the story of the PUNCHLINE holiday classic "ICICLES" from A Santa Cause: It's A Punk Rock Christmas (2003 Immortal Records Comp.)

A Santa Cause: It's A Punk Rock Christmas sits atop the annual shortlist of "classic" holiday albums I listen to every year right around this time of year; a CD copy still sits on my shelf amidst BADD SANTA: A Stones Throw Records Xmas, Bad Religion's Christmas Songs, two volumes-worth of Motown Christmas favorites, and a few additional shiny, slightly scratched up CD's. A Santa Cause has been in my collection since at least 2005, if not earlier (and I'm already on my second copy!) although, I'm not really sure how exactly I discovered it, but it's always held a special place in my "cold" heart. A Santa Cause boasts submissions from the likes of Something Corporate, The Matches, blink-182, Fall Out Boy, MxPx, Sonny "Skrillex" Moore's own From First to Last, New Found Glory, The Mighty Mighty BossToneS, Saosin, and a hidden/bonus track from Nerf Herder. One of my personal favorite tracks on the second half of the CD is Punchline's "Icicles" and this year, on a complete whim, I decided to reach out to the band in honor of A Santa Cause. Below, you will find Punchline's commentary on "Icicles," as transcribed from a newly-released video entitled "the story of the PUNCHLINE holiday classic "ICICLES.'" Punchline's latest album, LION, was released on InVogue Records last year and earlier this year, the band released a 4-track EP entitled Songs from '94 on their own imprint, Modern Short Stories. Punchline's latest festive frolic, a cover of Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" was released as part of Cleopatra Records' PUNK ROCK CHRISTMAS, Vol. 2 comp. 🥶

'Icicles" was the first in a long list of Punchline holiday songs. In 2003, we were asked to be part of a compilation CD called A Santa Cause [It's A Punk Rock Christmas]. It was being released by Immortal Records. A portion of the proceeds benefited The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. This was back at a time when people bought compact discs and compilations were HUGE. This was the biggest comp. that we'd ever been asked to be on and we were very excited. There was a catch, though. We had to turn the song in by the next day. We wrote the song in about 3 hours (hence, the very "patchwork" song structure.) We called our friend, Mike Ofca, from Innovation Studios in Steubenville, Ohio and we were in the studio instantaneously. We made every decision about the song on-the-fly because the deadline left us no room for second-guessing. Usually, we were very meticulous about every last detail of our songs, but not this time. We leaned heavily on harmonies, because that was really "our thing," at the time. And for some reason... we did THIS. (Okay, that synth is pretty sick.) Yep, we just decided to break into "Carol of The Bells" mid-song. This is the kinda stuff that happens when you have only a few hours to record and submit a song.

Looking back on it 16 years later, it IS, actually, kinda cool, but something we'd probably never do now. The transition back into the song is kinda wild. Steve [Soboslai] sings "I'm workin' on another list here, not "I'm workin' on a Nautilus" (no, we weren't singing about an elliptical machine.) It's pretty crazy that while we were in the studio recording this, [Trevor Leonard] was there adding his two cents (he wouldn't join the band until over a decade later.) The song in general is kind of a bummer, as far as the lyrics go, but they came from the heart and we were definitely relatable. A Santa Cause was released on November 11, 2003. It featured a lot of really cool bands (and man, oh man, we LOVE "December Is for Cynics" by The Matches!) "Icicles" became a deep cut favorite among people who like our band and we still get asked to play it to this day (even in, like, June sometimes.) It's not available for streaming on Spotify or Apple Music. You're just gonna have to dig up that CD (and a CD player.) Just kidding... you can just stream it on YouTube, which, believe it or not, is the most popular music streaming platform. We hope you have a great holiday season... or, at least, a better one than we were having when we were writing these lyrics. Thanks for liking our band."


Love,

PUNCHLINE (@punchlion)