Jon Mikl Thor finally hammered out the Christmas album he’s wanted to record for 40 years, and he’ll get to celebrate its release with friends in Surrey this month.
The mythical rock god and former bodybuilding champ, who first made a name for himself in the late-’70s, is back with Christmas In Valhalla, a CD boasting nine original songs and a comic-book cover created by an illustrator who works for the Marvel company.
It’s “the ultimate metalhead stocking stuffer – the very first holiday album from legendary metal viking, Thor!” raves a post on the Cleopatra Music & Films website.
A video for the song “Gonna Have A Rockin’ Christmas” was recently shot at the Donegal’s bar on 96th Avenue where Thor and pals will perform on Thursday, Nov. 29.
“This is all for fun, right, and since 1978 I’ve wanted to do this, back to the Keep the Dogs Away era,” Thor told the Now-Leader in a phone interview. “I was going to put out a Christmas album back then, but it never happened. The years go by and you have to get ahead of the game, at the start of it, but the timing wasn’t right, but this time I said I want to do this before I get too old, or it’ll never happen.”
CLICK HERE to hear the songs on iTunes.
The songs – “Cold Saint Nick,” “Slay Rider” and “Not So Little Drummer Boy” among the clever titles – were recorded with the band Thor pulled together for his recent Beyond The Pain Barrier album, which was released a couple years after the 2015 documentary film I Am Thor.
Christmas In Valhalla was co-written and co-produced with Kevin Stuart Swain, who plays in several local bands, including the one that hosts the Freakrock jams at Donegal’s every Thursday night.
• RELATED STORY: ‘Freakrock’ jammers find groove among the faithful at Surrey pub, from March 2017.
“Kevin produced the record and also the video, so it’s almost as much his album. A lot of kudos go to him,” Thor said.
“You know, Surrey is a hotbed of talent, guys who play there, including Kevin and Frank Soda, Ray Roper, it’s great,” he added. “Frank Soda, I’ve known him for years when we were both trying to make it in the music industry back in the ’70s, and he was the one who recommended Kevin, who has his finger on the pulse and isn’t really recognized enough internationally – just one of those guys who is so talented, right, but hasn’t had a chance to really get out there and be better known.”
Currently based in Los Angeles, the Vancouver-born Thor says his new Christmas album is “90 per cent a fresh effort” written and recorded this year.
“A couple of songs were in the can and we kind of brought those out and brushed them off and remixed them a little bit,” he said.
“Doing this, you have to get into the Christmas spirit in June, right, which is when you have to start,” he continued. “One of the interesting things about this is, William Shatner and I are on the same label, in Calfifornia with Cleopatra, and the label said he’s coming out with a Christmas album this year, and asked if I wanted to do that too. I said sure, and I’m a big fan of William Shatner, who’s a fellow Canadian and I love Star Trek, and it turns out we got released on the same day, October 26th.”
A ticket to the Nov. 29 gig at Donegal’s – which range from $15 in advance to $20 at the door – includes a copy of Thor’s new CD.
“We’ll hit ‘Keep the Dogs Away,’ ‘Anger, ‘Thunder on the Tundra,’ some of the hits, if you can call them that, from the day,” Thor said, “and we’ll also do a song or two from the Christmas album. It’s about having fun, a Christmas party. It’ll be good to see all kinds of friends again. Doing something like this, it’s different than playing for 20,000 people and having the pressure of doing a big show, the props and all that kind of stuff, like we do in Europe, right.”
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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