It's Christmas! A Christmas Round Table, featuring the Class of 2020!

As one year ends and the next twinkles ahead on the horizon, we welcome in the Class of 2020: the bands and artists most likely to do all manner of exciting things over the coming 12 months. You can read all about it in the current issue of DIY (or on this very website), but there’s more to our favourite new hopefuls than just great songs and a knack for a cracking live show. Bands are for life, but sometimes they’re also for Christmas, so we nabbed three of them – Do Nothing, Talk Show and Walt Disco – plopped them in front of the tree and got them to tell us their favourite festive tales. Merry Christmas!

Have any of you got any treasured gifts from your bandmates?
George, Talk Show: We’ve only done birthdays together. There was that one year you [Chloe] bought me that sippy cup.
Chloe, Talk Show: It’s got dinosaurs on it.
George: It’s pretty cool.
Dave, Walt Disco: It helps you drink your Fruit Shoots.
George: It stops me drinking too fast.
Finlay, Walt Disco: I got a Cliff Richard advent calendar. No not advent calendar, a 2019 calendar – there weren’t just loads of tiny Cliff Richard chocolates…
Chloe: You should fill it with mistletoe and wine.

What’s your favourite ever festive pressie?
Kasper, Do Nothing: I got a blue Ibanez [guitar] when I was 12 and I still have it to this day.
Finlay: I got a sick Lego dinosaur.
James, Walt Disco: My Dad would always buy me a CD because I was the one out of me and my brothers who liked music. I got a Slade CD, Queen and the air guitar three-disc compilation.
Kaspar: I love that one!
Tom, Talk Show: I’ve got that one, it’s why I like the music I like. Hugely influential on me.
Chloe: I always wanted one of those spinning top things with the cords that you pull.
Walt Disco [in unison]: Beyblades!
Dave: We were talking about them the other day.
Chloe: They had one in a pass the parcel and I lost it by one person. That was such a sad day.

Big question: best Christmas song?
Harrison, Talk Show: Jona Lewie – ‘Stop the Cavalry’
Kasper: The Darkness
George: Now we’re into the real answers.
Andy: The audacity of having a song called ‘Don’t Let The Bells End’ and it being completely mainstream but clearly being a penis thing… They just don’t care. The hugest Christmas song of all time!
Chloe [to Walt Disco]: I think you guys should write a Christmas song.
Harrison: I’d like slowthai to do one – a really aggressive Christmas song.
Tom: Get Death Grips to do one.
Kaspar: Throbbing Gristle?

Christmas eve: to booze or not to booze?
Dave: I always go to the pub in my village but it’s not a nice pub. Someone got bottled last year, but then we went to a different pub and got a pakora so that was nice.
Finlay: Two Christmases ago I brought in Christmas Day in a pool of my own sick… I do like a good piss up.
George: If Christmas Day is enjoyable then you’ve failed.
Finlay: You never forget the first Christmas when you don’t wanna get up and open your presents.
Kasper: My parents are Danish so we celebrate on Christmas Eve. I’ve never had a proper Christmas Day.
Tom: What do you do on Christmas Day then?
Kasper: It’s like Boxing Day.
Dave: So what do you do on Boxing Day?
Kasper: Fuck all. We just do everything one day early. New Year… Spring is always a confusing time…

Who would you nominate to make an alternative Queen’s Speech?
Harrison: Stephen Fry
Chloe: David Attenborough
Andy: He’ll make us all feel nice and guilty. Get Greta in!
Finlay: Oh yeah, she’ll ruin Christmas.

Any new year’s resolutions being made in the group?
Harrison: It’s boring but I wanna quit smoking.
Chloe: That is boring.
Dave: Why don’t you just start smoking more? Make a resolution to INCREASE.
George: You’ve got to commit. It’s like a double negative but the other way around…
Harrison: What?! Mate, are you alright?
Dave: That was the most head fuck sentence.

And finally, what are your hopes and dreams for 2020?
Kaspar [to Do Nothing’s Chris]: You want a kitchen island…
Chris: That’s the answer to a different question. See, you’ll know if you’re incredibly rich when you’ve got a kitchen island.
James: I want a nice Le Creuset pot.
Finlay: I just want someone to fix my life.