Put on an ugly Christmas sweater and pour some eggnog for Straight No Chaser’s festive “Fancy Like” parody, “Christmas Like.” The a cappella group that rose to fame with its version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” more than a decade ago continues its holiday music tradition – this time by paying homage to Walker Hayes’ No. 1 single “Fancy Like.”
A collaboration between Straight No Chaser’s Walter Chase and Seggie Isho, “Christmas Like,” which Sounds Like Nashville premieres below, began when Chase decided to arrange Hayes’ song during the band’s summer tour. Chase first heard “Fancy Like” while listening to a Spotify playlist during a run in Cape Cod over the summer. He played the song on repeat for the rest of the workout and immediately decided to arrange it for the band to perform live.
“It’s vibe, light heartedness and swagger immediately made me think it would relate to our audience,” Chase tells Sounds Like Nashville. “Our goal as a group is to try to give a creative twist to any song we perform. ‘Fancy Like’ had become one of the biggest crossover hits in a long while, and we wanted to make it our own.”
After Chase finished arranging the song, his bandmate Isho and manager David Britz suggested transforming Hayes’ hit into a holiday parody.
“As we are known as a holiday group to many, the idea was conceived to try to make our holiday ‘fancy like,’” Chase says. “Seggie sketched out the theme for each verse and created the first draft of lyrics. I worked on the musical arrangement and then took a run at the lyrics based on Seggie’s draft. What we came up with was what you hear on the record.”
Chase and Isho wrote the lyrics for the parody at the beginning of the band’s fall tour, which launched the end of October. The pair wanted to keep the intention of the original theme: How to make the holidays fun while not going overboard.
“Matching holiday pajamas and a sweater with the lights/ That’s how we do/ Christmas Like,” Straight No Chaser sing on the song’s chorus. Chase says once they had the chorus, he knew they had a song.
The video for “Christmas Like” has Straight No Chaser embracing its favorite ugly sweaters and Santa costumes while sipping some eggnog and eating yams. During a day off from its Back In the High Life Tour, the band found a dive bar in Nashville that “would accommodate our randomness.”
“Tyler ate yams, Steve ate fruit cake, Jerome dressed up as Santa and we all wore holiday sweaters,” Chase says of filming the song’s video. “Our group does not take ourselves too seriously, and we enjoy the chance to make that clear at video shoots that always turn out to be a blast to make.”
Straight No Chaser’s “Christmas Like” will be available at all DSPs on Friday. The group also will perform the song during its sold-out show Dec. 17 in Bloomington, IN, which will be available for streaming via Mandolin.
So, has Straight No Chaser shared “Christmas Like” with Hayes?
“Not yet. Once the song is released, I hope he does hear it,” Chase says. “We have become huge admirers of the original and hope we do good by him with our holiday twist.”
Watch the video for Straight No Chaser’s “Christmas Like” below. Tickets to the band’s upcoming livestream are available to purchase via Mandolin. A deluxe edition of the band’s 2020 Social Christmasing album is also out now.