Gary Hoey ‘Hark! The Ho Ho Hoey Hits!’ Released On Vinyl!
After almost 30 years since the first ‘Ho Ho Hoey’ album in its trilogy, comes a brand new greatest hits compilation, ‘Hark! The Ho Ho Hoey Hits!’ Available November 24th for the first time on vinyl for RSD Black Friday! Click HERE to learn more.
“Wow, my holiday arrangements have been around for almost 30 years!
Ho! Ho! Hoey! was recorded in my bedroom on an 8-track recorder and I was the first one to create an album of all rock instrumental songs with new original arrangements. It became one of my most successful albums.
My love for Christmas music came from my mom, so when Dave my manager said, “Let’s make a cool rock and roll Christmas album to send to radio friends,” I was the man for the job. I had already always signed my Christmas cards “Ho Ho Hoey,” so it was destiny.
The first song I recorded was “Silent Night.” It was mellow and pretty, but I thought, “How can I really re-invent Christmas?” “The 12 Days of Christmas” was the 2nd song and it was an opus of intricate hard rock riffs to lure people in and then BANG… right into a Christmas melody — listeners were hooked.
If you do it from the heart, fans can hear it. Thanks, Dave, for pushing me to do something so special. I never dreamed I’d be the Mel Tormé of Metal!”
— Gary Hoey
“Gary was in a band called Heavy Bones in the early ‘90s and at a rehearsal they broke into an instrumental heavy metal version of “God Rest.” After rehearsal, I asked him where that idea came from, and Gary told me he arranged it. In that moment I thought to myself, ‘This is amazing!’ and I never forgot it.
Years later I said, “Gary, your next solo album should be a Christmas record, call it ‘Ho Ho Hoey’.” There had been plenty of Christmas records released, but not nearly as many as nowadays, and the fact that they would be rockin’ instrumental covers was totally unique.
Because Gary was always way ahead of the planet when it came to technology, especially home recording, he recorded the whole album in his bedroom. That doesn’t sound like much now, but 30 years ago before modern computers, cell phones and file trading, it was insane to do. But he did, and it turned out way beyond our expectations.
My original idea for the record was to give it to radio programmers who had been good to us throughout Gary’s solo career. It was intended to be sent as a Thank You to stations to keep them excited about Gary’s solo stuff, but I heard it and thought ‘Wow, this is so good we have to put it out!’.
We released it mostly on cassettes, and we literally could not keep up with demand, that’s the truth. We couldn’t make enough; it did incredibly well. After that, we went around to radio stations for Christmas, and Gary played songs from the record. Gary figured out how to use a little DAT machine and play live on-air, so you could tune into the radio and hear Gary playing the album tracks with totally live guitar. Today, that’s nothing special, but at the time no one had done this. Everyone said, “Oh you’ve got your band in a box,” and Gary would joke, “Yep, they’re never late!” To this day, Gary is an unbelievable live performer, melodic, fast, creative… the whole package.
Gary cemented himself at the holiday times as ‘Ho Ho Hoey,’ which blossomed into more gigs, and more Christmas covers, the rest is history. It still totally rocks almost 30 years later!”
— Dave Kaplan, Manager & Executive Producer