Speaking with Jim Barber at Music Life Magazine in support of her new Christmas album, Almost Christmas, Canadian rock icon Lee Aaron offered some details on her plans for a new all-original studio record, which is in the works. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

Lee: "I can’t give you an exact date for the new album, or an album title yet because I literally just got the mastered versions of the songs in my Dropbox a week ago. The next step is trying to figure out how exactly we want to put it out. The last two studio albums and then our live in Germany CD/DVD last year, they have all been on my own label, Big Sister Records with an international distributor. And the reason we have done that is because we don’t need anybody to tell us how to make records anymore. I don’t really want to give up an inch of creative control these days. And that’s why we have done it through our own boutique label. So, for this new record, we will be sorting out over the next month or so how we want it to be released. I would say that it would be safe to say that this album will be hitting the streets before summer 2021.

It’s definitely a continuation in the vein of the last two records. And unlike Diamond Baby Blues, it’s 100 per cent original. We wrote all the songs. When we got together to write this new album, we did it through a different process that we have done in the past. Because we are a bicoastal band with Sean Kelly living in Toronto, we would send ideas and files and voice memos back and forth and wrote the songs that way. For this record, we realized that there is something very magical that happens when just the four of us get together on a stage or in a room to jam. I have expressed this on multiple occasions to the guys in the band that there’s an energy that happens when we’re just doing a sound check and jamming on an idea that gets lost when we’re just sending files back and forth. So, we just had Sean come out here to Vancouver. We told him to bring three or four of his best ideas and we would bring ours, and we would hunker down together for a couple of days like we’re a high school garage band. 

We had two 14-hour days just piecing together these ideas as a band and jamming and the spirit behind those sessions was, without any filters, without thinking about having to write singles, let’s just write an album that we would love playing for our friends. Let’s just write some really cool songs. And so, we basically wrote 12 songs in two days. There’s such an authentic energy to this new album, were I think we’re getting closer and closer to sounding like the genuine pure rock and roll band that we are."

Read the complete story here.

Lee Aaron has had a lengthy and musically adventurous career that spans rock classics, jazz, opera and more, but there’s one project she’s never taken on. A Christmas Album. It’s an idea she has considered often but the timing was never right…until now. The first single from her Christmas album, Almost Christmas, is a cover of the Pet Shop Boys track, "It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas", premiered exclusively through BraveWords!

Lee and her band (Sean Kelly-guitar, Dave Reimer-bass, and John Cody-drums) had tossed around the notion of a Christmas album over the years, but there was always something – tours/recording/life etc. – that kept the project on the back burner. And that’s where it stayed…until 2020 brought a whole new reality. With all shows cancelled and studios shutting down, there was suddenly time available. Over the summer, they began creating a series of Rockin' From Home videos, which whetted the appetite for more, so when the Christmas idea came up again in mid-September, it was a definite go.

"Each of us had upgraded our home studios, so we thought, why not? We only had a month to get it all done, but it became a fun mission - and it kept us all from going stir crazy during Covid!" says Aaron.

Almost Christmas contains ten lovingly curated tunes - from the foot-stomping excitement of the feature track "It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas" (Pet Shop Boys) to the classic "Baby Please Come Home" to a sassy version of Louis Armstrong’s "Zat You Santa Claus?” - winding down with the introspective "All I Ever Get For Christmas is Blue" (Over The Rhine) and an acapella rendition of Joni Mitchell’s timeless “The Fiddle And The Drum." You've never heard Christmas done quite like this.

She also presents a brand new version of her 1991 hit “Peace On Earth” which likewise, is as relevant now as it was when it was first released.

Aaron explains, "There's a lot of passion and joy that went into these recordings. The album represented something really positive and hopeful that we could focus on during this unprecedented down-time. It was a gift that lifted our spirits and we hope it has the same effect on others."

Physical copies and fan packs available exclusively here.

Tracklisting:

“Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas”
“Baby Please Come Home”
“Run, Run, Rudolph”
“It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas”
“Zat You Santa Claus?”
“Don't Believe in Christmas”
“Merry Christmas Everybody”
“Peace On Earth”
“All I Ever Get For Christmas is Blue”
“The Fiddle and The Drum”