Athens Legends Five Eight Mark More Than 35 Years With Holiday Lament, “Christmas Without You,” Featuring James Hall

Driving around one night in Atlanta, Five Eight’s Mike Mantione started thinking about a Christmas he spent alone and not being able to spend it with loved ones. “It’s like 10,000 times worse cause you think everybody else is having some f–king great Christmas,” says Mantione, who heard the horn-laced melody in his head, then played it on guitar once he returned home from his drive, before sending it to longtime friend and Atlanta musician James Hall.

“Mike [Mantione] sent me a melody that he was hearing as a horn line, with ‘This is how it feels at Christmastime without you,’” recalls Hall on working with the Athens, Georgia rockers.

Hall says the verse was “a chorus lyric that seemed to work as a blues lament,” adding, “The verse also had a bit of self-destruction to it. And being no stranger to (maladaptive) coping techniques myself, I asked if I could match the line with ’This is how I deal, if Christmas is without you.’ He was game, and before long, we had a deliciously catchy song about holiday loneliness.” 

Unfortunately, Mantione’s imagined horn part never made the track, but “Christmas Without You” still delivers a soulful lament on loss and grief—This empty feeling is my best of friend / And keeps me company when I cry for you.

“We never did get the horn in, but I think the magic happens nevertheless,” says Mantione. “He [Hall] had his vision in the phrasing, and I thought we were gonna trade over first, but when I heard him singing, I was like ‘This is his song.’ He got to the heart of the matter, and he wrote that last verse, and it just struts with that blues feel.”

“Christmas Without You” comes as Five Eight marks 36 years since the band’s debut Passive-Aggressive (1989) and follows their 2025 singles “I’m Alone” and “Take Me to the Skatepark,” their first since releasing their 2017 album, Songs For St. Jude.

In 2020, the band was also the subject of the documentary, Weirdo: The Story of Five Eight, directed by Marc Pilvinsky.

Five Eight and Hall, along with his band The Ladies Of…, will perform “Christmas Without You” live at Smith’s Olde Bar in Atlanta on December 12.

Photo: Courtesy of Five Eight