AT THE MOVIES, Featuring Members Of Pretty Maids, Soilwork, Royal Hunt, Therion, King Diamond And More, Unveils Music Video For “Last Christmas” (Wham! Cover) In Celebration Of Today’s 7″ Release

Photo by Christel Mentges

Scandinavian all-star band AT THE MOVIES are set to release two albums, The Soundtrack Of Your Life – Vol. 2, featuring movie hits from the ‘90s, and The Soundtrack Of Your Life – Vol. 1, featuring movie hits from the ‘80s, on January 7th, 2022 through Atomic Fire Records.

Coming into the limelight unexpectedly last year, AT THE MOVIES today surprises fans with a video for “Last Christmas,” the title track of their new 7″ single as well as the bonus track of the aforementioned The Soundtrack Of Your Life – Vol. 1 reissue, today.

Comments guitarist Chris Laney , “‘Oh no! Not that song again?!’ Have you ever thought that way? I know that I have… and that is why I just felt we had to make our AT THE MOVIES version of it, haha. I love X-mas. It’s my favorite time of year and I hope this will bring some X-mas spirit to you guys. Pour yourself some eggnog or a glass of glühwein and enjoy!”

View AT THE MOVIES’ rendition of “Last Christmas” at THIS LOCATION.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RylbKF83IkQ]

View the video for the band’s first single, “Waiting For A Star To Fall,” HERE.

Secure your copy of the Last Christmas 7″ single on red vinyl (Side B: “Waiting For A Star To Fall”) at THIS LOCATION.

Preorder AT THE MOVIES’ albums in the format of your choice (CD/DVD-digipak – DVD includes videos for all tracks — black and color vinyl), pre-save them or preorder digitally to receive “Last Christmas” and “Waiting For A Star To Fall” instantly via the links below!

Vol. 1 (Re-Release): https://music.atomicfire-records.com/soundtrack1
Vol. 2: https://music.atomicfire-records.com/soundtrack2

The Soundtrack Of Your Life – Vol. 1 (Re-Release) – Track Listing:

Intro
No Easy Way Out
Maniac
St. Elmo’s Fire
A View To A Kill
(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life
Wouldn’t It Be Good
We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)
The Power Of Love
The Heat Is On
The Neverending Story
Far From Over
Last Christmas (Bonus Track)

The Soundtrack Of Your Life – Vol. 2 Track Listing:

Waiting For A Star To Fall
King Of Wishful Thinking
The One And Only
When You Say Nothing At All
(I Just) Died In Your Arms
(You Drive Me) Crazy
Heaven Is A Place On Earth
Crush09. I’ve Been Thinking About You
Venus
I Want It That Way

If there are two things that we ever-arguing humans seem to can agree on, it’s movies and music. A close inspection of all those iconic, generation-defining, mind-blowing flicks of the ‘80s and ‘90s reveal that it’s the very amalgamation of the two that does the trick: There’s no blockbuster from that era that doesn’t have an equally legendary theme song or soundtrack.

Explosive all-star assembly AT THE MOVIES are fully aware of this. On their rocking and blockbusting cinematic spectaculars The Soundtrack Of Your Life – Vol. 1 & 2, the supergroup led by Chris Laney (Pretty Maids) turn some of the most memorable and quintessential film songs of the ‘80s and ‘90s into leather jacket-wearing, hard rocking, entertaining versions you most certainly haven’t heard before nor ever expected to do so. Grab your popcorn, take a seat: we’re at the movies, the lights go down and the show is about to begin.

“I just love to disappear for a while. Shut out the real world and just think of something else for two hours – even more so last year,” Chris Laney says of his passion for movies, citing E.T. as his all-time favorite. “I was watching all these movies during lockdown because I had literally nothing better to do,” he remembers. “I confess that I am a sucker for rom-coms like Music And Lyrics with Hugh Grant. This film features this unbelievably cheesy song ‘Pop Goes My Heart’ and I just loved that song!,” the Swede laughs. “I instantly needed to make a demo of that song right away because I wanted to find out how it would sound as a rock version.”

Just for fun, he sent it to Danish drummer Allan Sørensen (Royal Hunt) who was equally excited about the prospect of interpreting famous theme songs. “And that’s what started it all,” Laney shrugs. “We were simply looking for something to have fun within these times so I called up a couple of friends and everybody was very eager to join.” The thing is: When Laney is calling his “friends”, he ends up in a band with the likes of Björn “Speed” Strid (Soilwork, The Night Flight Orchestra), Linnéa Vikström (Ronnie Atkins, Therion), Morten Sandager (ex-Pretty Maids), Pontus Egberg (King Diamond, Wolf), and Pontus Norgren (Hammerfall), just to name a few. “I am blessed to be friends with all these talented people,” says Laney. “I played in bands with some of them, I worked with some others individually, played live or simply met them on the road. The interesting thing is that we still haven’t been in the same room. Yet.”

With Volume 1 focusing on the ‘80s, AT THE MOVIES offers their wildly entertaining and uplifting take on classics like “St. Elmo”s Fire” (from St. Elmo’s Fire), “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome), “The Power Of Love” (from Back To The Future), and “The Neverending Story” (from The Neverending Story). “Picking songs was fairly easy,” the mastermind explains. “I knew that I wanted to focus on the non-rock songs. Of course, there are great ones like ‘Danger Zone’ or ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ but they already are rock songs. We wanted to see what happens when you take disco songs or these huge and dramatic pop ballads and turn them into rockers. In the end,” he laughs, “this meant replacing lots of saxophone with electric guitars.”

Volume 2 directly plunges into the ‘90s. “Waiting For A Star To Fall” (from Three Men And A Little Lady), “When You Say Nothing At All” (from Notting Hill), the riff-heavy rocker that once was Jennifer Paige’s teen pop soundtrack anthem “Crush,” or the furious glam rock extravaganza “Venus” make it pretty clear that their only agenda was fun. After all, why would a troupe of well-established heavy metallers take on a song like “I Want It That Way” by Backstreet Boys? “We were going for songs you wouldn’t normally take on as a rock band,” Laney tells us. “What we were asking ourselves all the time was: can we get away with this? And of course, we can because we have nothing to lose. We can do whatever we like.” He marvels: “We never actually thought anybody would care about that but then all of a sudden, the uploaded songs became quite popular. And there we were, doing song after song. Every Thursday at 7:00pm.”

With the parallel re-issue of Volume 1 (including a bonus track) and the brand-new Volume 2, AT THE MOVIES proves to be movie lovers with a heart of rock and a penchant for fun. Recorded remotely, brought together in Chris Laney’s home studio, both instalments of The Soundtrack Of Your Life are finest blockbuster entertainment on a Hollywood scale, paving the way for future cinematic endeavors. “We’ll figure something out soon,” Laney is sure. “I would love to do a Disney special but I’m not sure Disney will like it. Maybe we’re going back to the ‘60s. You never know.” What we do know, however, is the guarantee of success once this all-star vessel is hitting the festival stages. Chris Laney concludes: “What could be better to open up a day at a big festival with songs like these?” What indeed.

AT THE MOVIES:
Björn “Speed” Strid – vocals
Linnéa Vikström Egg – vocals
Chris Laney – guitars
Morten Sandager – keyboards
Allan Sørensen – drums
Pontus Egberg – bass
Pontus Norgren – guitars