The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Pair spread Christmas cheer with festive single
What do you get when you take a boy from Kirriemuir, another from Broughty Ferry and add a generous helping of musical theatre?
Well, in the case of Daniel and Thomas Schlordt it’s a marriage made in heaven and a sparkly new Christmas song. They tell The Courier their tale so far...
Q
Tell us about yourselves and your musical roots? A Thomas: I’m from Broughty Ferry and spent the majority of my teenage years performing in musical productions across Dundee before going to college to study musical theatre. When I was in P2, I had one line in the school nativity and I told my mum afterwards that I liked standing on stage while the audience clapped: so I assume that might be where my love of performing started!
A Daniel: I spent most of my youth in Kirriemuir where my love of the theatre all began. I would take part in the Kirrie Panto every year before venturing out into Perth and Dundee theatres to perform in various local musical productions. I always knew I wanted to be on the stage because I’d watch my mum sing and perform, wishing I could do the same.
Q Where and when did you meet and how have you supported each other in your careers so far? A Thomas: We met in college in 2010 when we both went to study musical theatre. But the universe had been willing us together for many years prior.
A Daniel: When we were much younger, we were both in a production of Oliver. Thomas was Oliver and I was the Artful Dodger, and that should have been our first meeting; however, we were in rival productions in the same week! The drama.
Thomas: The drama, mama, indeed! We were then on the same flight to Turkey a few years later which we discovered because we have the same time and date stamp on our passports, but Daniel was with his family and I was with mine. We couldn’t believe how many times we had come so close to meeting.
Daniel: But we did, and there was an instant chemistry. Thomas: And I was mesmerised by Daniel’s exuberant personality! We became best friends so quickly that after a year we moved in together and got so close that we swiftly became a couple.
Q Tell us a bit about your lockdown experience – how did you manage to stay sane and keep your spirits up? A Daniel: March 20 2020 is a very memorable day for us both. We knew the world was about to go into a lockdown, we had lost nearly all of our creative work and we had no idea what was about to happen so naturally, we had several (many!) rums.
A Thomas: Daniel and I sing together in the house all the time. Random songs, sometimes full blown performances to our audience of one beagle and plethora of houseplants, sometimes harmonising from different rooms so when we were merry that night, we decided to film our singing.
Daniel: We sang Hakuna Matata and we personally found ourselves hilarious so decided to post our unrehearsed, unedited first take for our friends on social media.
Thomas: We received such a lovely reaction that we decided to do a day two, and so on and so forth.
Daniel: We did themed weeks, musical weeks, we even did a live unrehearsed song once having taken a suggestion from our live gig audience!
Thomas: We’d genuinely never rehearse it and we’d always only ever do one take. We just wanted to spread a bit of joy during a time when people needed it the most. We ended up doing a video every day for a year. With the support of the Facebook group Rock The Lockdown we had millions of views for our videos and even had Kylie Minogue comment on how we’d ‘smashed it’.
Q
Where did the idea for your Christmas single come from?
A Thomas: After our year of songs finished, we needed to have another creative outlet and Daniel had always written poems and stories, so writing music was the next step. I dusted off my guitar and we started.
A Daniel: The warmth of love and support we received from so many lovely people online from our videos really inspired us to start writing music. I live for Christmas. It is my favourite time of year. I get the decorations up a little earlier every year and I count down the days until I can have my first gingerbread latte, so writing a Christmas song has always been a dream of mine.
Q What are your own favourite things about Christmas?
A Daniel: Well we’ve written a song about what we love about Christmas! My favourite things are the Christmas markets, mulled wine with rum, pantomime, watching Nigella Lawson and just spending time with family. We have a tradition of going to the markets and buying a new Christmas decoration every year…and having as many free samples as possible! I love those rubbish Hallmark Christmas movies, having The Grinch on repeat, fir-scented candles and how everything is just happier around the season.
A Thomas: I love the nippy weather and how it’s all nice and cosy inside, I also love the Christmas markets and mulled wine with rum and just spending time with our families. We are so lucky that both our parents live in Angus, so we tend to have mine and Daniel’s parents together for Christmas which is just magical.
Q How has Christmas with the Schlordts been received so far?
A Thomas: We’ve had so many people say they’ve added it to their Christmas playlists which is lovely. We also hit number 4 on the itunes singer/songwriter chart and almost cracked the overall top 100 which is surreal and exciting!
A Daniel: Yeah, we’ve had such sweet comments overall. Loads of people commenting on parts of the song that relate to them and their traditions! I think the main challenge is to get Alexa to understand what Schlordt is! It’s our surname, for anyone wondering…one of the rarest surnames in the world. I do believe I am the only Daniel Schlordt in existence!
■ Follow on Tiktok or Youtube @Theschlordts and look for new music in 2022!