Hot Chip: We're not very rock and roll (From Halesowen News)

Hot Chip: We're not very rock and roll

7:00am Saturday 30th January 2010

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Hot Chip release their fourth album One Life Stand on February 1 and begin their UK tour on February 12 in Glasgow. The band's Al Doyle tells all about the album, how the critically-acclaimed quintet deal with expectation and reveals some rather bizarre endorsement opportunities.

By Andy Welch.

Musicians are often scared of sounding ordinary in interviews. Many want to be different, which can sometimes lead to rock and roll tales of hedonistic excess and near-death experiences, like Led Zeppelin in the early 1970s.

Of course, in these sanitary times, there aren't many artists who behave like that now, and even if they do, it sounds like a cliche when they talk about it.

Hot Chip, however, have no such qualms about sounding ordinary. In fact, they almost revel in it.

"It's a very boring reality of wives and Radio 4," explains the band's Al Doyle.

With that, he glances at his wife sitting next to him, who says "I'm not that boring, honest."

Take the title of the group's new single and album, One Life Stand.

It's a clever twist on a well-known phrase, and means exactly the opposite. The song in question is about finding a partner and being together forever.

In a world full of defiantly independent ladies like Beyonce, Lady GaGa and Shakira, who are always telling us they don't need anyone, and boastful philanderers in the Kanye and P Diddy vein, it's a heart-warming change.

"It's a nice idea, isn't it," says Al, "but it's also the truth of the situation. Alexis [Taylor, lead songwriter] is married now and he had a little girl last year. That's where he is in his life now, so it wouldn't make sense writing songs about going out partying and having models lying around.

"It's funny, a lot of people have been saying really nice things about the title, but when we were deciding what it would be, we couldn't choose," adds Al, who joined founding Hot Chip members Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard in 2003, shortly before the release of their debut album Coming On Strong.

"We settled on that, but we all thought it was a weak pun, really, and were apprehensive about using it. Now we feel totally vindicated because people seem to like it."

The band are on the cusp of releasing their fourth album, the follow-up to 2008's Made In The Dark. While that album was critically well received, reached No 4 in the UK album chart and received recognition in the States, it still feels as if there was too much going on, too many influences battling against other.

This time around, Hot Chip have pared back to a much simpler sound, more reminiscent of their Mercury Prize-nominated second album The Warning.

Recorded in the studio beneath Al's flat in East London, you couldn't mistake the sound of One Life Stand for any other band. All the core elements are there - low-key beats, the odd sample, Alexis's distinctive, almost thin-sounding vocal and generous nods to the bands' wide-ranging influences; Prince, Will Oldham, mid-Seventies Fleetwood Mac and Motown.

Hot Chip's instrumentation is also key to their sound. As well as the usual line-up of guitars, bass and drums, analogue electronic instruments and a weird array of old keyboards and synthesizers also play an important part in their Eighties-tinged sound.

"The more I've thought about it, the more Eighties I think this record is," says Al. "It's always been like that, but this is looking toward the more soulful music of the Eighties and part of a longer tradition that includes the House music that was coming out of Detroit then. It's definitely more that end of soul, rather than the Hall And Oates-end," he says, smiling. "As well as that, there's Sixties Stax and Motown sounds in there too. That's the bulk of it, and there are some influences from now in there too.

"I love the fact our songs aren't loops too. All of our songs can be broken down and you could play them on a guitar. I think the lyrics and the melodies stop the songs being throwaway dance tunes," he explains.

"This album in particular has got a real melancholia to it, and while the songs are overtly Europop in places, the lyrics attached to it are quite dark, and there's a majesty that comes from that. It stops them sounding like some Bulgarian Eurovision entry, anyway."

Whereas most dance music is programmed into computers, sequencers and a host of other machines to create loops - endless cycles of beats - Hot Chip actually 'play' their songs, but, because of the way it's recorded, they don't always know what they've done.

As a result, getting ready to tour, as they are at the moment, can be difficult.

"Even though we've just made the album, none of us have any idea how to play any of the songs!" says Al. "When it comes to rehearsing we have to learn each of the songs again, and some of the things can be really difficult, you know, not natural to play. We kind of have to cover our own songs."

Despite this, he says performing is each member's favourite aspect of being in the band. In fact, Al professes to loving every part of being in a band, but with that, he believes, comes a feeling of responsibility, especially as they become more and more successful.

"We're still not at a massive level, but we've sold a few records, and we've got the money that comes from being on a major label, but you know, we're not minted, we're all still living in rented houses, living this non-rockstar life," he says.

"I do feel this weird sense of responsibility to do something with the opportunity we've been given, though. There are lots of other bands out there who are as good if not better than us, but they can't go out and buy really nice equipment like we can, or they might have to work a day job, whereas we don't.

"It would be terrible not to make the best of that and do something with the chances given to us. Hopefully we've just made a record that people want."

Hot Chip - Extra time :: Hot Chip are Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Felix Martin, Owen Clarke and Al Doyle.

:: The band was originally formed by Alexis and Joe, who were friends at sixth-form college.

:: In 2006 NME named the band's song Over And Over the Single Of The Year.

:: The band's single Ready For The Floor was nominated for a Grammy in 2008.

:: Of the band's odd endorsement requests, Al says they very nearly got a deal with budget chain TK Maxx. "We all really like TK Maxx, so would have loved it if that came off. It's like a charity shop full of new stuff. We also want to sign a deal with Lindor chocolates because we all love them so much."

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