‘Corner Gas’ star releases Holiday single

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — You likely remember him from “Corner Gas” or various “Just for Laughs” specials, but Vancouver-based comedian Brent Butt is trying his hand at something new.

Butt is teaming up with fellow B.C. boy, and long-time collaborator Craig Northey of the band, “The Odds,” to put together his first single, with a holiday theme to it.

Northey did much of the music for the original series of Corner Gas, including the theme song.

Butt says, The song, called, “Everyone Can Sing at Christmas”, kind of came together at the last minute.

“My partner on Corner Gas, Virginia Thompson, said you and Craig should do a Christmas album, and release it for Christmas this year, and I said, it’s late October, do you have any idea what’s involved in putting an album together? That could never happen”, he chuckles. “But, I do have an idea for a Christmas song.”


Butt says he loves to sing, but isn’t very good at it, which was the inspiration for this song.

“I do a lot of things I’m no good at,” says Butt. “Don’t limit what you do to things you’re good at, otherwise you’re going to miss out on a lot of stuff.”

He jokes that the song definitely has Corner Gas-style humor to it.

“I think this is probably the only Christmas song in history that has the phrase, ‘Swift and brutal Yuletime beating’ in it,” he says.

The single is distributed by Universal Music and Hidden Pony Records, and is available on all digital service platforms worldwide.

As for his acting resume, Butt is currently appearing in the series, “Corner Gas Animated”, which just entered it’s third season.

He says he’s looking forward to the release of the show’s first Holiday special, due out on Monday, Dec. 14.

“It’s kind of tricky to write a Christmas episode for our show, because Christmas episodes are supposed to have a certain kind of warmth and sentiment to them, but Dog River is a town where people aren’t that nice to each other,” says Butt. “So, it was tricky to find that balance, but once we did, it landed really well, and I’m really happy with how the episode came together.”

While Butt has been keeping busy during this pandemic with the animated show and the holiday song, he also found some time to hone his writing skills, writing his first novel.

“I’ve always wanted to write a novel, and I thought, Man, if I can’t write a novel during a pandemic, when we’re essentially all shut in, when would I do it?”, he says.

“The backdrop of it is stand-up comedy, but it’s actually kind of a dark thriller, so I wrote this novel and put this out in the world, and we’ll see if that gets published or not.”

Brent Butt as Brent Leroy (Photo by Steve Wilkie)

Butt rose to prominence in 2004, when the original “Corner Gas” series debuted in Canada, running for six seasons and establishing itsself as one of the biggest shows in this country’s history.

Despite the success, Butt wasn’t sure if the show would succeed, at first.

“I never thought this was going to go beyond one season,” says Butt. “I mean, I didn’t fully understand why they agreed to make the show, I thought there was some kind of mistake. I was like, okay, I’ve pitched the show, surely nobody is going to be interested, and then the network was interested and they decided to buy 13 episodes.”

He says even after selling the show, he wasn’t convinced.

“I said we’ll make the episodes, it will be a fun way to spend the summer, but sure to God nobody is going to watch a show about a gas station in Saskatchewan. Instead of that happening, it was the first time in history that the number one comedy in Canada was actually from Canada,” says Butt.

“We never had less than a million viewers, and here were are 16 years later and still writing scripts for the people in Dog River.”

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