Matt Rogers embraces his role in the holiday season
By Nick A. Zaino III Updated November 8, 2024
Matt Rogers is ready to call it. Seven years into performing an annual holiday show, and two years after he released his Showtime special “Have You Heard of Christmas?” the results are in. “The people have spoken,” he said, “and this is my third or fourth year throwing that title about, so maybe, just maybe I’ll have to claim it. Maybe I’ll claim it right here in this interview. I’m officially the prince of Christmas.”
“The Prince of Christmas” also happens to be the name of the tour he’s bringing to the Wilbur on December 15, a mix of songs from his special and new material. It all started in 2017 at New York City’s Duplex Cabaret and Piano Bar as a tongue-in-cheek revue lampooning pop stars swinging for Christmas immortality. The show was hyped as an album release party for a holiday record he hadn’t made. It became a running joke in 2018 when he did another album release show, also with no record.
In 2022, the running joke got real when he released the Showtime special. Now the show he wrote poking fun at a tradition has become a tradition itself. “That was kind of the joke,” he said, “me doing a bit where I’m the Prince of Christmas, like Mariah [Carey] is the Queen of Christmas. And then suddenly people were enjoying it so much that I got the opportunity to do it as a special on Showtime. And then actually released the album in 2023. So it ended up being like, I kind of played the joke on myself.”
The title song, “Have You Heard of Christmas?” dates back to the original stage show, and finds a wannabe pop idol only dimly aware of actual holiday traditions singing an R&B torch song about how Jesus and Santa Claus went to college together in Bethlehem. “Have you heard of Christmas?” he sings, “It’s when Moses did the lake/Have you heard of Christmas?/That was the night that they made St. Nick a saint.” “Also It’s Christmas” is a club thumper that just happens to take place on Christmas. And “Every Christmas Eve” imagines Mrs. Claus finally getting suspicious of where Santa really goes one night a year.
Click here to read the full article…