One song into “Destination Christmas!,” the recently released album by The Superions — a trio featuring Fred Schneider of The B-52s — one song after “Santa’s Disco,” we are greeted with “Fruitcake,” an ode to the much-maligned culinary holiday gift.
“Fruitcake! Heavy as lead!” Schneider sings. “If it hits you in the head! Fruitcake! It could kill you dead!”
It’s outrageous, bizarre, catchy and fun. Pretty much what you’d expect from anything involving the campy Schneider.
Schneider took some time to chat with the Weekender about Christmas in the Schneider home, The Superions (Schneider, Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall) — the same band that brought us “Who Threw That Ham At Me” (of course) — and what he’d ask Santa if he was perched on the old man’s lap.
WEEKENDER: Tell me how “Fruitcake” came about. And what do you think of fruitcake itself?
SCHNEIDER: I think fruitcakes have gotten a bad rap. Sometimes a fruitcake is really good, but if it’s one of those canned synthetic ones, forget it. I don’t know, I thought it’d be sort of a funny thing to sing about. Actually, they had music, and I just ad-libbed the whole thing, and we liked it, and we added Dan and Noah’s vocals and fixed it up a little bit. Working with them, I can just sort of pop out ideas.
WEEKENDER: The album seems to address the ups and downs of the Christmas season, from a positive song like “Santa’s Disco” to something more maudlin like “Christmas Tears.” Are you kind of getting at the overload and depression some people feel during the holidays?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yeah, it’s all like a parallel Christmas universe, I think (laughs), but one that is very believable.
WEEKENDER: Are you a Christmas person?
SCHNEIDER: I like all the pagan aspects of it. You know, the Christmas tree and giving gifts and seeing people and all that. I like good Christmas and bad Christmas music.
WEEKENDER: What are some of your examples of good and bad Christmas music?
SCHNEIDER: Some of my favorites are “Ding Dong Dandy Christmas” by The Three Suns, uhh… Oh boy, things by The Soulful Strings or soul albums by different artists. Then again I like “Santa Claus Is a Black Man,” a very unusual Christmas album. And things like Barbie’s Christmas album, which is just ridiculous. There’s something for everybody.
WEEKENDER: What was Christmas like as a kid in the Schneider home?
SCHNEIDER: My mother would hand us a Sears catalog, and we’d go through it and pick the page, the item and the page number and the price, and (write) it down, and we didn’t always get what we asked for. We do have a lot of Christmas home movies; back then, the lights were so bright we would pretend we were sleeping so we didn’t have to keep our eyes open. So we have a lot of home movies from Christmas where we’re pretending we’re asleep.
WEEKENDER: Will you be doing any live shows to support “Destination Christmas!”?
SCHNEIDER: Not just yet. If we were asked to do something major, we probably would, because it is a niche thing. But we have five videos. So we’re excited about that. We just debuted another one, and we have three more to come out.
WEEKENDER: How did The Superions form?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I knew Noah and Dan from a friend that had a record store named Rock And Roll Heaven in Orlando, I’ve known (the owner) since 1980. So he introduced me, and we really hit it off because we were record nuts at the time.
One day they had some music and asked if I could put some words to it, so I said “Sure,” so I went in their bathroom, because it had good acoustics, and came up with “Totally Nude Island” and liked what we heard. So I wrote down what I said, because I just ad-libbed, and we did two takes and put it on iTunes.
WEEKENDER: It seems like ad-libbing is a big part of your process.
SCHNEIDER: Yes. Right now I’m sitting down writing stuff for Halloween and a regular record. If something come around and inspires me. … We wrote nine songs — one of which was a Halloween song — in 11 days when I was down there earlier this year. When we get on a roll, we get on a roll.
WEEKENDER: What else are you working on right now?
SCHNEIDER: I’m on the EP “Fuzz” by Ursula 1000, I did a song with him called “Hey You!” The Superions did a song with Peaches and Shunda K called “Freeway Threeway,” and I don’t know whose album that’s coming out on, either on Shunda’s or Peaches’ or maybe both. And the B-52’s have a live album in the can, we just don’t know what to do with it.
WEEKENDER: How will you be spending Christmastime this year?
SCHNEIDER: Promoting the record (laughs). I’ll have a fake tree somewhere.
WEEKENDER: If you were sitting on Santa’s lap right now, what would you ask for?
SCHNEIDER: World peace and a wheelbarrow full of gold bullion.
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