Omaha musician and filmmaker Aaron Gum has released a new album called “Synthmas Classics” on streaming platforms and Bandcamp. The album of holiday tracks does not follow in the grandeur of Omaha’s Christmas music forefather Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller, but instead has a lot of fun with vintage synths, which Gum collects, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Gum has performed in many area bands such as Shinyville and Indreama and has shot videos for more, but in recent years he is best known for his work with Glow In The Dark and currently the dark wave-post punk band Dead Poets.
“Synthmas Classics” came to be as holiday music was needed for Tony Bonacci’s movie “The Headliner.” Gum came up with a few tracks and eventually decided to do a whole album mainly for friends. Gum talked about the album and the reaction to it during a phone conversation.
“The Headliner” is a movie about a fictional Omaha comedian, and Gum was approached to add some Christmas music to the film.
“Tony originally reached out to Chip Davis. He was trying to get in touch with Chip Davis to see if maybe he would let him use some of his Christmas music in the background,” Gum recalled. “Eventually he got ahold of them, but he was told, ‘here’s the licensing people, just call them.’ So then he’s like, really quickly, ‘hey, does anybody have any Christmas songs that I can use?’ And my message was, ‘Hey, I can whip up some Christmas songs for you.’ … And those were the first three tracks that eventually would become “Synthmas Classics”: ‘Joy to the Moogs,’ the “Jingle Bells,” which was done on the Synclavier Region, which is a fun little instrument and ‘Deck The Moogs.’”
Those three songs were recorded a couple of years ago, but this year Gum decided to make something he’d joked about a reality.
“I was kind of just joking, mostly joking around at the time, I should just do a full synth Christmas album,” Gum said. “Tony was like, ‘oh, you should.’ Then my girlfriend, Emily, was like, ‘you know, you should.’ This was like two years ago when we did it for “The Headliner.” Then every once in a while, I would kind of think ‘I’ve got a couple of ideas in my head for this.’ The original ‘All I Want For Christmas Is a Jupiter 8,’ I’ve had the idea for that in my head for a long time, and I ended up actually recording and writing all of it basically the week of Thanksgiving.”
Gum said that all the synths on the album were recorded in his home using his collection of instruments. He added that on “The Twelve Synths of Christmas” the instruments that are named‑checked in the song are ones that he has or has a version of. Gum was asked if any of the songs were more challenging than the others he said,
“Not really. I mean, most of the stuff is just programming by MIDI and then just going through and sculpting the sounds,” Gum said. “I’m not a pianist or an organist. I’m a synthesist. That’s what I do. I mess with synthesizers. The sounds for, like, ‘Auld Lang Sine’ and ‘Silent Night, Wavetable Night’ those are kind of fun because each one of those is an independent wavetable synthesizer. So it was more just kind of going through the sounds. I kind of like deadlines, and I really kind of dug my feet into this the week of Thanksgiving.”
One of the songs on the album is a parody of Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” from the “Top Gun” soundtrack.
“‘The Manger Zone’ actually happened, like, three days before,” he says. “I wanted to have it done by Dec. 1. It’s like one of those things where if I don’t get it out pretty early, then I might as well hold off and wait till next year or something. Which I think is what I did last year.”
Gum said the response to the album has been positive.
“So far, everybody that’s heard seems to really be enjoying it,” he said. “And I didn’t really plan on doing interviews and podcasts. It was this little thing I’m going to make and going to release and get it out there and then kind of, you know, move on to the next project. So it’s kind of fun that it seems to be bringing a little bit of holiday joy to people.”
Gum does not expect to play music from the album live because it would require too many musicians.
“That would be fun. I would have to grab a bunch of musicians with synths to try to do it live, or have mostly backing tracks and just play, one of the parts, you know, or whatever,” Gum said. “I suppose it’d be interesting to try, but none of this was designed with it being played live in mind.”
Gum added he does have some ideas for a possible Volume 2.
“There wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a Volume One,” he said. “It’s kind of like a fun thing. It’s like Volume One, like ‘History of the World, Part One,’ which is the joke, until they eventually make ‘History of the World, Part Two,’ which they did. I kind of have a lot of fun ideas like ‘Manger Zone,’ like using the synthesizers from a Paula Abdul song, here is the exact same horn patch from ‘Straight Up,’ I can make ‘Straight Up the Chimney’ or something, but I don’t want to be too much like Weird Al or Bob Rivers. I want it to be serious, but I want it to be fun, but not slapstick.”
Gum has a handful of other projects happening besides spur‑of‑the‑moment Christmas releases. The day following the release of “Synthmas Classics,” he also released the “Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Orgy of the Dead 2,” which he says is the official sequel to the 1963 “Orgy of the Dead” written by Ed Wood. His band Dead Poets also has songs in the film and perform live around the area frequently.