Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams wore Christmas hats in May to get into the festive spirit when they were recording the 'Angels' hitmaker's new album.

Guy Chambers

Guy Chambers

The 56-year-old songwriter - who collaborated with Robbie on several of his hit LPs, including last studio release 'The Heavy Entertainment Show' - has revealed the pair decked out the recording studio and wore the paper hats to help them get in the right mood as they wrote songs for Robbie's 'The Christmas Present'.

In an interview on BBC Radio 2, Guy quipped: "We had Christmas hats in May but no mince pies."

The duo created the double album - which was released on Friday (22.11.19) - with the focus on trying to create new Yule Tide standards, even though one half of the LP is made up of covers.

Guy said: "I've been working on that all year. It's a double album, one's called 'Christmas Present' and one's called 'Christmas Past'. 'Christmas Past' is old covers, songs you'd know like 'Let It Snow,' 'Winter Wonderland.' We've done a tremendous version of 'Merry Christmas Everybody' the Slade song, but it's a swing song with Jamie Cullen, that's a stand out track. 'Christmas Present' is new songs."

Guy and Robbie reunited for the first time since Robbie's 'Let Me Entertain You Tour' in 2015.

The pair are on a creative roll once again as they have penned the songs for upcoming stage musical 'The Boy in the Dress', which is based on the book of the same name written by David Walliams.

Guy has spilled that the tracks have an "early Britpop" sound.

He said: "This is big, and it's on up at Stratford-Upon-Avon for three months until I think the end of February. Rob and I have written all the songs, so it's very much got an early Britpop feel to it like the first album. It's that sort of style of Robbie, feel good. Hopefully it'll move to the West End this time next year, they're looking for a theatre for it."