The Town Heroes released a cover of ‘Silent Night’ just in time for the Christmas season, but according to member Mike Ryan, the cover has been a year in the making.
It first began when the band got the opportunity to play at the Boston Tree Lighting Ceremony and were required to cover a Christmas song. It was one they all knew the words to, and one to which they thought they could do justice. When they returned home to Nova Scotia, they decided to record a quick cover of the song in a video, dressed in paper bags, blankets and masks. It was meant for laughs, but the cover ended up drawing an unexpected amount of positive feedback.
“We posted that and so many people wrote us saying they loved it and that we should record the song,” said Ryan. “Someone even said it was the only thing that could put her baby to sleep.”
After the outpouring of support, the group decided to arrange and record a full version of the song. The result is a peaceful three minutes with soft guitar and a male-female harmony persisting throughout most of the song. For the most part, it’s faithful to the familiar version we all know and love, but the vocals of the last chorus are instead replaced with a tropical guitar riff, putting a fresh spin on an old classic. It’s a soothing track that would feel right at home with the group’s 2016 EP, ‘Closer’.
“It’s hard to not make a Christmas song sound cheesy, so there’s definitely a little bit of that in there, but it was also a lot of fun to do,” said Ryan. “That, and we want to make all our moms happy, too.”
The track is available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.