Reverend & The Makers on their charity Christmas single: “The Samaritans helped me, so I should help them”

nme.com:

Reverend & The Makers‘ Jon McClure has told NME how the band’s new festive single ‘Late Night Phone Call’ is raising money for Samaritans because he has used the charity’s services himself.The single was written by McClure and his regular co-writer Danny Lafrome after they were listening to Elvis Presley’s later Las Vegas era, soon realising it would be suited to becoming a Christmas song.

Proceeds from the single go to the Samaritans, whose services of helping vulnerable people are particularly in demand over the festive period.“Broadly speaking, my career has been a U-shape.

It’s been coming out of the bottom of that U for a few years but, in the previous decade, I was at the bottom for part of it, career-wise and personally,” McClure told NME. “I was fucked, and I rang the Samaritans, who were a massive help.“The Samaritans save people’s lives 365 days a year, and they’re even more important this close to Christmas.

They’ve done stuff for me, and I wanted to do stuff for them. The Samaritans are what Christmas is really about, in the tradition going right back to pagan times, of trying to brighten up the middle of winter when it’s dark and shit.”The single isn’t the only help McClure will provide this Christmas.