no, let's call her right now. And I was like, uh, uh, uh, you know,

thank God he's such a go-getter because we called her and she was immediately on board and sounds amazing on it. Yeah, just one of those things that every time I even think about the album, the fact that I have a Muna track on here is like so crazy. ever in my mind realizing that that is not a long time also we were wasted almost every chance we got

it was Christmas I'm thinking about it that we date in September also what is your last name I don't I feel like the drunken hazy memory of this song paired with

the incredibly sensory detail of the temperature of the cold brew coffee, make me think you could moonlight in Nashville writing some great suburban country music. Thank you so much. I actually started to write this song. No, I take it as a compliment. I really do. I mean it.

It's very story-based. You have the method down. It's a hit. Well, I was actually, when I was percolating on this song, I was listening to a lot of country music because I would think I was just in a sad mood. I believe it was this, it was a Teddy Swim song called Bed on Fire. It's like this very, very cool song and I was just like listening to it and I sat in the emotion of it long enough where I was just like, there's something about this idea that like it's done,

I know it's done, but I still have so much more to say. But then this idea that once you start saying it, you realize you have not much to say, then I stumble on the comedic game of the song, which is like, is it this that you like? Again, a second I say, I hope you get an ice cream cone. That's pretty general. I hope you get a mom that's healthy. I think you have a mom. Like not being anywhere near the place where there's any recall about this person.

And then the bridge of that song is maybe my proud. moment as a songwriter because it's like a self-confrontation about what might be wrong with me if I can't literally speak to my relationship that should mean something to me but clearly that doesn't I should go to rehab I should go to rehab I should get my shit together because I can't remember an entire human being but I know I loved you and I would have kept on going till we self-destructed that is not a healthy garden It has a Savage Garden Chick-Cherry-Cola kind of vibe going on. I love hearing people call it Savage Garden. I love that.

And I feel like those kind of sounds, I mean, I think Nate just thinks I'm just throwing insult after insult. But I think those sounds have become very cool again. I think Moona kind of even digs into some of the adult contemporary 90s vibes and makes it, I don't know, fresh and new. And I hear that going on in this song. Well, something that might speak to that is the fact that when I was younger, my mom, like, forbid MTV in our house. So I was watching a lot of EH1. The Devil's Programs. Oh, yeah.

No, I was watching a lot of EH1 and, like, a lot of the adult contemporary 90s sounds, like, came to inform me. I think you're onto something that was Muna, but, like, for me, with that bridge, that's my, like, Taylor Swift moment. She does a very verbose bridge. And for me, I thought there was something about the racing quality of the lyrics that kind of felt like someone spinning out. And I think that that's the moment in this song where the character is spinning out. And so I think that just the runaway train sort of stream of consciousness, panic, speaks to what's happening at that point in the song, which is that he's realizing that this might be a me problem, not a him problem. And ultimately, you know, who really cares?

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I don't need it to be Christmas at all. I don't need a Christmas moving marathon. I don't need it. I feel like you end this album with a curveball. It's just an authentic, beautiful shopping department store Christmas

song. What I really think is funny for me and it's almost like my last joke for the project which actually is completely joke less is this idea that I'm going to actually earnestly offer this song, which we literally were just like,

let's write a classic Christmas pop song. And I think that that's so much easier said than done, but we had been so in the zone, and I'm so marinated in this type of seasonal music because of the show that I do every single year, we just needed a hook, and we just needed like a lyrical idea, which was, you know,

what if it's as sweet and simple as everyone else might need it to be Christmas to do nice things? I don't need that when I'm with you. It's Christmas every single day and I won't ever need an excuse to treat you like it's Christmas. You know what I mean? And I hadn't really heard that before, which is weird to me,

which is I guess how you know you have a good idea, right? Anytime in comedy or in music I guess, it feels like someone must have done this. You know what I'm saying? It's like that means that you've struggled and you have to kind of act on it. Yeah.

And so I played this song from my parents. I played them the whole album and they know my bullshit. You know what I mean? Like they sat through rum, pump, pump on the album. They've been to my live show many times. And then this song played and my dad was like, wait, hold on a second.

That's my favorite song. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, I know this song. And I was like, you don't. You don't know it. That has all the hallmarks. Hey, I was like, I think you're just enjoying it. And he was like, that's great.

I don't need the Christmas movie marathon because that's a real thing, you know? Like we all watch the Christmas movie marathon. I was like, Dad, I think you might just be absolutely gagging for my shit. And now he plays it all the time and weirdly enough, like I did not pick this as a single because I don't think

it's indicative of the album. My album is a hard comedy album first and foremost. Secondarily a pop album and maybe third it's a holiday album in earnest. But honestly, like doing this song to end the album and end on like a classic fade out along with the packaging of the album which is very traditional in the way that we're like selling it in terms of like

you know the vinyl cover is me sort of given like in 1950s 60s Elvis Sinatra you know Bing Crosby illusion in terms of the packaging and that song it's just funny to me that we might fool people into thinking this is actually a real Christmas thing and so weirdly enough it's succeeding. It's doing great on streaming. It's on a bunch of Spotify Christmas playlist, like as if the album isn't comedy at all. So in making this joke, like I kind of ended up doing the thing I was satirizing, which is funny. It's just funny. I feel like I want so badly, Matt, for you to follow up this album with a sophomore release that is a pure Christmas album. No jokes. I think it would be a smash. I had an idea to do a double album, which was one

album was just all the jokes and then the other one was just like me doing some covers and stuff, etc. But I was just like, I think just nervous to do that, to be honest with you. Like, I think that maybe like in creating this song and like hopefully throughout the album

like showing that I do have some talent doing this like we can then broaden the horizons. But I still think I've got some comedy albums in me before I actually am singing have yourself and Merry Little Christmas by the fire. I think that might be a, uh, Might not be top of my priority list.

Matt Rogers, your album, have you heard of Christmas, is going to change the game for holiday music. We are so grateful for you joining us today to talk about the origins of these songs and the role that you think Christmas music plays in our lives. It's been very illuminating. And I think all that remains is for us to wish you very happy holidays.

And likewise. Thank you guys so much. This has been so great. Switched on Pop is made by me, Nate Sloan, and Charlie Harding. Our producer is Rianna Cruz. Our illustrator is Iris Gottlieb. Our editor is Jolie Myers. Abby Barr does community management. And this week, Bill Lance is our engineer. As always, Nishat Kerwa is executive producer.

We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. You can find more episodes of Switch on Pop anywhere you get podcast. You can go to our website switchonpop.com and sign up to our newsletter. We're going to be sending out some of our favorite holiday songs from this year besides all the great stuff that we talked about with Matt today. And you can get some Switch on Pop merch in addition to, you know, the gay stranger sweatshirt that you probably have already ordered since listening to this episode. You can get gifts for the pop lover in your family. We're talking tote bags. We're talking. laptop sleeves, mugs, hats, the whole shebang.

Finally, I need to tell you that we're taking a little holiday vacation. So we're going to be back in 2024, Unreal. And we're going to kick off the year with a bang, where we're going to dig into some of the most exciting listener questions that we've gotten over the past year. So that's going to be really fun. I think all that remains is for me to say thanks for listening.