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This is later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast More what you Hear

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Weekday Afternoons on the Drive. That
is a cut from the new extended play

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that is out now by Il Divo. A Merry Christmas from Il Devo And

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they are joining me now here now
are the vocalist Erst Buller, Sebastian Ismbard,

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David Miller, and Stephen LaBrie.
Hello fellas, Hey, Well let's

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start with how you guys first got
together. I gather you were all soloists

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in your own right, but at
what point did you come together as Ildevo.

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Well, there was a gentleman that
is known I think by a lot

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of people called Simon Call who had
the idea to put a band together.

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When he heard the three tenors,
he is like, oh, that would

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be really cool to put like some
classical trained singers together in a band.

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So he got Orse and Carlos.
Back then they were the first ones and

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they were still struggling to find two
more members. I was a pop singer.

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This is Sebastian from Paris. I
was doing my own stuff as just

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a pop singer. And then David
and I have met ed the upper bestide

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back then and if we go basically
were put into a studio together and they

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said, create some music, guys, and we went in there and did

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the best that we could and Sami
Ont Break My Heart was our first single

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and became number one I don't know, like pretty much around everywhere around the

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world, and the rest is history, basically, right. Well, you

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do a number of different languages as
well, erst Booller. I imagine as

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you're all classically trained, that wasn't
much of a stretch for you. That's

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true, actually, you know,
and people ask that often do you speak

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all these languages? And that's absolutely
not necessary, especially because singing opera before

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that. I've seen opera in check
in Russian, in you know, and

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I don't understand a word of these
languages. But you get a language coach

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and they tell you how to pronounce, and you obviously know what you're singing,

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but you don't speak the language.
That's not necessary. So singing different

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languages for us was that was not
anything extraordinary. I've done my own share

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of that urse, and I must
say some of the Scandinavian languages are difficult

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to hold a note, like Naha
Orange Japanese. You have to sing a

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note on h like that. I
mean, if if we're being honest,

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English is actually one of the most
difficult languages to sing in operatically, to

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go into that gear, oh yeah
it's true and the yeah it's not not

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great well, and the diphthongs the
a. You know, most of most

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of your Latin based languages there are
no diphthongs, so it's much easier to

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project Oh yes, yes, I'll
Devo, the most commercially successful classical crossover

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group and international music history since they
first banded together in two thousand and four.

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Their new EP release is called A
Merry Little Christmas. How did you

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narrow down the songs you wanted to
do on the on this EP? Well,

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so, hi, this is even
sorry I did so yeah. We

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basically just, you know, we
were planning the double X album, so

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we were kind of starting to pick
repertoire for that. But then there was

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also this idea to do some Christmas
songs because the original Christmas album only had

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ten songs on it, and some
of them aren't even really Christmas songs,

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they're kind of some more sacred music, and so the idea was, how

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can we supplement the Christmas concert with
more festive Christmas music. So we just

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got together and we just threw around
some ideas what would it be like if

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we sang this, and then we
kind of you know, sat on the

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piano, we kind of like thought
about it and we just went through the

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idea is there's even more ideas to
do some hymns and make them kind of

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with the more epic I Devo endings. And then we just settled on these

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songs and we're really happy with how
they turned out because they're all super different.

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You know, I think have yourself
a Mary Little Christmas is a little

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more is the most in line with
kind of a big OLDEVO climax and big

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Oldievo ending, but most wonderful time
of the years, this fun big band

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theme I'll be Home for Christmas.
You know, we were actually sitting in

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the car and seb co produced a
few of these songs, and you know,

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he was saying, Oh, I
have this idea to make I'll be

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Home for Christmas with this Latin bassanova
rhythm and guitar, and we were like

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really, and we did not buy
it, but he trust me, guys,

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trust me, and so then we're
like, Okay, Okay, do

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it. And it's actually such an
amazing track. We heard it, we

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were like, oh, this is
so cool, so sexy. And then

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the last one is, uh,
it's always beginning to look a lot like

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Christmas, which is just you know, they're just classic, beautiful, nostalgic

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American songs that we you know,
we just love ild Oh and the Christmas

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EP is a merry little Christmas.
Yeah. Culturally, and I'm directing this

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to David, but culturally you all
bring your own kind of Christmas flavor to

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the to the party. Yeah,
I think, you know, I think

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it was and Sebastian and Carlos back
in the day. You know, everyone

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had their own traditions, but uh, you know, Christmas was a tradition

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for all of us, so there
was that kind of common thread. It's

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it's not like, you know,
one of us came from Japan or China

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or somewhere where. You know,
it's a completely different religious mindset. For

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me, it was all about family. It was all about kind of more

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than the religious it was. It
was really about connecting with family and having

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that that heart space to uh,
to really kind of celebrate each other.

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And Orse and sab Tell us about
yours good morning. Well, well,

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so Bashi and I wanted to ask, is there a particular French carol that

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you don't hear a lot of,
but but that is it's traditional for you,

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for instance in Flambagi and ette Isabella
or something along those lines. Well,

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there's one that I often joke about
called Petita Panuel mih Matiu, you

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know, was an amazing singer,
actually had an incredible voice, and sometimes

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I joke around it. So we
should be doing that one. But that's

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the one I grew up with.
Anyways, like that, check it out.

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That's pretty it's I think Josh Groban
actually did a version of that.

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Funny enough, Yeah, Anders,
is there some Is there one of yours

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from your childhood? You know what
I discovered, if you like, when

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we did the last Christmas show last
year in the UK, I discovered that

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everything I grew up with is,
as David pointed out, religious, and

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here in the United States, all
the typical Christmas carols are about family and

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being together with friends and chestnuts on
an open fire and that kind of stuff.

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All we had is literally about boy
in the Manger and the angel singing

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from this guy. So it's very
different somehow more secular in the United States

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as usual, A merry Little Christmas
is with us and we look, oh,

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you're on tour as well, so
we want to plug that at a

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theater near you. You can go
on the website to get more information about

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that and where is the EP available? What's all platforms? Spotify, Apple

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Music Music, what else, Pandora
exactly anything out there that you want to

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type il zevo and put a mary
a Lot of Christmas or a little Christmas

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and you'll find that. And like
you said, we're going to be touring

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actually until December twenty third. We
have more shows here on the East Coast.

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Then we're going off to text This
is somewhere like that and then Reorida.

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Also our first single Crazy just came
out last month and on Friday we

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have another single coming out from the
Double X album, so that's really exciting

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too, and those will also be
available on all those streaming platforms and for

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us, yes, it is a
busy season and a merry little Christmas to

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Ildevo. Thank you for joining us, gentlemen, thank you, thank you,

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thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews, The Lee Matthews podcast and

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remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation