Sonic Stocking Stuffer: Mutually Assured Destruction's Ace Stallings Describes The Making-of Break Away's 2017 A Straight Edge X-Mas EP (Edgewood Records)
Break Away was a Richmond, Virginia-based Straight Edge/Youth Crew Hardcore band active from 2010-19. Break Away's primary line-up consisted of vocalist Ace Stallings, drummer Sam Deyerle, guitarists Shane Legano & Dewey "Dewey Zei" Seigler, and bassist Eric Hoyt. Break Away's members played with or would go on to, eventually, make music with BOXER, C.C.P., Cast Aside, Dead Beat, Dead Serious, Hate O Four, Mutually Assured Destruction, No Other Way, Sentinel, Shattered Xistence, Tempter, and Tough Luck. Although, Break Away broke up in 2019, we recently saw Ace "Lurch" Stallings (@AceXEdge)—who is in Mutually Assured Destruction and Sentinel, was once a member of C.C.P., and is involved with Big Takeover Festival, the Forum of Passion Podcast, and Richmond's own Raven Records—Respond, "Tis the f***in' season," to a Tweet by Spooky Daniels (@Badvvolf19) that said "@AceXEdge required holiday listening. XXXMas."
Said festive Tweet included a screenshot of Break Away's A Straight Edge X-Mas EP from Apple Music or some other like-minded streaming service. A Straight Edhe X-Mas EP was quietly released on a super-limited edition square-shaped lathe-cut 7-inch picture disc vinyl limited to just 24 or 25 (no one is really sure) copies back in 2017. We reached out to Ace Stallings just the other night in attempt to get some additional information about the making-of Break Away's modern-day yuletide classic, A Straight Edge X-Mas, and he happily obliged by sending us a gaggle of interesting tidbits you'll now see below. We strongly suggest checking out Break Away's A Straight Edge X-Mas, if you're looking for something that falls somewhere in-between Trans-Siberian Orchestra & Judge. Break Away's discography, also, includes two full-lengths, Face Aggression and Cross My Heart, two EP's, For Life and The Few That Remain, and a handful of miscellaneous releases between 2010-19. Happy Holidays and a "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal!!!"
It came out in 2017. Sam [Deyerle,] our drummer, was the mastermind behind it. He really wanted to do some Christmas songs. I was, personally, a little on-the-fence because Break Away was a serious band for me, but he was so Jazzed on the idea that I didn't want to say "no." Sam was so into the idea that he recorded all instruments: bass, drums, and guitars. I ended up just laying vocals down. He had taken... I want to say, a Shirley Temple song(?) and added just a solid Hardcore track to the lyrics.
I wanted to, actually, use the music of the track for a regular Break Away song later, but we never did. Two of the other tracks were kind of like if the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was playing Judge songs. The intro had the [soundbite] from the movie Kevin [McCallister] watches in Home Alone, (which wasn't a real movie, but in Home Alone, it's called [Angels with] Filthy Souls.) Oddly enough, listening back to this, it's some of the better vocal work I've done. That's ironic, since this was just for a picture disc that was limited to, like, 24 copies or so(?) The last track was a Hardcore rendition of "Winter Wonderland," which, honestly, we slayed. In retrospect, [a] fun little project.
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