Ready for the U.S.: An Interview with Hot Chip

September 15, 2008 2:52 PM
by Marcos Colón

When it comes to mixing up the sights and sounds of music, no one does it better than British electropop quintet Hot Chip. With an image that conjures up the color wheel, oblong shapes and designs and a room full of synth, the boys made a name for themselves with their 2006 release, The Warning only to outdo themselves with this year’s Made in the Dark. After signing with DFA Records in late 2005, Hot Chip stormed the U.S. and began to garner the same amount of fame they received across the pond. It’s one thing to listen in on one of their records, but seeing them perform is a whole different experience. Known for their charged up live shows, the band will now embark on a U.S. tour that will take them across the country and later into Mexico for the first time as a band.

CoolJunkie recently caught up with lead singer Alexis Taylor and grilled him on the production of their latest album, the various influences on their sound and the upcoming U.S. tour.

CJ: You’ve been doing a lot of touring lately, mostly the festival circuit correct?

Alexis Taylor: Yea, that’s right, we’ve pretty much been touring since February of this year.

CJ: Did the success of The Warning add any pressure while you were producing Made in the Dark?

Alexis Taylor: Not really, no. We were really pleased with how The Warning had done, but it wasn’t this crazy success that we were concerned about how to repeat. You start making the record and you’re trying to make it sound different from the previous one but that wasn’t very difficult. You are naturally making a new record at a different moment and time so there wasn’t any pressure. The only pressure was to better ourselves really.

CJ: When you guys go into the studio do you have an idea in mind of what you want, or do you just go with the flow?

Alexis Taylor: Not really, no. Up to now we’ve treated every song like an individual piece of music and we haven’t really worried about how they were from one song to the next. We haven’t recorded using exactly the same set of instruments. There hasn’t been a strong interest in consistency of sound really, its been more about each song sounding quite different from the last and sounding more like a compilation of tracks put together for an album, rather than an album that’s recorded in a two week period with one producer and five sets of instruments for every song.

CJ: Are there any talks for a new album or is that still too early?

Alexis Taylor: We are writing. We got demos of seven or eight songs already and we’re really excited about those, but with the next record we may try for a more consistent sound rather than this weird, different feel from one song to the next that we’ve always done. We may choose a palate of instruments and stick to that for each song. So we need a bit of time not on the road to make it. We’re probably going to start a bit in November and do more work early next year when we come back from Australia.

CJ: Are you guys going to do Big Day Out while you’re there?

Alexis Taylor: Can’t confirm which festival yet, but we’re probably going to be out there in January. We are still deciding at the moment.

CJ: As far as your musical influences go, what bands have influenced your sound?

Alexis Taylor: On the last record there was some influence from Danny Hathaway and Black Sabbath. We made that record a long time ago, so I can’t really remember what we were listening to. Kerry Riley, Paul Simon, Author Russell, quite a lot of hip hop and house music. There is quite a bit going into each individual track. We are five people and we all listen to different music all the time. I guess some of it influences you when your not realizing it, and other things you listen to all the time but you’re not influenced by it, you’re just enjoying it. When we were making The Warning I was listening to the Incredible String Band quite a lot, but there isn’t really evidence of that on the record.

CJ: You guys each dabble in DJing. Do you all have any favorite DJs out there?

Alexis Taylor: I like Carl Craig, Theo Parrish, Matthew Dear. I like people who mix things up quite a lot in their sets.

CJ: How would you describe your sound?

Alexis Taylor: It’s soul and disco influenced pop music. Or maybe just pop music. Depending on whether or not someone will understand what I say, something as broad as pop music.

CJ: It’s defiantly got soul.

Alexis Taylor: Yea, obviously it has it. I think that’s a strong part of it.

CJ: If there was a film out there that would describe your sound which one
would it be?

Alexis Taylor: A film…um,…maybe Ferris Buller’s Day Off.

CJ: What’s the best festival experience that you’ve had so far this year.

Alexis Taylor: It was good at Benicassim in Spain. That was a fun gig to play. People were sort of hanging from the roof during the gig because there were so many people trying to get in. It was a really rammed space and people were really getting into it and that was very exciting. It’s a beautiful part of the world to be in.

CJ: You’ve played your fair share of cities in the U.S., are there some that you haven’t played that you would like to?

Alexis Taylor: I would like to go to Memphis, never been there. I like a lot of music that comes out of Memphis, so that would be the first place I can think of.

CJ: As far as your music videos go, do you guys play an integral part in that, or do you basically leave it up to the director? Each video that you come out with seems to portray your music really well.

Alexis Taylor: We try to have as much say in them as possible. We find them to be a bit of a waste of time if you don’t get involved, because often people don’t really get who we are, so it’s always best if we are involved ourselves, and we have been on all of them. But particularly , One Pure Thought, Ready for the Floor and Over and Over probably turned out best. The new one, Wrestlers, is maybe my favorite one actually.

CJ: What kind of band would you not like to be perceived as?

Alexis Taylor: A soulless indie band.

CJ: Now what’s on the agenda for the remainder of the year?

Alexis Taylor: We will be in the States touring and playing with this new member of the band, Leo Taylor, a drummer, and playing some slightly different material that we haven’t played before or in a while. So we will be doing that tour and a UK tour. We’re going to Mexico in November for the first time as a band and we’ll be making a start on the new album.

Click here to hear more from Hot Chip.