Broken BowThe cover of Runaway June‘s new holiday EP, When I Think About Christmas, gives the impression Jennifer Wayne, Naomi Cooke, and Natalie Stovall are standing in a snowy, tree-lined scene. 

But that’s actually far from the truth.

“Nothing like being in fur coats in a hundred degrees in a field in Tennessee,” Natalie laughs.

“It was fun though. Yeah, I mean it was hot!” Naomi agrees.

The “We Were Rich” hitmakers set out to forego traditional silver, gold, and green trappings, in favor of a more rustic look.

“We really wanted the visual side of the music to feel and look and capture the sound,” Naomi explains. “You know, there’s a lot of like Appalachian kind of mountain sounds in this music. There’s fiddle and banjo.”

“And we just wanted something a little different,” she continues. “Normally, like Christmas album covers have got a lot of red and it’s very glam.”

Though you could certainly argue the three women still look plenty glamorous, at one point, they worried they might be going a little too far with their “blue steel” and furs.

“We just really wanted to step outside of that box a little bit and bring more wintery elements,” Naomi reflects. “But it was funny because we had to kind of fight with that a little bit, because we were like, ‘Maybe this looks a little too a Game of Thrones.'”

“And then we were like making jokes about ‘Winter is coming,'” she adds, as the three laugh. “And we’re like, ‘Oh, okay, this is really fun. Let’s just do this.'” 

The five-song EP combines favorites like “Sleigh Ride,” “O Holy Night,” and “Let It Snow” with two new songs, “Christmas on the Radio” and the Jennifer-Wayne-penned title track. It’s available now. 

By Stephen Hubbard
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