Walking through the corridors backstage at the Brixton Academy en route to meet my interview subjects never fails to stir up the musical sentimentality ingrained in me.  There is always an air of excitement and adrenaline surging as people mill around in the background, and the faint irregular intrusion from sound check can be heard.  The anticipation that the night will host yet another show from a band capable of packing the place to the rafters is fused into the atmosphere, as final preparations are made, more cups of tea are drunk and a line starts forming outside.  It’s also the one time I actually feel journalistically inclined as other writers from respected publications have their time with our subjects and our purpose is defined by our scheduled interview slot.

Interviewing Hot Chip at Brixton Academy before two consecutive night shows in March, to bring to an end their UK tour, was one of those occasions, which incidentally was probably the only time I have ever been received to a trumpet solo.  

To put it into perspective, Hot Chip are now deemed such a success they have a dressing room each.  Six years spurning 4 albums, 8 singles, countless awards nominations including a Grammy, a defining Glastonbury performance to 40,000 people and a world tour gets you six dressing rooms, not just the one.  For this auspicious occasion, my destination was guitarist Al Doyle’s dressing room, into which I was ushered as the sound from his shiny brass instrument hit me like a deluge, making me fear I had inadvertently interrupted some sort of private jam before he stopped, glanced over and laughed

“I knew you were coming, I just did that for effect.  Did you like it”?

2010 marked the release of Hot Chip’s 4th studio album ‘One Life Stand’.  A 10-track opus containing what front man Alexis Taylor describes as “the most warm and soulful record we have ever made”. It’s not so much a change in direction but a morphing into a matured sound, aligned with their life changes, relationship statuses and the birth of children. More importantly they themselves felt a coherence had taken place through the chosen songs, forming a body of work that has been met with sincere critical acclaim to the extent that some have defined it the album of their career. 

“Our only restriction on what we made was that the album would just have ten songs on it.  I think ‘One Life Stand’ sounds like a collection of songs which are coming from the same place purely because it was recorded all in one place in a sequence of sessions lasting about eight weeks during last year. There were definitely some quite deliberate choices made about the styles of songs that were on the album because we wanted it to reflect peoples’ tastes in terms of what we were into at that moment. Although, at the same time it was just that those songs seemed to hang together nicely whilst having their own kind of sonic space and architecture, so we just went with it".

'One Life Stand' is a reflective record; perhaps surprising in the way that it is quieter, almost subtler than all previous efforts, and, dare I say it, more chilled out?  The noise has been stripped back, the loud guitars have been demoted and while the synths are still clearly audible, they are certainly not album-defining.  “That was weird for me because I play guitar and was trying to play guitars on some of the songs but it wasn’t seeming necessary.  Then afterwards we looked back at all these songs we had recorded and just realised that the guitar had been sidelined a bit” 

“I think ultimately we got quite obsessed with instruments like the piano and drum kit, bass guitar and steel pans, so I do get what people mean about it being more relaxed.  But if you start using those words about the album it seems quite strange because its still dance floor orientated.  It’s predominantly supposed to be for people to dance to”.

But one could argue that the inclusion of what can only be described as ballad-esque tracks, when compared to their more upbeat work, is further representation of this relaxed feel.  “Yeah, I suppose there are songs on there that people count as ballads, like ‘Slush’ or ‘Brothers’, but I see them as more expansive rather than anything else” a relaxed Green muses, playing with his constantly animated phone.

What is clear is the frank humanisation of the record that is juxtaposed against a brevity of soulful influences, and a certain melancholic stance, which projects the key themes contained within the lyrics.  Subjects of monogamy and fatherhood approached with the defining honesty that has followed Hot Chip around since the beginning, continue to demonstrate an aptitude for straightforward wordsmanship and a total grip on reality.  You could never accuse Hot Chip of creating an artifice around themselves, what you see is genuinely what you get.  Which is perhaps why so much has been made of the aesthetics of the band and the tedium of accusations they have been styled in a contrived manner to resemble nerds.

“No this is us.  Maybe we should have created some sort of mythology around the whole thing” he comments, visibly amused, “but it’s never been about that.  The lyrics are confessionals in some ways, Alex and Joe have always just written about what they are feeling in a straight forward honest manner. 

“When we looked back we realised there was much use of the word ‘love’ for example, but that in itself is really just an old trope of pop music so it’s weird that people are making such a big deal about it.  I guess songs about love aren’t a major deal but maybe it’s uncommon to have songs about long term relationships and commitment and not necessarily always celebrating them.  Alexis acknowledges that its not all sweetness and light and difficulties arise in any relationship but it just happened to be the place he was in so that’s what he wrote about”.

Reminiscent of their second album 'The Warning', ‘One Life Stand’ feels to some extent simpler.  Not necessasarily in terms of musicality, but one could argue Hot Chip have shown a willingness to come out from the shadows created by the magnitude of the variety of ideas bursting out of 'Made In The Dark' a little more.  A synthesis has taken place with influences derived from soulful music of the eighties and part of a longer tradition that includes the sparse house music coming out of Detroit then.  Even an appreciation of Motown can be detected in parts.

“I think instead of looking at it as a departure, it’s just more of a change in emphasis.  I do think those influences have always been part of our sound, but maybe we’ve just become more famous for doing songs like ‘Over and Over’ and ‘Ready for the floor’ which are more upfront dance songs”,  Doyle, contemplaintive in his demeanor explains.  “I suppose Alexis has been allowed to indulge that side of his song writing skill with this record.  Hot Chip are actually really good at writing those kinds of songs but we just don’t seem to be known for it yet, the other tracks take precedence it would seem”. 

For a British band making leftfield popular music, their success over the past few years has been phenomenal.  The music industry as a whole almost makes it impossible for anyone other than the mainstream to have a career past two albums such is its fickle, instantaneous nature.  Typically bands are not given the opportunity to develop; yet undoubtedly this courtesy has been afforded to Hot Chip.  Almost surreal then is the fact that in six years they have released 4 albums, toured the world and reaped the benefits associated with having a career in making music.  Moreover, their individual extra-curricular activities have given them kudos further a field, with high profile remixing services given to bands like Kraftwerk, collaborations with Peter Gabriel and Robert Wyatt amongst others, as well as support offered to bands making waves on the burgeoning new music scenes in the UK.  

Still, you wonder whether the rise from the early days of playing in the arse-end of nowhere for little more than a bottle of beer and packet of crisps to playing to huge crowds around the world has come as a surprise to these Oxford graduates?  Apparently not, according to Doyle “because it’s been a gradual rise for us over six years where every step we have taken has been the next obvious one.  We’ve never been one of those bands who just shot to fame it’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of time on the road.”

In fact, exhaustingly, Hot Chip have been on the road solidly for about four years out of the last six. Part of the school of bands who understood that a tireless approach to the live environment would garner them the respect and following they deserve, and who are unequivocally exultant to be where they are today.

“Of course we are really happy to be in the position we are in because we get to do what we love and make money from it.  The success is only weird when you start thinking about it.  If I think about the fact I am sitting here in Brixton Academy, a venue we have already played 8 times before it doesn’t seem strange to me, but when you look back and think about traveling around in a compact car with all your gear in backpacks wrapped up in towels with no tour manager and doing everything for ourselves then yes that’s totally strange. But it’s a career for us now”.

Perhaps it was their 2008 Glastonbury show that provided the true catalyst for Hot Chip’s eventual push into the limelight that they are somewhat suspicious of.  Performing on the pyramid stage to their biggest crowd to date of 40,000 was validation that this was a group who had a whole lot more to offer than a song about a monkey with a miniature cymbal.

“You know people talk about ‘Over and Over’ a being a big hit but really it wasn’t.  First of all we released it 3 times and the third time it only went to number 27 in the charts” laughs Doyle.  “somehow that song just seemed to be everywhere for two years even though it didn’t sell well and then ‘Ready for The Floor’ was a hit too so thankfully it meant that we weren’t going to be known as a band with that one song.”

One of the interesting aspects of 'One Life Stand' is that there is not really one song that dominates the album, which relates back to the cohesive nature of the recording and this “body of work” intention that formed at its conception.  Quite a bold move realistically, but why should Hot Chip be defined by three and a half minutes of electronic pop chorus perfection, when their entire back-catalogue is far more open and unreserved.  

Live is when you can glean the full effects of their work, when the visceral statement of intent is to show six people playing music together full of beat-driven improvisation, energy and this dance worthy frenzy that they have total command of.  They are not, like so many others, backing track or laptop enthusiasts. 

“We actually set ourselves a very difficult task in that as soon as we complete an album we can’t actually play any of the songs live. They are recorded in a very piece meal way, layer by layer so it’s really difficult to translate them and so you have to start from the ground up and work out how to do it. There is a lot to overcome but it always comes together because it has always been very important for us to come across as being a band on stage.  There are so many electronic acts where its quite tokenistic, so you can’t really tell what’s going on and what is actually being played, but with our show its very clear we are all there playing together as a band and doing it live.  So let’s see what happens tonight”. 

And with that my time is up.  I depart the way I came in, with my musical sentimentality intact and even more convinced that Hot Chip are one of the best electronic acts this country has had the pleasure to produce.  Since the 80’s anyway.

Words: Francesca Strange

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