Charlie Hall
Merges Football and the Holidays with the Philly Specials
By Jay S. Jacobs
Charlie Hall had his share of adventures long before he became the producer and one of the driving forces of the Philly Specials – a popular musical group made up of three Philadelphia Eagles star offensive linemen, the recently retired future Hall-of-Famer Jason Kelce and his teammates Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata.
Hall has been the long-time drummer of popular Grammy-winning Philly-based rock band The War on Drugs. It was through his day job that Hall befriended former Eagles star Connor Barwin, who is now the team’s head of football development and strategy. Through Barwin, he met Kelce. A few years later, Barwin and Kelce approached Hall with an idea – would he be willing to produce a charity Christmas album featuring the three football stars?
A Philly Special Christmas was released in 2022, and it became such a big hit that it has now spawned two follow-up albums in the next two years. In 2023 they released A Philly Special Christmas Special – an album and a TV special – which spawned a smash hit with Jason Kelce and his brother, Kansas City Chiefs’ star Travis Kelce, doing a variation of the Pogues/Kirsty MacColl holiday classic “Fairytale of New York” (which the band retitled “Fairytale of Philadelphia.”)
Just recently the third album A Philly Special Christmas Party dropped, featuring a new duet between Kelce and Stevie Nicks on “Maybe This Christmas” and the popular Mt. Joy collaboration “Santa Drives an Astrovan.”
We recently hooked up with Hall to discuss his experiences with the group.
You obviously have your own day job with The War on Drugs. How did you connect with the Eagles players on The Philly Specials? What are they like to work with?
My friendship with Connor and Jason came about through Connor's Make the World Better Foundation. Connor put on an annual show, and we played that, gosh, it must have been maybe 2016. It was the first year it was at The Dell, you’ll have to fact check that. [ed. note: It was 2017] I guess I had known Connor before that. That's when I first met Jason. We [became] fast friends. Those guys are made out of all heart. Fast forward a few years later, when Jason and Connor had this idea, “Hey, let's make a Christmas record. Maybe we’ll even raise some money and help some local nonprofits.” They called me, “How do we make a Christmas record?” I said just like anything else in life, you just put your head down and you go for it. We just started getting together and talking about music and songs. Jason, Lane, and Jordan were all connected. Through their day job, of being future Hall of Fame linemen. They were also bound by a love of music and of singing. They're all amazing musicians and singers in their own right. It was a fun way to celebrate both their friendship and their desire to do something meaningful, both personally and for the community.
I had read that Jason, and I believe Jordan, had done a little bit of singing before, but had any of them worked in a studio before, and how quickly did they fit into the recording studio?
That's a good question. Certainly, they've all sung because that’s what they do. Pass the guitar around, sitting around the campfire. They're all singers. But I'm not sure any of them had really been in a studio before. Certainly, none of them is scared of a microphone from all the public-facing stuff that they do. But it's a big difference between just singing in the real world naturally, versus having headphones on and hearing every minute detail of your voice. Having people in the studio and being watched. It's nerve wracking. It's a very nerve-wracking thing. I think that is one of the many things that makes them so uniquely qualified for doing this. They just treated it like their day job. “Coach me. Tell me how I can get better. Show me what to do.” Having enough confidence to be like, if this sucks, you need to tell me. Just completely no ego, or somewhere in between no ego and healthy enough level of confidence to try, and fail, and try again. It was really inspiring to me to be in the studio and have that level of willingness to go with the flow. To work hard and improve. I think the results speak for themselves. They sound amazing.
There is a long history of athletes recording songs, but they are usually just looked at as novelty songs – things like “The Super Bowl Shuffle” and the Eagles even once did one called “Buddy’s Watching You.” How important is it to you all that these albums are taken seriously?
To be honest with you, you bring up a really good point. That was actually my first question for them. Why do you want to do this? I was like, I'm totally game for this if it's a sincere venture. I wasn't quite as much up for it being a goof. Not to say that we didn't have the most, maximum fun (chuckles), because fun was at the top of every time we're together. Everyone's laughing and cutting it up, while working hard. I just wanted to make sure that it was a sincere venture. It was always that. It was never like, “Oh yeah, we're going to make a goof of these songs.” It was never like that. It was always we want to make a good record that's going to make people happy. We want to make something that's going to endure for the ages. I think we did.
This is the third Philly Specials Christmas album over the last few years. Why was it decided to specialize in holiday music? Do you think the group will ever do an album of straight music?
Yeah, that would be cool. I could imagine something like that happening. I think that Jordan, for sure, has a music career ahead of him when he's done playing football. He's such a naturally gifted musician and he’s got a really, really special voice. So, yeah, I often think about what tunes would I want to bring? I keep a playlist, actually. (laughs) Songs for Jordan. With Jordan I do think about how fun it would be to just [do a secular album]. In terms of picking holiday songs, I try to pick songs that I personally think are great. It's important to me that the songs each have meaning for the guys that are singing them. I want to make sure that they have some emotional connection to whatever it is they're singing. It is fun sometimes to think about expanding out. What would be some songs I would want Jordan to tackle, for lack of a better word, outside of this holiday canon, which is a deep well. Don’t get me wrong, over the last three years, I've definitely learned just how deep that well is, going down lots of different wormholes of holiday songs.
Like you said, a lot of the songs are holiday standards, but then there are lesser-known songs, like “Maybe This Christmas,” or even to a certain extent, “Fairytale of New York.” How do you decide which songs that you want to put your own spin on?
Every song is a different story. “Fairytale of New York” is a song that I knew that Jason loved. “Maybe This Christmas” is one of my favorites. I just hoped that it would resonate with Jason. I picked my moments, and when he heard it, I think he really liked it. You could tell from the way he sings it. That's one of his superpowers, that he just locks in on the emotional heft of a tune. He just gets right at it. Like the song that Brandon Beaver [guitarist for the band mewithoutYou] wrote, “Loud Little Town,” it was the same thing. He just really knows how to convey emotion with his phrasing and his voice. People always think of him as just being the growler, but he's actually, he has… they all three of them have beautiful voices. Jason really does have a lot of dynamic to his to his range.
How did you get Stevie Nicks to take part in “Maybe This Christmas?”
That's a Jason thing. They had a connection, and I think they had mutual admiration. Obviously, she's one of the all-time greats. I think they just really hit it off. I think she recognized, probably, how special of a person he is. Anybody that meets him can see that. That was a Jason connection. (laughs) I don’t have Stevie on speed dial.
Yeah, I once ran into her in Santa Monica, but I don't think I would be much help either.
[Hall laughs.]
On Spotify the song “Santa Drives an Astrovan” with Mt. Joy, which is a variation of their song “Jesus Drives an Astrovan,” is getting a lot of attention, too. How did that collaboration come about?
Matt [Quinn, Mt. Joy singer] came by the studio a couple times. He's a friend. Just like all of this, everything sprang out of friendship and mutual admiration, all the musicians and the guys. Everyone knows Jason, Lane, and Jordan and how great they are. But then, those guys were equally in awe of the musicians. It put everybody on a level playing field. There was never any imbalance. Everything always just felt super natural. Everyone was really open to each other and open to this different experience. These musicians have obviously been in the studio countless times, but there was something a little different about the way these sessions took place. It was just a really fun environment. Everyone was on the same level. Lots of humor, lots of hard work, but lots of mutual respect. I guess that’s the best way to put it.
Lots of other Philadelphia artists, like Patti LaBelle, Boyz II Men and Amos Lee have contributed to the albums…
Yeah, yeah. Marshall Allen from the Sun Ra Arkestra. DM Hotep from the Sun Ra Arkestra. Then guys like Kevin Hanson and Luke Carlos O'Reilly. Then folks from the [War on] Drugs, like Robbie [Bennett] and Eliza [Hardy Jones]. Zach [Miller] from Dr Dog, and Brandon Beaver from mewithoutYou. The Hooters fellows, Rob [Hyman] and Eric [Bazilian]. One of my goals was to bring together all the different elements of this wonderfully cool and rich musical history that we have here in Philly. I do think there's something uniquely Philly about this whole thing. It's a reflection of what makes this city so great. All these people come together for this thing, with total openness.
Was it fun bringing in some of the other Eagles? People like Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, Brandon Graham, Haasan Reddick, Jordan Davis, Jason’s brother Travis Kelce from the Chiefs, broadcaster Merrill Reese, and even general manager Howie Roseman did a song.
Howie. Stouts [Jeff Stoutland, the team’s offensive line coach] who is a legend. He's the man.
The group sometimes changes the lyrics to make them more specifically about Philadelphia and the team. For example, “Fairytale of Philadelphia [Fairytale of New York],” which I guess at this point is hard to do as it was. Other ones too, like “It’s Christmas Don’t Be Late [The Chipmunk Song].” Does it feel at all strange changing the songs that are so iconic, or is it fun playing around with them?
That's a good question. It was pretty cool, even just before his passing, to have to have gotten Shane [MacGowan, Pogues singer/songwriter]'s blessing and approval of the tune, which was very cool. For something like “Astrovan,” that's Matt's song. So, changing that was, like, “Hey, he wrote the song.” So, that was his idea. He was like … this is actually going back to your last question … he came to hang a couple times. He saw what was going on, and he was like, “Hey, I got an idea for the song that I have that we could reset for Christmas.” So, it was his song. He did it. That was awesome. I mean, so fun. I think that song rounded out the 12 songs, covers a slightly different territory that none of the other songs hit, in emotion and feel.
Along those lines, technically, “Having a Party” isn't really a holiday song. Why was it decided to use that one and give it a Christmas feel, with the jingle bells in the background and everything?
Yeah. I mean, you put sleigh bells on anything, and it’s a Christmas song, right? When Connor and I were thinking about this year, this last one, it's like, what are some of the through lines here? One of them was just, whenever we're all together, it really does sincerely feel like a party. It seems like the first year, A Philly Special Christmas, which was the introduction. Then, with the play on words last year, with The Philly Special Christmas Special, we had this imaginary… like, we were putting on a putting on a show. That was the construct of it. Then, for the third one, I think it was playful turn of phrase, A Philly Special Christmas Party. Last year was the special, this year's the party. That was our North Star. We're just going to treat this like it's the best party you have ever went to, and just have as much fun as humanly possible. That ended up being the guiding principle, or whatever you want to call it, of the of the affairs.
Speaking of Christmas specials, all of the album covers are designed around a Charlie Brown Christmas. Whose idea was to make those tributes and how important was that special to you and the guys when you were growing up?
Oh, it was huge. I think that's something we locked in on. Thankfully, the [Charles M.] Schulz estate was cool with it. I liked having the imagery be animation because it allows for … what's the word? … more suspension of disbelief or something. Maybe that's not the right phrase, but it leans in this imaginary world. I remember that first year, just poring through Christmas album covers, looking for inspiration. Like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, so many great ones. The ones that resonate the most seem to always be the animated ones. Charlie Brown [Christmas] was always very important to me, even in its tone and messaging, around the commercialism and stuff. Obviously, there is a commercial nature to what we're doing because we're trying to raise money, to give away. So there was obviously commerce involved. But I really like that message of commercialism in the Charlie Brown stuff. The cover is just fun, seeing these massive football players, what if we just turn that whole thing on its head and have them be these Peanuts inspired characters. I mean, the thing is they are all truly so sweet, gentle, and kind. It's not that far of a stretch for them (chuckles) to take on this other sort of image. What we're used to seeing with the … what do you call … the eye stuff on the field. These menacing, six-foot-nine creatures with sun glare stuff all over his face or whatever.
As a musician yourself, is it fun to be in the production seat?
Oh yeah, I love it. Personally, I love bringing people together. Sometimes there’s people that have played together, sometimes they are people that haven’t played together. I just love helping to create an environment for people to feel comfortable and empowered to be themselves. To use their voice and really just try to put people in positions to just have fun and do their thing. To learn. Honestly, I think so much of producing is being open yourself to learning. To hearing everyone's ideas and synthesizing those ideas. For me, that's an important part of it, for everyone to feel heard. In doing so, encourage everyone to be bought into it. Everyone has some agency in this thing that we're doing together. A group effort. I feel like my role was just bringing everybody together and trying to amplify [things]. I'm not saying that I didn't have a vision for how it was going to go, but also part of that is just being open myself and trying to bring out the best in everyone, and honoring people's ideas and that kind of thing, That’s my personal approach to it all.
Okay, great. One last question. You weren't born in Philadelphia, but you've lived here for years. What is it about Philadelphia that you think is so special and fosters such a vital music scene?
I've been thinking about that since the day I moved here, 21 years ago. I'm not sure. I think part of it is just there's environmental factors, historically, and there's who lives here, who can afford to live here, and where are the gigs? Are people supporting each other? When I first moved here, it was like there was a real Zeitgeist moment I feel like, in the early 2000s. That was when the Khyber was still really going and before Johnny Brendas, that turned into the Johnny Brenda's scene a bit. Everyone was playing in each other's bands and going to each other's gigs and playing like four-band bills. There was all this real strong sense of community. Why is that exactly? Hard to say. I think some of it has to do historically with cost of living. Sometimes it's been easier for artists to afford to live here than in some other cities, for example. That's kind of an easy answer, but that certainly, I think, has to be considered at least part of it. Beyond that, we just have such a cool history of jazz and the whole Philly soul thing. Maybe this is too much of a stretch, but I feel like what makes the Philly sound the Philly sound, you've got the greasiness of the grooves. There's also horns, which really punctuate things, but there's also strings making it beautiful. You've got all those elements. It wasn't just like the Detroit thing, or the Chicago thing. In Philly, you had this whole Technicolor spectrum of sound. I think that maybe it's not a stretch to think of that as a metaphor for the people and the scenes that that have come up around it.
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: December 7, 2024.
Photos © 2024 Kait Privera. Courtesy of Mixtape Media. All rights reserved.
Album artwork © 2024. Courtesy of Mixtape Media. All rights reserved.
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