As the last Christmas plate is washed up and the scraps of wrapping paper are sorted and carted off to the recycling bin for another year, we’re all looking for something to keep our festive flame alight, and we’ve got just the thing. Sadly this year’s Joyzine Advent Calendar was cut short (as explained here) but that means we have loads of brilliant songs still to share with you over the coming days to lighten the trudge towards the new year.

As with all of out songs this year, if you enjoy them we’d love you to consider supporting the excellent work of First Timers Fest in creating opportunities for people from under-represented backgrounds to learn an instrument, form a band, write some songs and get onstage, by making a donation here.

Photo of the band Electric Pets sitting on a sofa surrounded by musical instruments

Today’s exclusive free download comes via the ever brilliant Reckless Yes Records, the home (past and present) to a swathe of Joyzine favourites – Chorusgirl, Nervous Twitch, Piney Gir, Fightmilk, Breakup Haircut, Feral Five, Charley Stone and more, including vintage loving garage rock dark-pop four-piece Electric Pets, who have provided today’s tune in the form of a cover of a 1978 duet between Suzi Quattro and Smokie’s Chris Norman.

We caught up with Pete Darrington, who is both one of the label heads and a member of the band, to find out more:

Tell us a little about your track
The track we’ve chosen to specially record for your Advent Calendar this year is “Stumblin’ In’ – a 1978 duet between Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman from Smokie. We’re huge fans of Suzi and everyone knows all the bangers, so we thought we’d go for one of her lesser known ballady hits. It’s not a Christmas song per se, but we’ve made it one with obligatory sleigh and tubular bells. Our version is also very evocative of the glam rock Chinn and Chapman era, complete with hand claps and glam rock drums. We recorded it specially in our little demo cabin where we write and demo all our songs, at the bottom of Phil Wagg’s (guitar and vocals) garden.

What was 2024 like for you?
2024 was a reasonably busy year for us – we didn’t quite do as much as we did last year as Emma (vocals, guitar) has become a mum, so we were working around that while she got into her parenting stride – but we still got a lot done! We released a couple of singles, which received fantastic support from BBC Introducing, we spent the earlier part of the year in the studio recording some new material – 6 new songs that are due for release in 2025, including the two singles I mentioned earlier. The summer saw us playing at a few festivals – our favourite being a brand new one in Burton On Trent – called ‘Sonic Boom’ – that was great and the audience were fantastic. We also smashed the 100k plays mark on Spotify, which we were super pleased about.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
Next year we plan to be back gigging as much as we did in 2023 and we’ve got a total of 3 singles and another EP pencilled in for release throughout the year – we are mixing and mastering the next two singles right now and then early in the new year we will be finishing off the other 4 songs that we did the tracking for earlier this year. Hopefully more festival appearances in the Summer too – we’ve been so lucky to have had prominent places on the bill for events like Y-Not and Splendour and Sonic Boom so we hope that trend will continue!

Christmas songs – love them or hate them? Why?
Christmas songs? We love them! Of course you get sick of them by the end of December, but that’s part of the fun, right? We all slap on a christmas play list when we start to get the decorations out and put the tree up – it’s essential for getting into the spirit of things – if you disagree, you’re dead inside. Or Scrooge!

Download ‘Stumblin’ In‘
Make a donation to First Timers

Electric Pets: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / TikTok

Catch up on all of this year’s Advent Calendar Tracks so far:
1: Piney Gir – Reindeer
2: Gabriel Minnikin – Said Information
3: LOUD WOMEN ft. Smallways, Butterknife, Daddy Issues, Witch Spit, R.U.B, Vipersnatch, Worm Girlz, Lady Lazarus and Stabbitha & The Knifey Wifeys
4: First Timers Fest ft. Gay Skeleton Club and Skutterfly
5: Goo Records ft. Jopy, The Stanford Family Band, Owners Club and The Roebucks
6: Dead Horse – Historic
7: Gemma Rogers – Never Have I Ever
8: Umarells – Closer