Biography

PROJECT BIO

Merry Ex-Mas... Songs For The Divorced and Soon To Be
By: The Irreconcilables


It’s not exactly your typical Christmas album. But a typical Christmas album isn’t what well-known songwriters Will Robinson, Mike Reid and Don Pfrimmer intended when they wrote Merry Ex-Mas: Songs For the Divorced and Soon To Be. What with titles like “Frosty My Ex-Wife,” “The Twelve Days of Christmas (My True Love Took From Me),” and the perennial favorite “Hark The Hell Has Just Begun,” this tongue firmly planted in cheek collection of eight parodies and two original new Christmas songs is just what the divorce lawyer ordered.

Robinson, who co-wrote all of the songs with Reid and Pfrimmer, as well as co-produced the humorous offering with Reid and Fred Bogert, offers an explanation: “sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.” Robinson noted the concept for this CD began back in 2002, when he was going through a divorce.

“Don, Mike and I have had a regular couples dinner during the Christmas holiday for 25 years,” Robinson said. “In 2002 I was going through a divorce, so I was the third wheel that year. We started talking about how much it sucked to be going through a divorce at all, but especially around Christmas time. Even though it was the absolute best thing to do for my soon to be ex wife and I, it was still a really strange time. That’s when we started writing these humorous Christmas songs with a divorce theme – to lighten things up. All of the songs are happy and will make you smile—that was the goal.”

Reid continued the story. “Every year we’d add a new song or two to the collection, and people kept telling us ‘you’ve got to record these.’ So this year, we did.”

Pfrimmer credits his wife Gail with giving them the extra push needed. “She finally just said we had to stop talking about it and get it done. We had so much fun recording this album and we hope that comes across to those listening to the songs. Divorce is a really painful time in someone’s life, especially during the holidays. Our goal is to hopefully make you smile and get your mind off of the pain.”

The 10 songs in the collection defy genre classification and offer equal opportunity perspectives, thanks to The Irreconcilables (Joanna Cotton. Perry Danos, Fred Knobloch, Paige Bainbridge and Oscar Franks). According to Robinson, they wanted to bring in singers who had a certain element of humor in their voices, and who could capture that feeling of sarcasm needed.

“All of these vocalists are fantastic,” Robinson said. “They really captured the essence of these songs. Fred even sounds like Burl Ives, and you can’t get more Christmas than that.”



About Don Pfrimmer, Mike Reid and Will Robinson

Pfrimmer, Reid and Robinson (not to be confused with divorce lawyers) are three of the most successful songwriters in music. They have been writing hit songs for more than 28 years, and collectively have penned 47 #1’s and 56 Top 10 records. Their songs have been cut by artists in almost every genre of music, including Prince, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Reba, the Cheetah Girls, Aaron Neville, Kenny Loggins, Bette Midler, Etta James, Joe Cocker, Tim McGraw, Marc Broussard, Erma Thomas, Allen Toussaint, the Subdudes, Ronnie Millsap, Kenny Rogers and dozens more.