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ON THE COUCH WITH: Hot Hot Heat

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Hot Hot Heat is about to release their new album, entitled Happiness LTD. Tell us about it.
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): Well it was a bit of an undertaking. All up, it took around a year to record. It was definitely worth it though. We made the album, and then we remade it. Looking back, it was a tough move. Like if we had of known it would take so long, we might not have set out to make the same record.

Access All Areas.net.au: Some early reviews suggested that you guys had been listening to a lot of Arcade Fire and that it showed. What would you guys say influenced the record?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): Oh, that’s a really hard question. We try not to answer that question, just because there is so much stuff that we listen to that could be counted as influences. I could go through my iPod right now and it’s just crazy. There’s rock, hip-hop, metal…a bit of everything really.

Access All Areas.net.au: You originally set out to make a quick rock record and instead made a lush sounding record. What was the reason behind this?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): Well we were about 75% through finishing the album when we had to rethink it all. It was originally an attempt of under thinking it all. We thought that we would write it all and have it done and record one song a day. We soon realised that we wanted an actually direction. The songs that we had weren’t what we wanted. We realised that some songs needed strings or needed extra instrumentation. We couldn’t just bash it out…we had to go straight back to the drawing board. It was a very daunting task by the end. If we had of known that we were going to go through all of that, I think that we might have rethought it all.

Access All Areas.net.au: The album was recorded in a number of different studios including Abbey Road Studios and Frank Sinatra’s studio in LA. What was it like being in all these famous studios?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): You know, we thought that it could be really overwhelming and crazy. Like, looking at who had recorded there was just an amazing sight. When we got there, it was really just like “Oh well it’s back to work.”

Access All Areas.net.au: Can we expect to see you boys touring Australia soon?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): Not yet. We’ve definitely been talking about it with our manager. We’re trying to get onto the Big Day Out line-up. We’re not, so don’t print that we are, but we have heard such great things about it from other bands. We’re really hoping for that one-day. The crowds in Australia are so amazing. Assuming the record does well and the label wants us, we will be down there as soon as possible.

Access All Areas.net.au: What are you listening to at the moment?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): A friend of mine makes me all these great mix CDs and we played Vancouver last night, so he gave me a big bunch of them. The one I’ve listened to has a lot of great girl bands from the sixties and stuff. I’ve also been listening to stuff like The Smiths…um…Madonna, Feist. Just the classics, you know? Oh, I’ve also been listening to the Klaxons,

Access All Areas.net.au: Where does the band name actually come from?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): I actually made it up before the band got together. I thought it sounded magical and mystical (laughs). I thought that it was awesome and was going to be really pissed off if another band had the same name. The first rehearsal of the band wasn’t actually a rehearsal. We just sat around and drank some beers and listened to music. We got along so well that I said “We have to start the band and it has to be called this name!!!” Everyone else was either really into it, or really drunk, but we all said “Let’s do it!”

Access All Areas.net.au: If you boys weren’t playing music, what would you be doing?
Paul (Hot Hot Heat): If I wasn’t doing music in this band, I would still be doing music. It wouldn’t be the same though, because the chemistry in this band is awesome. Maybe writing, or something to do with cooking and food.

Interview by Simon Finck.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

May 9, 2007 — Burbank, CA — Hot Hot Heat will release their third album for Sire Records on September 11, 2007, entitled “Happiness LTD.” The album is the band’s first since 2005’s well-received Elevator, which spawned the Modern Rock radio hits “Middle of Nowhere” and “Goodnight Goodnight.”

Hot Hot Heat began writing new material in January 2005, the very day they launched a globe-trotting tour to support Elevator. “We wanted this record to be written on the road,” says the band’s co-founder and frontman Steve Bays, “partly so the influences would be more varied, but also so we could test out the songs live before we recorded them. We wrote music everywhere — Spain, Japan, Australia, the U.K. — so each song has a different mood.”

While the new album retains Hot Hot Heat’s trademark playful melodies and witty wordplay, Bays says that what started out as a modest, live-sounding effort ending up being the band’s most adventurous and experimental album yet. “It’s difficult to describe its overall musical direction, but if I had to choose two adjectives I’d go with ‘big’ and ‘aggressive,’” he says. “As a band, we got most excited about the over-the-top, epic-sounding songs, so we kept pushing the tracks that way. The album has its fair share of seedy club songs, but they are dirtier and darker.”

Lyrically, the album is about struggling to hold on to optimism and innocence in the wake of having your heart crushed. “It covers the journey from bliss to misery and the attempt to get back to bliss, while acknowledging how exciting the ride can be in between,” Bays says. “There’s an arc to the record as a whole; it almost comes across like a film, musically and lyrically.”

Hot Hot Heat’s new album — the first with guitarist Luke Paquin, who joined the group after the departure of guitarist Dante DeCaro — was co-produced by the band, which also includes drummer Paul Hawley and bassist Dustin Hawthorne, and an array of top-notch producers including former Marvelous 3 frontman Butch Walker, legendary mixer Tim Palmer (U2, David Bowie, the Cure), and Rob Cavallo, known for his work with Green Day and My Chemical Romance amongst many others. “We were way more involved with the production on this record than ever before,” Bays says, “so it made sense to work with certain people on certain songs.”

The forthcoming release boasts a host of wonderfully unique songs. According to Bays, “’Outta Heart’ is the most non-Hot Hot Heat song we’ve ever done.” The song features falsetto vocals, Theremin, a full orchestra, and “a gang of girls singing backup.” Bays says the last song written for the album, “Harmonicas & Tambourines,” has lots of tricks - like four drum kits at once - that make it more than just a dance song. “It’s seedy and dark, but pretty,” he says.

“Like every album we’ve done, the new one feels drastically different than our previous ones,” Bays says. “We put a lot of emphasis on surprise this time around. There are lots of twists and turns and unpredictable arrangements and instrumentation choices — yet somehow it maintains an overall timelessness.”

www.hothotheat.com

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Take the best of friends, because the greatest things are best when shared with the greatest of people.