Hot Chip Interview
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Hot Chip Interview Electronic super-group, Hot Chip, released their sixth studio album, ‘Why Make Sense?’ in 2015, followed by the ‘Dancing In The Dark’ EP. Returning to the stage, they’ll be embarking on an eagerly awaited Australian tour this January including a headline set at Sugar Mountain in Melbourne. We caught up with Joe Goddard to discuss all things Hot Chip past and present.
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You came back with new album, ‘Why Make Sense’ and then released ‘Dancing In The Dark’ EP; what was the motivation behind it?
We’ve been playing this cover of ‘Dancing In The Dark’ at the end of our shows and it’s a nice moment, crowds have been really enjoying it. We’ve often been joined by other people we’ve played with like David Byrne from Talking Heads or Caribou. We wanted to go into the studio and capture that as we play it live.
Will you continue to end your show with it? Will you be taking it to Australia?
Hot Chip Interview We were planning to stop doing it, but it seems a bit crazy to do that because people might want to hear it now. I think we’ll keep it going until we’ve been around the world once with it and then stop and do something else. For the Australia tour, we’ll do some more rehearsing and come up with some new stuff to do.
I suppose if you keep playing the same set, you’ll tire of it…
Yeah, absolutely. It’s an interesting mixture for us because we try to make the set flow perfectly. We do have certain combinations of songs that we’ve been doing for quite a while, but we keep doing that because it works with the way the set is constructed. We try to refresh certain parts and bring back old tracks that we feel people might like or we wanna play. We really value making the set enjoyable and entertaining for a crowd – we’re not the kind of band that will go on and play loads of B-sides for obscurity and just piss people off.
Speaking of freshening things up; ‘Why Make Sense?’ is a much more stripped-back record from you…
It really comes from a producer perspective; it’s about there being less layers in each track so what is there can be louder and more powerful, the track can feel like everything’s really present and the songs come through. There was an idea to strip things back, but having said that, some of the tracks are complex in terms of the synths – we find it hard to keep things minimal!
What do you use for inspiration?
Honestly, the things I find most inspiring are certain old UK garage DJ sets. There’s an old UK garage DJ called Slimzee, who is the godfather of grime, and there are old recordings of him on the radio playing these crazy garage records, and if I ever listen to one of those, I just hear so many bass lines and drum rhythms that I find so inspirational. Similarly, I find underground dance records really inspiring, and also, honestly, the new Kendrick Lamar record – it makes me want to attempt something like that.
You all play so many different instruments and use different synths; is there anything surprising that you’ve incorporated into a set or studio?
If you’re a synth obsessive, this might be really exciting, because we use quite rare, old synths from the ‘60s and ‘70s that there aren’t many of still working in the world. I use a Yamaha CS-80 and there were only like 300 made and it weighs about 200lbs! That features heavily on the new record. There’s one track on ‘Why Make Sense?’ where we were working in a studio outside of London and they had a tractor outside, so we started hitting it with our hammers. We did a little bit of that but mostly it’s fairly straightforward instruments – honestly!
To move onto your live shows, you’ve played at pretty much every major UK festival. Are there any that specifically spring to mind?
Yeah, tiny places are really memorable because they’re sweaty and fun and loud and full of energy. There was one tiny one in Portugal that got so sweaty there was sweat dripping off of the ceiling and falling into our keyboards and making them go totally haywire – my keyboard that usually plays bass lines started making these bird noises! Those gigs stick in my mind because of that kind of intensity. And then big festivals – we had one in Brazil where the crowd was so into the show, it felt like the front rows were doing this synchronised Samba dancing. At UK festivals like Glastonbury, we’ve had amazing moments that really define our career. The last time we played Coachella in California was a memorable moment because my family were out with me and we had a great show just as the sun was setting in the desert.
Do you enjoy the travel aspect of touring?
I absolutely love being in all of these different places and sampling the culture and the food. I’m quite a foodie person so it’s incredible to be in Melbourne or Sydney or Tokyo or Chicago and have our favourite restaurants. There’s a Thai restaurant in Sydney called Spice I Am that we’re totally obsessed with and we go to every time we’re there. We’re also obsessive about collecting records so that’s wonderful for us to do while we’re in these countries as well. But, the actual flying around the world can get a little tiring and I do miss my family.
You have separate projects – you yourself are one half of The 2 Bears – have you enjoyed being back on the stage all together?
Yeah, absolutely, it’s great. Right not in the music industry, it’s super hard to make new projects work financially. With The 2 Bears, it’s really hard to tour around the world and make it work so that it doesn’t lose us money. It’s hard to get things off the ground. Coming back together with Hot Chip and having an audience around the world that’s waiting for new material, we feel really privileged, because it means the business side of things is taken care of and we can tour where we want to and play these shows that people are hopefully gonna turn up to!
Hot Chip 2016 Australian Tour
Friday 22nd January – Sydney Opera House, Sydney sydneyoperahouse.com
Saturday 23rd January – Sugar Mountain, Melbourne sugarmountainfestival.com
Sunday 24th January – 170 Russell, Melbourne 170russell.com
Tuesday 26th January – The Tivoli, Brisbane ticketmaster.com.au
Friday 29th January – Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth oztix.com.au
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