HOT HOT HEAT INTERVIEW
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.”
Watch SMHTP’s interview with the band.
FEATURED ARTIST
Joni Mitchell
When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century. Uncompromising and iconoclastic, Mitchell confounded expectations at every turn; restlessly innovative, her music evolved from deeply personal folk stylings into pop, jazz, avant-garde, and even world music, presaging the multicultural experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s by over a decade.