Now that 2016’s monthly calendar is down to its last page, you’ve no doubt been feeling the ho-ho-ho in your heart-heart-heart. That’s just Human Nature. So is—at least for these dudes who carry that name—musical yuletide innovation.
“We came up with a mashup of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘O Holy Night,’” says Toby Allen, who is a quarter of the vocalizing quartet that’s adding jingle-bell rockin’ into their resident production, Jukebox. Yet don’t fret—the backbeat’s subdued out of reverence for those holiday hymnals.
“It’s quite powerful. Maybe because I’m a dad now with 3 ½-year-old twins and Christmas has taken on this whole other meaning, every time I sing that onstage I tear up.”
However, there’s more than enough ho-ho-ho to divvy up between Allen and his Aussie musical mates—Phil Burton and brothers Andrew and Mike Tierney—as they lend their trademark pop-rock style to seasonal favorites including “White Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland” and “Christmas Baby Please Come Home.” Like musical candy canes, they add holiday flavoring to their blend of Motown, doo-wop, pop and soul that bounces between classics such as “Stand By Me,” “Unchained Melody” and “Under the Boardwalk.”
“We’ve been together 27 years and some of our earliest performing together was caroling in Sydney—we’d get bookings in the shopping centers,” Allen says of the group’s Down Under beginnings, before they hit Vegas in 2009 at the former Imperial Palace.
“Christmas music has always been very close to us. We recorded a Christmas album and with ‘White Christmas,’ we did a stop-motion, claymation video, in that Rankin-Bass style of TV specials. It’s about four guys who get stranded in the desert at Christmas. We play that video behind us while we perform it.”
Though Christmas cheer is universal, the style of celebration differs around the globe. During his Australian stopover, Santa might be tempted to shed that bulky red suit—maybe show off that six-pack he got working out during the off-yuletide season.
“It’s hot in Australia at Christmas, which (Americans) can’t really fathom,” Allen says. “It’s literally the middle of summer when we celebrate Christmas, so everybody is in shorts and T-shirts and you go for a swim. But we all love decorating the tree. It’s still all about family and being close to the ones you love.”
Beyond the rituals everyone shares, many families observe their own unique traditions—such as the one the Allen clan liked to chew on at home in the rugged, rural Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. For that, we take you to the kitchen of Allen’s beloved grandmother.
“She made a boiled fruit pudding and she would put sixpences in it,” he says. “You could cook them into the pudding and it wouldn’t contaminate it because the coins were made of actual silver. She served it with custard on top and everybody would dig into this pudding trying to find as many coins as possible, and she would buy them back from us grandkids. It’s a very British tradition that still goes on today.”
No doubt it was dee-lish—but
you have to wonder if that meal made the season even merrier for Aussie dentists.
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