Katharine McPhee & David Foster Talk ‘Christmas Songs’ & Recording Together for First Time Since ‘Idol’ Days

‘Tis the season for a new set of holiday-ready tracks from Katharine McPhee and David Foster. The married pair released seven new tracks for Christmas Songs in October in anticipation of the holiday season, and they spoke about their inspirations in the latest episode of Billboard News.

“It’s not really a second album; the way we look at it is that it’s one complete album,” McPhee shared. “Most albums have about, what, 13 tracks on it? So now we’ve just combined the two, last year [and this year], so it’s like one big album, and now you can get the whole thing in a bundle.”

Christmas Songs notably marks McPhee and Foster’s first new material together in almost two decades, and it was inspired in part by the extra time they had together during the pandemic as a way to kill time.

“We toured together a lot, but 18 years ago was when I produced her very first single off the Idol show, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which became, in all modesty, kind of a career jump for you,” he lightly teased his wife.

“It’s a song that has followed me wherever I go, but I did originally sing it on American Idol, so let’s just remember that it was based off of that version, but not just what David Foster wanted … I do that song a lot, but [Christmas Songs] was the first and few times we were in the recording studio together until we were actually each other’s ball and chain,” McPhee added.

The now-completed Christmas Songs includes holiday classics “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “Amazing Grace,” “My Grown Up Christmas List” and more.

Watch McPhee and Foster’s full interview with Billboard News in the video above.