I said, “How could we make a Christmas record that we would actually listen to from start to finish? How could we make a Christmas record that we wouldn’t get bored with?” I added, “What if we explored all the Christmas music we love?” We said, “Let’s do a different song from every decade the last one-hundred years. Then for us, it’ll almost be like music appreciation class. We were on Winter Jam at the time, so we had lots of free time during the day. We [challenged ourselves] each weekend, “This weekend is the 20’s.” We’d listen to nothing but 20’s music. What are the sounds? What’s the style? What’s the things that make it “that?”

I’ve already mentioned Coldplay, but Chris Martin said this thing that has always resonated with me. He said, “Coldplay has never been the most talented band, but we’ve always been enthusiastic. What we’ve lacked in actual skill, we’ve made up for in enthusiasm.” There are some artists who won’t play their big singles anymore because they feel like they’re “beyond it.” I say, “Listen, write music that you love.”

I said, “Guys, let’s just make the most enthusiastic thing we can. If people don’t care, at least we’ll have felt we poured ourselves into it.” That’s enough of a reason. We’re super pumped. The [live show] is going to be absurd. I just choreographed a swing dance section with back flips and everything. It’s going to be so fun.

CCM: Because there are some interesting production elements to the album, particularly with the older period selections, what unique experiences did you have in making Decade The Halls in the studio?
MD: We had to try all sorts of stuff. For that 20’s track, I recorded my vocals through this old vintage microphone that we borrowed from Crowder while on Winter Jam. We even explored doing every song in the exact fidelity of the era. We quickly realized that to the average listener, it wouldn’t have translated that well. I don’t think we realized just how low-fi some of that nostalgic stuff is. We actually had several mixes where we were like, “How low-fi can it get before it just sounds bad?” [It was fun] just messing around.

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