The Nelson family has been entertaining America for three generations. Gunnar Nelson, along with his brother Matthew, have carried on the family tradition since their hugely successful debut record in 1990. The brothers will soon play a few Christmas shows and Gunnar sat down to talk about what fans can expect and what Christmas in the Nelson family means.
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On what fans can expect at the Christmas shows – This is a response to most artists when they have said through the years they’ve got a Christmas show. If you’re lucky, they tack a couple of Christmas tunes onto the end of their normal show. That’s not what we did. We went right back to the drawing board, and we realized we had an unfair advantage of 435 episodes of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” to cut from. So, we start all the way back. We decided we want to do a dedicated show that talks about the three last generations of Nelson’s responsible for being the only family in history with three generations of number one hits and what they did at Christmas time. So, it’s pretty cool. It starts out from a grandpa and grandma back in the, in the thirties, our dad in the fifties, and then us now in the seventies when Christmas toys were designed to kill you.
On if they picked certain song arrangements from the “Ozzie and Harriet” show – That’s a good question. We did. As a matter of fact, we actually start the show with an Ozzie and Harriet episode called “Busy Christmas”, which is a lot of fun. Ozzie’s overcommitted himself to too many things going on around town and stuff, but as it always does, it turned out okay in the end. That’s the way we start the show. We really do have, I’m not kidding, we have a top 10 list of the most dangerous Christmas toys. Everybody agrees on number, everybody agrees on number one. We all survived it. It’s a lot of fun, man. We actually have Christmas cred legit. We’ve written a Christmas hit that went top five on Billboard two years in a row, went to number four, both years.
The second year we redid it with Carney and Wendy Wilson, our friends from Wilson Phillips. It’s called “This Christmas” and it’s awesome, man. Very difficult for the record to write a song, an original Christmas song and have it fight for air during that time of year because, at radio at least you’re going up against these now these classic songs that we all love. It’s the first time I’ve ever competed with the likes of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and stuff like that, but that song did very well and to this day, it’s a thrill to go through a shopping mall and hearing it play over the speakers.
On how difficult it is to write an original Christmas song – It’s very, very challenging. It’s kind of astute that you pointed that out because it’s one thing to write a Christmas song, but it’s another thing to write a Christmas song that doesn’t just kind of like retread all of the same old cliches and the same thing you’ve heard before. One more song about snowballs and reindeer and all that stuff. Those are, I think, the easy way to go about it. Frankly, those classics that we all grew up loving, I don’t want to mess with any of that. So, you sit down as a writer and that’s the question you ask yourself, okay, “How can I say something that has to do with Christmas that is different than what I’ve heard before?”
In our case, we just started with what the most important thing is emotionally that we get out of Christmas, we get a feeling of love. That’s what it’s all supposed to be about. So, you start from there and you go backwards, and you go, “Okay, well now it’s even more challenging because Christmas is all about love”. So how do you express that in a new and unique way? Hmm. Well, how about a couple of friends that secretly had been in love with each other, this entire friendship, but both are terrified to express it because if it’s not returned they’re gonna ruin the friendship? So, that’s where “This Christmas” was written from with the whole philosophy in mind “Well, if you can’t tell the person you love that you love them on Christmas eve When can you?” I’m assuming in this case that it worked out for the both of them.
The sequel is going to be the biggest challenge in songwriting. What would what do you think that would be? I’m saying in general, like a milestone in writing songs and hitting with an original Christmas song, to us, the next one on the radar is a replacement for the birthday song. I’m working on it, man. You work at Applebee’s, you can write your own Christmas song for every table, but we’re going to be working on that. I’m actually pretty excited about the challenge.
On why the band tours at Christmas – It was really kind of fun and it’s opened up so much to be honest with you, because at that particular time of year, you got to think about it, most people are obviously focused on family and coming together. They’re doing their shopping and stuff. After watching movies like “Christmas Vacation” and “A Christmas Story”, I kind of always thought that the parents were going to get all kinds of stressed out by going out and doing that. So they want a way to kind of lose a couple of hours and settle into get reminded about, it’s about laughter and it’s about family and, and togetherness and stuff.
So that’s why we put the whole concert tour together, because when all of our contemporaries are normally at home and hanging out with their family and doing that whole thing we’re actually out there and bringing the Christmas spirit to people so they can just escape for a couple of hours and do their thing. As you mentioned, we’re playing the Mohegan Sun coming up, our favorite place to play. We are one of the few Christmas shows that gets to play there. It’s also important to describe to you, as I said, we made a couple of Christmas records, they’re for the most part, the classics done our way, which is more really kind of a Crosby, Stills, & Nash meets rockabilly thing, kind of our wheelhouse and the music itself, our takes on the Christmas songs, actually, we’re pretty proud of. So, the music’s cool. The stories are great. Matthew’s only okay. I’m awesome. A combination between the Smothers Brothers and the Everly Brothers. For me, actually, I’ve got this unfair advantage of my family in a very real sense, kind of living on because when I do the show that they’re all there, it’s like being in the family living room and visiting at the end of the year, like we always did at this time of year.
On what Christmas meant to his family growing up – Out of the spotlight life. It was very important for a very particular reason in my case. When I grew up with my dad, he was really hard-working guy. He was out for up to 300 shows a year. That was the only time of year that our father told his advisors that he wasn’t working. So, from the day before Christmas through New Year’s, everybody knew Rick wasn’t working. So, to me and Matt, that was family time with our dad. So that was really important to us, and we looked forward to it. I’m not saying our dad was a Disneyland dad, but he was gone a lot. So, he would always tend to kind of overdo it at Christmas time to make it extra special, which we didn’t mind as kids at all. We would have a great Christmas time. and in all the little traditions and stuff. Our mother was an artist. So, the tree was always magnificent, which was beautiful. The day after Christmas we, the family would tend to go on a ski vacation. That’s the kind of the tradition. They were pretty epic in the seventies, to be honest with you. There seemed to be fewer people and that the people were having more fun because they weren’t being tracked everywhere they went, and that’s the era that we all grew up in was a simpler time that was still fun and edgy. Because the fun police, like I mentioned, hadn’t come in yet and messed everything up.
I always say that when you get your Schwinn Stingray bike and you build a bike ramp in the backyard, you have no regard whatsoever for the landing. Everybody wanted to be able Knievel or Bruce Lee. The Christmas toys in the morning kind of reflected that. It was fun for the two of us, because life happens, family happens you know, we went through a little bit of a challenge, our parents, it was a brutal divorce. So, Christmas time for us was always idyllic because we’ve got some really great memories of when everybody was loving on each other and getting along great and doing it around the good parts of life and the, the goodness in people. That’s what I always think. It does come from that the, the remake of “Scrooge” is that we can be, it doesn’t have to be just one day a year, and Matthew and I really do come from that philosophy. We’ve had so many things that would normally motivate people to do what it is we do. We are so grateful for all these that are being able to go out and make people happy and get connected and sing some songs. I get to do it with my family, which is killer. So, my grandpa, Ozzie said “Doing what you love to do for a living and getting paid for it is kind of like having a license to steal”, and my whole life I really have. I kind of designed it that way and, at this point in this crazy world that we’re living in and being the age being the survivor that I am it’s amazing how much more simple life tends to get. It’s just about my family, my friends, my loved ones, and my faith. That’s it. The other stuff comes and goes. Guitars are cool. Like we talked about, guitars and cars, but that’s it.
On if there was any unreleased Ricky Nelson Christmas music – I wish there was something hidden away. It was actually what really motivated me and Matthew at a point to dig in our heels and go, “Darn, we’re going to make a Christmas record, a proper one”. We were always amazed that our father did not do a proper Christmas record. It’s crazy to me, two songs, like you mentioned, Mel Torme’s “Christmas song”, and the other song we talk about this in the show is the only song that all three generations of Nelson men have in common, which is “Jingle Bells”, ironic. We all screw up a perfectly innocent Christmas classic in different ways. Those were the only two that our dad actually recorded when he was alive.
You got Elvis making multiple Christmas albums because they obviously approached their career differently. It seemed like Elvis never stopped recording, recording and recording. But it wasn’t really all that fair because you gotta imagine that our father was working five days a week on a set. It was going to the soundstage full days of working there. Then they would take a break for dinner. When everybody else went to sleep, our dad and his friends would go down to Sunset, stay out the sound and make some records and then going to sleep and getting up at four in the morning, having to be in the makeup chair.
That was every day for 14 and a half years while trying to have a rock career. He got a note from ABC, who was the network at the time, who told him and his parents that if our dad decided to leave the show to do music full time, then they were actually cancelling the show. They sent that letter when our dad was 16 years old. That’s pressure. No pressure, fire your parents. So, we had to work around all of that stuff. I have a feeling that’s probably what played into the decision, or running out of time and not making this album. I think it would have been a really good idea, but the two songs he recorded are wonderful. The latest release when we put out the, the album “This Christmas” and stuff with Universal a couple of years ago, it’s the first time we actually have all three versions of Jingle Bells on that. So, it’s kind of nice to have a line there. I think we made a couple of Christmas albums that we’re really proud of and did that original single that we’re really proud of. It’s kind of nice because Christmas happens every single year.
On if he gains an understanding of his dad by playing his father’s music – Well, I’m very impressed with this schedule, like talked about not many people can keep up with that. I always feel very close to my pop. I always did. We always really connected on music. I mean, as a guy who was gone as much as he was when we did reconnect, we, in regards to the generation gap and the father son thing, we really could agree on music and a passion for that. So that was always something that was really close to my heart. You mentioned that we were only 18 years old when he passed away. He died at 45. It was a weird thing for me the year that I actually passed his age that he was when he passed. It was kind of weird. ever since then, I just asked myself like, “Well, I wonder if pop would be proud? I wonder if this latest thing, he’d think that was cool or this latest song I’d written?” and I’m sure that adult kids do that all the time. But for me getting to sing his songs at the same time, it, it really kind of reminds me that I’m here because he was here. I had a choice. My choice was to either uphold the family legacy, at least what it means to people, which might even be more important than the reality because people are fallible. We’re all humans. But what say the legacy meant to people, what Ozzie and Harriet meant and the family meant, and our father meant, and, in our generation, what Matthew and I have meant, we love the fact that this family’s been there for a lot of people for a lot of years. We do take that very seriously.
Our dad was always the kind of guy who would stop what he was doing and look you in the eye and visit with you and, and just kind of remind you by that he cared. Harriet really helped us out because she said, “If you guys are going to do this for a living, just keep in mind, you’re not in the entertainment business. You’re in the connection business. That’s what you do. So, stay connected”. It’s tougher every single day with things like social media, which is ironic, it should be called anti-social media. It enables everybody to be removed and not to be face to face. And, in some cases be able to troll without consequence and all that. That’s the antithesis of where we come from as a family. So that’s been tough, but for us we actually get to go out and do shows. We get to meet people at shows and trade stories and get reminded that we actually at our best can make a difference, but we all can make a difference to people. That’s what the season kind of represents is that if you care enough and you’ve got empathy and, and stuff, when someone’s hurting and they need some help, when just doing one little thing can make their year, it’s up to you to go ahead and do it. Maybe it’s catching, maybe it’s day after Christmas and day after Christmas. You never know.
On upcoming plans – There’s a couple of big things that are happening. We’re rebranding the show from January 1 and we’re just doing it as the Nelsons and it’s going to be a blended set. So no more having a separate Ricky Nelson Remembered thing and a separate Nelson thing. It’s actually going to be one show with all the songs retooled. I want you to imagine a heavy Tom Petty approach in our heads. So, it’s going to be the whole family song book. I think that’s going to be fun. I’m looking forward to that. That means that Ricky Nelson Remembered. as a show is going to go away for now. We’re going to focus on that.
We had something happen a couple of weeks ago that no one knows about, the director, James Gunn, the guy did “Guardians of the Galaxy”, and other things, apparently is a big Nelson fan. He actually is working on a show right now with John Cena called “The Peacemaker”. Great show. The finale episode of this season features let’s just say it features Nelson music. It’s pretty cool because apparently the Peacemaker’s character is a big Nelson fan, too. So that actually might have a real impact, to be honest with you. We had a great time filming, and we had a great time visiting with Mr. Gunn and, and just everybody on that set was so talented. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens from now the episode of “Peacemaker” this year on, we might be doing, might be doing more Nelson concerts, you never know. On the first season, they had a band called Wigwam who did, who did the theme song. The first time I heard that theme song, I was like, “Man, I love it. Great”. So for them, that’s really cool.
On his favorite Christmas song – Well, my favorite Christmas song, isn’t a Christmas song. It’s my favorite song and it’s Louis Armstrong’s version of “What A Wonderful World”. I can’t listen to it without crying. It is so real and so what it’s all about. I was talking feeling that I’m talking about that the Christmas is supposed to remind us of it’s all encapsulated in that song right there. So, Interesting answer, but it’s the truth
