Anything can happen on the holiest of days…
With the holiday season and year’s end upon us, we are afforded the opportunity take stock in the end of motion. Be it your favorite pastry, holiday decor, or time with old friends, there are some things we only get to enjoy for a few weeks each year.
One of the most beloved holiday delicacies – for people of all faiths – is Christmas music. Though it can’t be seen, held, or tasted, the feeling Christmas music evokes for so many is no simple state. With a litany of classics underfoot for nearly a century now, each year we are bestowed with new originals, all taking their stab at notching a hold within the holiday lexicon.
This year, one of the best new originals, “Anything Can Happen On the Holiest of Days,” comes from Vancouver, Canada’s The Zolas. “I wanted to write one of those impulse songs I used to get obsessed with this time of year,” says the band’s lifeblood, Zach Gray, who admittedly grew up Jewish, but loves Christmas all the same.
Gray and I became fast friends in summer 2022 when we met for a C-Heads exclusive interview and photoshoot.
When he released “Anything Can Happen…” in November, it came like the birth of Christ itself – seemingly out of thin air, and without explanation. “No, I just kind of flung it out there,” he told me, when I inquired about if he’d done any press for the song.
So in the wee morning hours of December 21, I gave him a call to catch up, and get the details on his immaculately or not so immaculately conceived new Christmas tune.
You can read the relevant excerpt of our conversation below:
Words and photos by Andy Gorel.
Andy: When did you write the song?
Zach: I wrote it in September, so that it could come out before Christmas. It’s a seasonal song. I was actually in Georgia when I was finishing the mix, hiking in Svaneti, sending texts to my mixer – listening to mixes and confirming them. It was quite fun to be completely out of my normal zone and finishing a track. Kind of the spoils of technology to be able to do that.
Speaking totally off the cuff, because I actually haven’t thought about the song that much… I wanted to write one of those impulse songs I used to get obsessed with this time of year… I just wanted to write a Smiths song, to be honest. I wanted to write a Morrissey song (laughs). Something sort of wistful and tragic. The only thing I’ve ever written about in my life is the apocalypse and meet-cutes.
I thought of a really good meet-cute, and that became the genesis of this romantic comedy.
Andy: Was it intended to be a Christmas song?
Zach: Yeah, our label encourages us every year – they send an email like “Yo, great time to put out Christmas music. There’s a huge appetite for it.” I’ve only ever released a holiday song once before, it’s called “Snow.” It was over a decade ago, but became kind of a classic, well-loved Zolas song. It just felt like time to release another one.
Andy: Are you a big Christmas music fan?
Zach: You know, I have to admit, there is a real cozy feeling when some of it comes on. I mean, some of it’s twee, and if you like that, then it’s perfect. I can make myself appreciate that, but it’s almost like the only venue in which we listen to that type of Brill Building, Burt Bacharach-style, arrangement-based music… it’s the type of music I would never be able to write, because you have to know…
Andy: How to write music?
Zach: Yeah! It’s completely anti-punk. It’s 100% pre-Ramones music. There’s no faking it. You have a melody, and there’s about a billion chords… all my music these days is maximum six chords in the whole song. In these songs, you’re actually counting the chords.
Andy: Dude, yeah. I learned a bunch of Christmas songs the other day, and without listening to it, I came up with my own arrangement of “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole. It’s probably got like ten chords in it. And then I looked up the actual arrangement to the song, and I was like, “Wow, I simplified the shit out of that.”
I had a minor that slides down a few times, and then it kind of breaks key to go major on a few chords, sort of like The Pixies would. I stuck a diminished chord in the middle of the verse. It would be the most complex arrangement I’ve ever written, if it were my song. But then when I looked up the chords on Ultimate Guitar… I simplified the shit out of it.
(Zach laughs)
Andy: And you know, that Nat King Cole record – that’s one of the best records I’ve ever heard.
Zach: It sounds incredible. It’s recorded so beautifully.
Andy: Those strings man? Those strings sound like a fireplace. You’re laying on the carpet floor, the room is lit by the fire, it’s snowing outside… I read on Wikipedia the other day that the guy who wrote it, apparently he was in a session in LA in July, and it was so hot they wrote that song to “cool down.”
Zach: Well, I don’t know how they cooled down like that. Because when I hear strings like that, I feel like I’m in my parents’ living room with a fire ripping, and my dad playing piano.
So yeah, I do like Christmas music. It’s strange, because up in Canada right now, we’re having a very el niño Christmas. There’s no snow to be found in most of Canada. And to me walking through the snow, listening to music, is one of the most important parts of my musical upbringing. So writing a song for this season that makes me feel like anything is possible is a personal service to myself.
“This song is about an accident. I think we all are kind of aware that there are an infinite amount of dimensions things can go – way worse, way better, or way different.”
Andy: So what about the metaphor? You said you wanted to write a wistful song.
(We had chatted for a while pre-interview. The July assassination attempt on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump came up in conversation, and I remarked how much of an anomaly it was that the bullet only grazed his ear – whether an act of God, Satan, or neither.)
Zach: I wanted to write a song about the… It’s exactly what you were talking about before with Trump, and the kid who tried to shoot him. It’s right there in the chorus: “Anything can happen on the holiest of days, by the grace of God or just a cosmic ricochet.”
That’s exactly what the difference was between him having his head blown off, or his ear nicked. It’s a completely random, cosmic process, of things just bouncing off each other. We have no control.
So the situation that makes us meet the person we ultimately fall in love with is like rolling a hundred-sided die every time. The chances of our lives working out they way they have… it was never meant to be this way, it just happened, by accident. This song is about an accident. I think we all are kind of aware that there are an infinite amount of dimensions things can go – way worse, way better, or way different.
Andy: Yeah. And how do you see it tie into the Christmas theme?
Zach: Well, to me, it’s just the name of the song – “Anything Can Happen…”
To me, Christmas does feel like a time of renewal. And I grew up Jewish, but we celebrated Christmas because it’s more fun. We also did Hanukkah, and it’s very much about miracles. And about things happening that you weren’t expecting… or could only hope for. But there are also Christmas stories of extreme tragedy. For me, as the new year approaches, you start to take stock of what’s happening in your world, and what choices you’ve made. It’s always been a good time to decide to do things differently, or hope for change.
But that’s a bit beyond the scope of this song. This song is really just about the stochastic nature of fate. In the winter, when it’s cold. It feels like you’re in stasis. It feels like the world has actually stopped for a moment, and you get a bit of perspective. That’s the thing I love about the season. You get just a sliver of perspective that it’s hard to get in everyday life during the rest of the year.
Do you feel that way?
Andy: I do, actually. I think life slows down.
Zach: Exactly. It’s also so cool – and speaking of meet-cutes – there are a million Hallmark movies about people coming home for Christmas and seeing people they haven’t seen for years. To have those characters pinging off each other creates drama, and possibilities.
I always love that about Christmas. I mean now I’m not in town anymore. I’m talking to you literally as I walk through Paris.
Andy: You know, for me, Christmas isn’t just about the family. It’s about the people in your town you wouldn’t see, you wouldn’t talk to, you might not even have their number.
Zach: Completely.
Andy: Or the friends you grew up with, and they’re busy living their life. And you’re living yours. I just wanna go out and talk to everyone.
Zach: And it’s the only place you’ll ever belong natively. You can adopt a home, and start a life somewhere else, and belong. But it’s not the same as where you grew up. That’s irreplaceable, and I feel bad for people who don’t have that, because there are a lot of people who don’t.
Andy: Also having moved to Europe, and really loving Hungary so much, it’s made me think a lot about this. It’s almost made me sad, because of how nice of a place it is to live, but it’s not mine – as the U.S. is sort of crumbling. I am not a Hungarian. I’m American to the bone, but becoming a native of somewhere is not possible. You are, or you’re not.
Zach: It’s kind of like watching It’s A Wonderful Life. It only works if you’re picturing it as your own town. You could never watch It’s A Wonderful Life, and feel how you’re supposed to feel if it’s a town in Hungary. And their towns might look more like the towns in It’s A Wonderful Life than the American ones do now. But you can’t step in the same river twice.
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