Editor's note: Sheng Peng is a regular contributor to NBC Sports California’s Sharks coverage. You can read more of his coverage on San Jose Hockey Now, listen to him on the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast, and follow him on Twitter at @Sheng_Peng.
This was the perfect time for the Sharks to bring back a holiday rap music video, as it’s the 10th anniversary of San Jose's original viral song “Holiday Sweater."
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The vibes around the franchise, with 2024 No. 1 draft pick Macklin Celebrini leading the way, are the highest they've been since the last time the Sharks made the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2019.
So on Wednesday, the Sharks dropped “Holiday Inflatables," featuring Mario Ferraro, Cody Ceci, Mackenzie Blackwood, Fabian Zetterlund, William Eklund, Jack Thompson, Nico Sturm and Randy Hahn.
Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith and SJ Sharkie had prominent non-rapping roles.
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Sharks director of content and entertainment Dustin Lamendola, Hahn and the Sharks players gave a behind the scenes of “Holiday Inflatables."
Starts At The Top
Randy Hahn, on Sharks president Jonathan Becher’s role in the making of “Holiday Inflatables”: He was really bullish on them doing this again. If Becher didn't want it to happen, he would just say, "No, we're not going to do that again. We already did that, and we're not going to resurrect it," but he was like, "Yeah, let's do this again."
Dustin Lamendola: Jonathan is definitely a fan of the fun stuff we like to do with our SJ Sharks Productions group. He's always a proponent of showing the players off the ice, because that's part of the brand that we have here in San Jose. It's part of — I don't know if it's exactly what our GMs have always been drafting, but it is part of, I think what people come to expect from the San Jose Sharks team — a good group of guys on the ice, but really excellent guys who are down to have some fun.
Hahn: [Becher] became a fan in '94 when we made the playoffs for the first time. He's a huge fan of the team. He was totally behind us and embraced it from the beginning. That's kind of cool when you have the president of the team who's excited about it.
Getting The Band Back Together
Lamendola: We've always thought about going back to it. Every year, actually, when we release a holiday video, the fans always — there's at least many comments, and they're saying, "When's the next rap video?"
We've started and stopped on the project a couple of times.
Hahn: The key was bringing back the original collaborator, Robert Kilburg, who is the guy who conceived the first one, and worked on that — and worked on a number of projects for the Sharks. He's an advertising and creative marketing guy. I think they went their separate ways a number of years ago, and then when they decided to bring back the anniversary, they brought Kilburg back into the equation. He's sort of the mastermind behind the original, but then Dustin became hugely involved with this project, so they're kind of co-collaborators on this year's.
Lamendola: What I wanted to do is — I kind of based the "Holiday Sweater" off of maybe an 80s-type rap background track kind of feel. This year, I thought, "Well, if it's going to be 10 years later that we're making this, let's go 10 years later in the genre of music as well." I set out to design a beat that was more of a Dr. Dre 90s-type beat. We had that made with a partner of ours out of New York that has done some open video concepts for us and stuff like that.
We got the track made, and then I called Bob. Bob Kilburg helped me write "Holiday Sweater" 10 years ago, so I had to bring the band back together, I would say. I called Bob, and said, "Listen, I got a track. I think it's going to be great. Let's start designing some lyrics, and let's try to think."
The inspiration song was kind of "California Love," probably because it had the word California in it. But it also was a Dre song that had a really good vibe, but it didn't have overly quick lyrics because obviously, these guys aren't professional rappers.
Hahn: Kilburg is a Christmas fanatic.
Why Inflatables?
Lamendola: I think it was me? To be honest, we all work so close together, it's hard to say. We had talked about how sweaters were not the thing anymore, right? When we wrote that song, that really was the time period where everyone was having ugly holiday sweater parties, and those parties have fallen off. Then we started thinking about new holiday traditions. You know, what's happened in the last 10 years? What really solidified the inflatable for me was that it's pretty California as well.
The Lyrics
Lamendola: We wrote them together, but, I mean, Bob is a genius jokester. The thing about Bob is he writes great dad jokes. That's always our joke about these lyrics, right? They're kind of dad jokey and fun. Bob is a wizard.
Asking The Players
Lamendola: Once we had [the lyrics], we performed a scratch track — we made a demo, basically, of the song, Bob and I, and we brought in Will Mitchell, who was the audio engineer on this. He was also the audio engineer 10 years ago, so it was great to bring him back in. That group of the three of us are the only three who did it 10 years ago, so we pretty much copied our process. We made the track, wrote the lyrics internally, and then gave it to my production team, gave it [chief marketing officer Doug Bentz], gave it to Jonathan Becher, we picked the lines we thought were the best, and then worked with our PR staff really closely to figure out who's available.
Nico Sturm: [Sharks media relations manager Kyle Stuezel] asked me maybe a month prior? I'm usually a yes-sayer when it comes to our media team, because I like to make their lives a little easier. I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't know the original video, so I saw that prior to when we did it, and I thought, "Oh, what have I done, what have I gotten myself into?"
Cody Ceci: They just asked a bunch of us to do it one day and we all kind of agreed, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into.
We were just walking out one day, they asked if you want to be part of the holiday Christmas video, and we're just like, "Yeah, sure." Then they sent us the old video afterwards, and we're like, "Uh oh, what did we get ourselves into?"
Lamendola: This group of guys were so much fun to work, they really were. I was making scheduling plans with everybody while they are on the road trip.
It's hard to judge when people are on the road how excited they are about what they're doing next week, but when they got back and they got there that day, the enthusiasm once they heard the song and stuff was just really fun.
The Day Of Recording
Lamendola: I'm sure one question the fans have is, "Why are some guys in it, why aren't some guys in it?"
The truth of that is it just comes down to schedule. We ended up filming this on Nov. 4. If you look at the calendar, that was the one day that SAP Center was available for a month, and it was the one day the players were available for a month. It was a very, very tight window we had to film in. It literally came down to some guys just not being able to make the date, and they had just come off a long road trip.
It was smashed in between a really busy November and December for the team and also for the production team — we were in the middle of making all the Joe Thornton documentaries at the time, but we were able to stop that production for a day and set up for this. We filmed it all in an hour and 30 minutes. It seems like you would have more, but we did seven sets and six rappers in about an hour and 30 minutes.
The whole SJ Sharks Production team, we're all there ready to rock — we have three cameras rolling on it, and all the props and all the setups.
A lot of it was ad libbed. For the most part, there wasn't a lot of action given to them. They knew they were in a rap video, and we worked with them. A lot of what you see is them ad libbing and having fun on their own. When you get a group of these guys together, the great thing is they just start feeding off each other's giggles, and one guy does something funny, then the next guy ups them and does something even funnier.
Ceci: It ended up being a lot of fun filming it.
We’re giving you a backstage pass to see the making of Holiday Inflatables. 🎥⛄️ pic.twitter.com/i7JoXu65cZ
— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) December 13, 2024
Mario Ferraro
Hahn: My favorite part of the video is — it's always going to be the players, right, because you get to see them with their guard down.
Ferraro: It came out really good. It was fun.
Cody Ceci
Hahn: Cody Ceci, I mean, who knew right? A button-down, quiet guy. If I'm Drake, I'm in contact with him now to work on future projects.
Mackenzie Blackwood
Lamendola, on Blackwood getting traded a la Jason Demers before the video release 10 years ago: It really was funny, and it was the exact same conversation. It was me going to Hockey Ops, and saying, "Hey guys, we got a video made, and are we okay to run with this guy?" Of course, they were fine with it. It's very silly how that lined up, and we literally had to do the special appearance again.
The holiday sweater curse strikes again 🤣🤣 Blackwood noooooo!! #alllove https://t.co/vgh6pm1tso
— jason demers (@jasondemers5) December 11, 2024
Lamendola: One thing we could not stop saying in our house was Blackwood's line of "Get lovey dovey with the mistletoe."
Fabian Zetterlund
Sturm: I also love how Zetts' voice sounded like he just inhaled helium before the recording.
Zetterlund: Kind of. (laughs) I’m going to work on it.
Celebrini: [He sounded like] Justin Bieber.
Lamendola: High-pitched rap is what we would call it. You'll see it in the making of, that's just what he sounded like in the booth. That's the tonality he had.
Zetterlund: I don’t know [if that’s how I normally rap]. I haven’t rapped before
When you rap, especially in English, you feel like you want to get into it. All the boys were sitting outside and hearing everything, so it was just funny thing to do.
Eklund: Zetts was good, but you couldn’t hear what he said though.
Lamendola: In hip hop, that's exactly what those different tonalities of voices — like, you know, Beastie Boys or something— I think that's what really helps the song. You see him rapping, and if you just listen to this song on iTunes, you can hear his smile through his lyrics. He's just having a blast, you know? I think that's why his voice ended up being a little high; he's laughing while he's doing it, having a good time.
Hahn: You see funny things like the Swedes — and especially Zetterlund. I mean, it's awesome. This is something that will always become part of Sharks lore.
William Eklund
Eklund, on if he tried to deepen his voice for his part: I don't know if I did. When you're not used to something, you just try to do extra. So that's what I tried to do
Lamendola: We've absolutely joked about that. I think he was matching the tone of a rap song in that beat, so it was maybe a little bit. If you strip away Zetterlund's line before him, he does not sound as deep. I think it's just the contrast between the two voices.
Henry Thrun: The Swedes were pretty funny.
Jack Thompson
Sturm, on his favorite line in the song: "Playa’s undateable, that's why he bought himself an inflatable." I don't know if the video is considered PG.
Lamendola: Bob wrote that line with a very question mark to me whether we could pull it off. We did rearrange it — what we wanted to do is we wanted to make sure — it’s in the video, our man Sharkie runs around the building pranking us all year long, poking fun at all of us in good spirits. It was our chance to poke fun at Mr. Sharkie by writing that line for him. That's why he's in the video portion of that shot.
Nico Sturm
Lamendola: I can tell you that I love every single one of the performances, and I want them all to know that.
[But] when Sturm showed up, he immediately already had the actions, and he had already memorized his lines, so he is the winner. He came so prepared. I sent an email to all the players, and they had a voice track of what they were going to rap, and they had the lyrics written out. I swear he must have practiced, because he came in and he was locked in.
Hahn: You see stuff that surprises you, like how good Nico Sturm was. Not just from his actual rapping, which was awesome, but even just his movements and the buy-in.
Sturm: Not surprised. What can I say? I'm a man of many virtues, and now I know what I'm going to do when I'm done playing hockey.
Lamendola: He was just like — the first take is usually a rehearsal. Part of his first take’s in the video, he just came at it so fast.
Sturm: My connection to music is I used to play the piano when I was younger maybe, like 6-7 years, I would say? My older brother played the guitar, my younger brother played the drums. Our parents wanted us to learn an instrument. I think it's good for children, good for brain development.
I think my older brother has always been a big music guy, he's been in a band his whole life, playing the guitar. They make music, they produce music.
I wonder if he's seen it; I wonder what he thinks of it. I haven't talked to my family yet since the video came out. Maybe I'm shunned now.
Randy Hahn
Lamendola: Randy Hahn — it goes without saying, he makes the video for me. He was such a good sport about it and had fun.
Hahn: You get out there, they had some parts — like me coming through the Shark Head, that was choreographed. We shot probably 10 or 12 different takes of me walking through the Shark Head in a different way.
If you're Kilburg and Dustin, if you're going to have, maybe the person who starts it off — I'm the O-OG because I turned 66. Every time I walk into the dressing room or walk onto the plane, I'm by far the oldest guy around. I'm the oldest original gangster.
Lamendola: I've been asked, the players wore sweaters that were "Merry Sharksmas," I bought those. Randy brought his own sweater from his closet, that is a beauty. That one is a phenomenal, beautiful sweatshirt that Randy owns himself.
Hahn: Then I grabbed the cane and did the old man walk like John Scott did in the other one, trying to tie it into that old one and replicating what he did. No one told me to do that, I just thought of that one. Then riding the shark, that was my idea. Me punching the shark, I think that just came out of goofing around. All of those things just become spontaneous.
They say the magic is in post-production, and it really is, because that's where all the decisions are made. I did two hours worth of stuff, and if you add up all the seconds I'm in it, I'm probably in it for 30 seconds.
Ferraro: When they sing, "Inflatables, inflatablesssss," that’s my favorite part.
Hahn: I did the singing of the entire chorus, which you probably can't even tell, it's been altered with autotune.
Macklin Celebrini & Will Smith
Smith: We weren't supposed to be in it until a week ago. We actually filmed that in Florida.
Celebrini: We both had something the day that they were filming it [in November].
Smith, on if he would’ve rapped, if asked: I don't know.
Smith, on rumor that Celebrini would’ve rapped if asked: That's questionable.
Where Was … ?
Lamendola: [Drew Remenda and Dan Rusanowsky] — it was unfortunate scheduling. The fourth wasn't a day that they could make work.
Yes, absolutely, [Barclay Goodrow] wanted to be in it. We had been talking about him being the only one who had the opportunity to return, and that would have been a cool ribbon to put on it. He had a scheduling conflict.
A New Holiday Classic?
Ceci: We were nervous when it was about to come out.
Jake Walman, at the practice after the Sharks-Carolina Hurricanes game: [Ryan Warsofsky] said he had a very important video this morning. And he showed that.
Warsofsky: Great video. (laughs)
Mikael Granlund: I’m happy … I wasn’t a part of it.
Ceci: Now I'm getting a lot of texts about it, that's for sure.
Guys that I played with in the league. I guess there's a little clip of just my part, and they're sending me that. They just thought it was funny. I haven't even talked to [my family] about it.
Hahn: There's a little bit of something for everybody in there. Believe me, it will endure.
Jumbo and Patty weren't in the original. Now they're in this one, so it's perfect. They made it in, and I love that Macklin and Will are in it. They're in that one cutaway shot where they're in their sweaters and just kind of looking on from the side, but that's kind of the way it should be. They're the new kids, you know?
It's supposed to be more of an OG kind of feel, so it should be more of the veteran guys, but you sprinkle in the young guys the way they did. To me, it's perfect.
Kilburg and Dustin, they nailed it again. It's not the first one, but for me, it's just as good. I don't know that they topped it, but they certainly equaled it. It's a great thing to be able to look back on in 10 more years.
Special thanks to Maddie Dutra for her help transcribing.
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