Taylor Momsen Finally Goes Full Circle Getting Festive for the Holidays After Years of Requests

It’s been an unusually busy holiday season for The Pretty Reckless and their singer, Taylor Momsen. Their cover of Free’s “All Right Now” appeared on the tribute album honoring newly inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Bad Company. Then, on Halloween, they released the rare alternative‑rock Christmas EP Taylor Momsen’s Pretty Reckless Christmas. “It’s been a fun holiday season, doing a bunch of things that I never really thought I would do,” Momsen told Kerrang! in their December cover story. To promote the EP, she also performed “Where Are You Christmas?” on the Thanksgiving Parade TV special.

“I’m a New Yorker, and I grew up watching the Macy’s Day Parade every year, so getting to be a part of something that’s so classically Christmas and classically New York and so iconic was really, really fun,” she reflected. “I rode on a rocking horse, which I think is the oldest float, and then performed with dancers.”

Performing that particular song brought things full circle for Momsen. As a child actor, she originally sang “Where Are You Christmas?” in the 2000 film How the Grinch Stole Christmas. “I spent a lot of time being the Grinch, because of my past. Christmas became something that I’d kind of roll my eyes at. Holidays can be hard. Some are easier than others.”

For years, fans asked her to revisit or re‑record the song after she formed The Pretty Reckless as a teenager. Even though her first experience in a recording studio was tracking that very song—an experience that later helped her feel comfortable making music with the band—she wanted to move on from her childhood career, as many former child actors do. “It kind of set the course for the rest of my future, unbeknownst to me, in this very odd way.”

The Pretty Reckless have always leaned into blistering hard rock with a gritty rock‑and‑roll attitude—far removed from sentimental Christmas fare. But for this EP, they opened with original audio from Momsen’s performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 25 years ago. “Where Are You Christmas?” begins with young Taylor singing over piano before morphing into a fully rocked‑up version, with present‑day Momsen’s deeper voice and the band’s high‑energy arrangement driving it forward.

“The long and short of it is that I formed The Pretty Reckless when I was 14, and as soon as we started putting out music, every Christmas fans made the connection that I played Cindy Lou Who and now had this band. And so every year, fans would beg for a rock version of ‘Where Are You Christmas?’ And for 15 years, or whatever it was, I would hear all this and go, ‘This is never going to happen. In no world am I doing this.’”

The EP also includes some of the band’s most lighthearted work to date. Finger snaps, airy harmonies, whistling, and playful lyrics give “I Wanna Be Your Christmas Tree” a breezy blues feel. “I wanna be your Cindy Lou, be my Grinch, be my Dr. Seuss,” Momsen sings in her holiday wishlist.

“Blues on Christmas” features standout guitar work from Ben Phillips, while “Christmas Is Killing Me” brings the band back to their signature hard‑rock sound. “When We Were Young” serves as a brief intro to the closing track, the soft, piano‑led “Christmas, Why Can’t I Find You.”