Chatterbox, when the stars talk, they talk to
Nick and Sue. Welcome back to the Chatterbox
Redux podcast. My name's Nick and I'm your host
and today my guest is Xander James Le Petit of
the Rock Choir. Nick and Sue with Chatterbox
giving you all you need to know about musical
entertainment. Oh yeah! Chatterbox, the best
interviews with Nick and Sue. Chatterbox, the
best news And now on Chatterbox UK, we're just
lucky enough to welcome back Sandra James Le
Petit of the Rock Choir. Sandra James, welcome
back. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you.
Thank you very much for having me. That's great.
Great to have a catch up. It's a great thing
that you guys do. Now we've got a bit to talk
about, really, since we last spoke. Obviously,
it's the festive season. And before we go too
far, the last release that we chatted about Well,
we had the Coldplay cover and we put that in
our hit -and -miss show on a Sunday and it was
voted a smash hit by our listeners So they absolutely
walked it. They loved it. So hopefully we can
have the same with with the new release okay,
so we're in the festive season and It's I see
here. It's the 20th anniversary of the rock choir
this year Yes, yeah, we're just coming up to
our 20 years. Yeah, we've got some some exciting
secret plans Coming up very soon Okay, but they're
gonna remain a secret for now. Yeah We're doing
this interview recording it on the 6th of December
and That's the release day of It now explains
me is it two singles or is it like a double A
side or how's this one working? Yeah it's a it's
a double A side in in the olden days yeah but
it's these days it's just a double release of
our two singles yeah so yeah we got hallelujah
hallelujah and we've got uh uh what Christmas
means to me which uh sounds right with no uh
via Stevie Wonder yeah yeah Okay, why did you
choose those for the 20th anniversary? The first
one, hallelujah, we wanted really to start getting
more and more of our members involved in our
single releases. And Caroline Redmond -Lutcher,
who is the creator, founder of Rock Quire, she's
just been on a massive tour around the whole
country trying to visit as many Rock Quire members
as possible. And while she was doing that and
gathering together thousands of members at a
time, she thought, well, why not record these
members live in the room? and add them onto our
single release. So the Hallelujah track has got
Caroline's solo over the top, but it is backed
by 6 ,000 rock choir members. And it's just a
real favourite of a lot of the members across
the country. So that's why we chose that one.
And then our second song is What Christmas Means
to Me by Stevie Wonder. And this one we are releasing
to raise money and an awareness of cash for kids
and their mission Christmas. And what they do
is they collect together gifts and cash and create
experiences for children at Christmas time that
wouldn't normally have it. So the title of the
song and the lyrics in the song about what Christmas
means to someone. That's why it's really important
for us to to have that message coming across
while we work with a really good charity. Absolutely,
absolutely. You always do choose a good charity.
I think it was, was it Mindglass Time? Mental
Health Foundation we were working for with Fix
You, yeah. We'll make sure that it just runs
smoothly so we just say the right one, except
for me asking. No, that's great, I remember that
very well. Okay, now, Are we going for some sort
of record with the 6 ,000 people all singing
on it? Is that the record for you guys now? I
don't think it's a record, but I think that's
what we're aiming towards. We're getting bigger
and bigger recordings and we're aiming to hopefully
very soon break the record of the largest recorded
choir with a single, yeah. I know you're going
to do it. You know you're going to do it. We
hope so, hope so. Definitely will. okay so on
the same day the singles are released so the
day we're actually chatting today to interview
tickets go on sale for the rock choir's biggest
ever arena headline show at the BP pulse arena
on November 29th 2025 and if you're over a certain
age that's the NEC yeah so We can't actually
talk about that yet because there's been a delay
on the contract being signed so the members don't
know about that yet and we're not making that
announcement just yet. Sorry. Don't worry, that's
going to get quite exciting. It is really exciting.
That's our secret plans that are coming up very,
really shortly. But yeah, we can't actually announce
anything yet until our contracts are signed with
the NEC. Well, I think at some point in the new
year you could come back for another 10 or 15
minutes and then tell us your good news and we'll
play. Yeah. I'm happy to do that. a few times
a year with you guys it's all good so yeah that's
it will not go out i promise thank you no problems
uh yeah we talked about caroline a bit so that's
great so now one thing we must mention about
caroline of course is her autobiography so it's
uh sing the story of the rock choir and it's
just become an instant bestseller so uh assuming
that is available in the bookshops and also for
you know the download reading thingy um i'm sure
this can make quite a few good presents for people
that enjoy you know music of such quality and
singing so yeah yeah yeah so this is a a real
honest account of from caroline so you know own
words she's the one who's written it um and she'll
tell you yourself that they'll tell it yourself
no god she'll tell you herself that she's not
a um an author by any means but she wanted to
be the person that writes this story of how rock
choir started 20 years ago with one choir in
one room and now here it is in 400 rooms across
the country with nearly 30 ,000 members so yeah
it's all the gossip all the backstage stuff you
know all of the nitty -gritty all the all the
successes and the supports and all the struggles
that Caroline's had from from creating rockwear
from its seed to what it is today. Yeah. This
is Nick and Sue with Chatterbox giving you all
you need to know about musical entertainment.
Chatterbox Chatterbox Chatterbox It takes two
to tangle and two to present a radio show. So
here's Nick and Sue. Your musical duo. And you're
always recruiting new members. Well, technically
that's not necessarily the right wording. New
people are welcome to join. And I remember having
the chat with yourself before and other people
who have represented the Rock Choir over recent
years that we've had interviews with. And of
course, it doesn't matter, listen to the listeners
really, it doesn't matter if you can't sing as
such. no come along make yourself known contact
the rock choir because there's always something
there for you where your voice will fit so that's
basically about right isn't it Absolutely, yeah.
One of our missions is to make music as accessible
as possible to as many people as possible. And
gathering together in a room and singing as a
choir, it gets you out of the house. It is so
good for your mental health. It gets you feeling
good. And whether that's singing, whether you
think your singing is great or not, that's not
the important part of it. But what you will find
is the more and more that you sing with other
people, the better and better you'll get. uh
-huh yeah absolutely absolutely um now i know
you've got a lot of plans over the next year
and i know some are a little bit secret still
but hopefully we can talk about them the next
time uh what you what you can say that's official
what can we expect from the rock choir as we
enter 2025 well say we have a chat at some point
between january and easter say what would you
be telling me of what what's already No, signed,
sealed and delivered and set in stone. Yes, we've
got. our big national things that are still happening.
We've got Edinburgh Fringe coming up next August
where we're taking even more choir members up
to perform every single night of the Edinburgh
Fringe in August. We are starting now to take
our members again to Abbey Road. So we used to
do an Abbey Road recording experience for our
members and that stopped when Covid all happened
and it's taken this long for us to get back around
to getting choir members back in there. So there's
quite a few sessions of recording with Rock Choir
members at Abbey Road Studios. And we're going
to start hitting some more festivals this year
as well. This is our plan for 2025 is we're trying
to get into more of those festivals. So keep
an eye out if you're a festival goer, because
we will hopefully be at all of them. Brilliant.
Fantastic. OK, now. Before we do the social media
bit, there's something we must, must mention
about these two songs and that's Hallelujah and
What Christmas Means to Me are officially listed
by the official officials here officially listed
by the official chart company and The the proper
chart here in the UK UK singles chart that radio
one plane is recognized by the Guinness Book
of hit singles blah blah blah they are recognizing
the songs and have listed them as Potential Christmas
number ones 2024 now when they've listed they've
been very serious. They really for a chance That's
great. They mean it. They mean it. Yeah. And
I really hope so. We've always battled for this
Christmas number one spot. And it's going to
happen one year. And hopefully, with two singles
in the running that's been listed by them as
contenders for that Christmas number one, maybe
we'll get double the chance this year. Yeah.
So that's amazing. Brilliant. I mean, yeah. You
couldn't pay for that sort of publicity. It is
great. And the mere fact that that's coming out
as press releases. by the official charts company
is only not only what's come out on your press
release obviously we hear from the official charts
company as well and uh yeah we've actually heard
it straight from them as well so yeah yeah yeah
so yeah you can get us a christmas number one
at the same time is changing lives of children
at christmas so it's a double whammy so get get
downloading our single as many fans as you can
as well and it's probably what 79p or something
it's not much is it for us something cheap anyway.
No, but every little helps and everything's going
towards Cash for Kids and their Mission Christmas
this year. Yeah, download the tenors worth at
least, every person that's listening, there you
go. Yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic. So, well...
i'm looking forward to the next time already
there's so much you've wet my appetite on stuff
that we can't talk about yet so we must get you
back must get you back you know as soon as we
can absolutely when we when we got that special
so early in 2025 i'd love to be having an update
with you about everything that's going to happen
in 2025 Yeah, it's always a joy to come and talk
to you, so the app will come back any time you
like. Thank you. Right, let's do the social media.
We've got a wonderful website which is www .rockchoir
.com and we click on that, which I'm doing. I
had done this already, so. Okay, you can book
a free, there's a little link there, you can
book a free taster. You can become a member.
but the most important thing I think initially
apart from the historical side of it and what
you achieve what you're aiming to achieve another
button find your local rock choir but also there
are links straight to the social media if we
go straight to the bottom in the old days I used
to ask people what's all your social and you
know try to remember it and reading it all but
it is all here there's a link to the Facebook
link to the X link to yeah um instagram and so
it goes on yeah and all the places where you
can download the single as well so it's an amazing
website and yeah when you're downloading that
single uh singles do take a good look at the
website as well it's fantastic it's got everything
you need explains all about the rock choir and
yeah Perfect. And I hope that a load of people
listening will become members by the time we
chat next time. And yeah, looking forward to
your releases next year and all your news next
year as well. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank
you for having us. And to James Le Petit, thank
you for coming back on to Chatterbox. And we
are looking forward to next time already. Thank
you. Merry Christmas. And to you. Thank you.
Bye bye now. Bye. You've been listening to the
Chatterbox Redux podcast with me Nick and today
our special guest was Xander James Le Petit of
the Rock Choir. Our email address is nickelbum
at myyahoo .com and our postal address is P .O.
Box 26, the old Observer Building, Telford Road,
St. Leonard's -on -Sea, East Sussex, England,
TN 38 9 LZ. Sue, myself Nick Twin called the
tuxedo cats would like to thank you very much
for your company And we look forward to welcome
you again next time for another chatterbox redux
podcast Until then take care. Bye. Bye This is
Nick and Sue with Chatterbox giving you all you
need to know about musical entertainment. Chatterbox,
the best interviews with Nick and Sue. Chatterbox,
the best news.