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Hot Hot Heat - Make Up The Breakdown

Hotly tipped Canadian funk punk band Hot Hot Heat’s British debut single – Bandages was described by the NME as "The best rock song you can dance to since (The White Stripes’ Country Joe and The Fish inspired anthem) Hotel Yorba".

High praise indeed – and the band are already causing tongues to wag from Radio 1 to XFM, where Bandages also won the listener vote on the music: response chart.

In May of last year the band headed into Vancouver’s Mushroom Studios to record the new album with the legendary Jack Endino (the man behind Nirvana's Sub Pop debut Bleach).

The results, Make Up The Breakdown replicates the breathless excitement of the band’s live show - 10 stomping tracks of complex, rhythmic post-punk.

Early Days

At this early stage in their career Hot Hot Heat have already been favourably compared to The Clash, The Cure, XTC and Talking Heads and it’s in the New Wave of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s that they clearly pitch their sound.

The album is by turns reminiscent of Elvis Costello and The Attractions, The Knack and even Dexy’s Midnight Runners, whose vocal style - in the shape of dungaree wearing Kevin Rowland - frontman Steve Bays occasionally sounds uncannily like!

Watch the video for Bandages.

The band (Steve Bays: vocals and keyboards, Dante DeCaro: guitar, Paul Hawley: drums and Dustin Hawthorne: bass) originates from Victoria at the southern tip of Vancouver Island.

Early in their development Hot Hot Heat - naturally - made a lot of noise. They were punks with synthesisers instead of guitars, in what vocalist Steve Bays describes as a sort of "Technical synth-pop math-rock band".

When that approach eventually became more constraining than liberating they changed direction. Their original singer left, Dante DeCaro was recruited on guitar and the microphone pressed into the hands of keyboardist Bays.

Gradually, the emphasis of the group changed, melody came to the fore, people danced and it was - above all else - fun! Then, in April last year, Sub Pop released Hot Hot Heat’s Knock Knock Knock EP - 5 songs in 16 minutes - produced in part by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla.

The band toured, playing shows with Les Savy Fav, Radio 4 and Pretty Girls Make Graves. And, similarly disaffected youth, bored to tears with the arms-crossed prim restraint of perhaps the dullest generation ever to grace North American rock clubs, came out in droves with their dancing shoes on.

Art Punk?

In May of last year, Hot Hot Heat headed into Vancouver’s Mushroom Studios to record a new album with the legendary Jack Endino (of Nirvana's noisy debut; Bleach fame). The result is the album Make Up The Breakdown - released here 24 March - which replicates the breathless excitement of the band’s live show over 10 tracks of complex, rhythmic art-punk.

Rock magazine Kerrang! have already tipped them as a ‘Face Of 2003’ declaring "It wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility to see Hot Hot Heat nestling up alongside acts like The Strokes, The Hives and their skinny-hipped retro-rock brothers in arms in the upper reaches of the charts over the next 12 months."

Tour Dates

You can catch some New Wave thrills with Hot Hot Heat at the following excellent venues:

- Wed Apr 30 MANCHESTER Hop And Grape

- Thu May 1 OXFORD Zodiac

- Fri May 2 LONDON ULU

- Sat May 3 DUBLIN Whelans

- Mon May 5 EDINBURGH Venue

- Tue May 6 LEEDS Cockpit

- Wed May 7 BIRMINGHAM Academy 2

- Thu May 22 LONDON Electric Ballroom

The single Bandages, the first fruits of the album sessions, an art-rock new-wave anthem with a mad bit of reggae stuck in the middle. The album, Make Up The Breakdown continues to mine the same rich vein of skewed tuneage, with a twenty first century edge.

More than New Wave revivalists with an innate talent for catchy songs, Hot Hot Heat blend angular post-punk with danceable pop.

The new album Make Up The Breakdown is out now and the single Bandages is also still available, both through Sub Pop/B-Unique.

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