Donoghue jokes that his band’s spent more time in New York than in their hometown of Glasgow, but it has been a big year for Glasvegas, which has found a winning harmony by combining the epic Euro-pop of a U2 or Oasis with rockabilly and Spector’s “Wall of Sound” from the 1950s and '60s. And even on this day, when he still can’t feel half his face after getting a rotted tooth taken out from the back of his mouth (“I hadn’t brushed my teeth until I was about 13”), Donoghue is glad to be home and enjoying the season.

“In Glasgow, the Christmas decorations usually go up the end of October,” he says. “You see one person in late October that puts Christmas decorations up, and within three weeks, everyone’s seen them and they’re all obsessed about beating each other.” And like a Scottish Clark Griswold, some feel the need to envelop their whole house in yuletide cheer. “You think, how can they afford their electricity bill?”

The band’s six-song Christmas EP A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss) is a bit of a dream come true for frontman James Allan — and one helped out by the inclusion of a clause in the Glasvegas recording contract that the group be allowed to time to record a Christmas effort. It’s an artistic collection of five original songs (some of which are more universal than holiday-centric) and one very moody version of Silent Night done with choir, all recorded right after an East Coast U.S. tour this year. The band did two songs in New York’s Electric Lady Studios before hopping on a direct flight to Transylvania with all their laptops, microphones, amps and other gear in tow to set up a makeshift studio in St. Nicholas Church in Brasov. “That was such a real find,” Donoghue says. “It was a 16th-century military town, and there was an old tapestry on the wall of the city when it was first built, and you could actually tell where you were because a lot of the same buildings were there.”

Getting away from normal surroundings gave Glasvegas a gothic vibe different from anywhere else in the world, Donoghue says. “It made you remember a time when a recording would be done at James’ house. Even the place itself really helped with the magical electrical side of it. It opened our eyes to putting more heart and soul into something than technical ability.”

Donoghue and Allan have known each other since being school chums, and through him, Donoghue first heard Phil Spector. They had moved into a flat, Donoghue says, and before Allan had any of his stuff in the place, he brought in an LP player and put on A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, the 1963 classic with Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), the Ronettes’ Sleigh Ride and the Crystals’ Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. “We’d sit in silence and listen to that album,” Donoghue says. “He put it on and he said it was by pure chance he fell in love with it. And from there, he got a Spector box set and some of the best things that any of us had ever heard. We’re all very close friends, so we do always fall in love with the same stuff.”

Donoghue’s personal fave? The Clash. “They were very honest and there was a lot of heart and passion in them,” he says. “Them and the Ramones and Elvis Presley. There’s so much stuff you pick up over the years.”