The Pictish Trail vs. Hot Chip

Without even the faintest silhouette of a doubt, my top album of 2008 is Hot Chip's Made In The Dark. Sure, there's been some other great albums out this year but this is the one I keep going back to. There are times when I think it pretty much accomplishes everything I've ever wanted to do with music: the heavy grinding stomp of Shake A Fist; the carefully crafted pop of Ready For The Floor; and the sublime slooow-motion jam ooze of We're Looking For A Lot Of Love. It's a fun album, but also – and most importantly - a beautiful one. I’m well jel, yo.

So, when I was approached by The Skinny to do an interview with the band before they took to the stage, I was overcome with thrilledness.

So here I am, in Aberdeen, at a place called The Forum. The gig is something of a last minute addition to the Hot Chip tour, being part of the Tennent's Mutual series of shows. It's a really nice venue, this – decent size, but certainly a bit smaller than some of the venues the band have played on the tour. My friend Mark tells me it's not used all that regularly for gigs - which seems a bit of a shame. But, then, maybe that makes it all the more special.

This interview is going to be a bit weird. The thing is – and I don’t want to get all Perez on you - I’ve kinda known the band for a while now. Alexis, the lead singer, used to work at Domino Records, and I’d see him from time to time at King Creosote shows. Oddly enough, it was only after I’d bought (and fallen in love with) Coming On Strong, HC’s debut album on Moshi Moshi, that I realised he was in the band. We later played with them in Sweden, as part of a touring festival – and kept bumping into each other at UK festivals. And so we stayed in touch. In fact, just last month, Joe – the band’s co-founder – did a remix of a Pictish Trail song, Winter Home Disco, which is being released this month. Ooh.

The interview, then. After they soundcheck, I go up to the dressing room, and sit down with Alexis and Joe. I commence with an anecdote:

Christian Madden, keyboardist with King Creosote and full time maestro with The Earlies, once told me about an Earlies gig at SouthBySouthWest, in Texas, about three or four years ago. Hot Chip had been playing immediately before them, and were packing away their stuff, while The Earlies struggled heaving Leslie cabinets, drum kit, amplifiers and massive analogue synthesizers on to the stage. Apparently one member of Hot Chip felt the need to smugly point out that all of their equipment fitted into one flight case…

Joe: "It was probably, like, one of those orange cases that we have. And now we've got about seven of those, and we've got boxes to put them in, and trucks to put them in. It's changed since those days."

Indeed it has. The band’s set-up now is huge. The entire stage is swamped in various keyboards, amps, percussion – and now a full drum kit.

Alexis: "Has it changed for the better though?"

Joe: "It's changed for the louder!"

I think it is better. There’s a real sense of Hot Chip as a band now. Having seen you play in London a few weeks ago, with live drummer in tow, there’s definitely something happening with the sound. There’s so much going on, it feels like every frequency is being catered for – it’s like a brain massage!

Joe: "The whole frequency range - even dogs get something!"

But with all this stuff on stage and the inevitable amount of time it takes to transport and set up, do you ever feel the urge to go back to the stripped down days?

Alexis: "Yeah. Sometimes I hear Al soundchecking the 101 on its own, and I think someone should do a complete set on that! Sometimes I wonder if it's all necessary. But it's nice playing in a smaller room like this, where on stage I can hear everything a lot more acoustically, or just from the amps rather than just through the monitors. If other people can hear a similar sound to what we hear on stage, that's the ideal."

Joe: "It's something we're always thinking about and wondering how to deal with. We like playing these big energetic gigs, it's fun, it's a great adrenalin boost, it's exciting, and we all love it. But it'd be really nice to do a show in a completely different fashion, and you want the audience to be into that, and it's hard to make that work. People go along wanting this big dance experience - they've been to the pub before and it's supposed to be a big night out."

It must be quite difficult, trying to establish that balance in a live show, as you’re a band that does have a lot of ballads – particularly on the latest album.

Joe: "Yeah. Ideally it'd be really good to work these different kinds of music in to the show to a greater degree. You go and see someone like Prince and he seems to slip into these gentle moments for three or four songs, and people go along with it. And we're still working on doing that."

For me, as a fan, the exciting thing about seeing you live is seeing the songs evolve. With Over And Over in particular - every single time i've seen it there's been a different arrangement in the band! Is this done on purpose to keep the songs fresh?

Alexis: "We've got really bad memories, and we have to relearn the songs. And the words are different each night, like Bob Dylan."

Joe: "Like a goldfish Bob Dylan..."

Alexis : "People think Bob Dylan is reinventing himself, but he's just really forgetful."

Haha! Do you rehearse?

Joe: "We went for a long time without ever rehearsing, but did do some rehearsals at the beginning of this year to try and make ourselves better."

Alexis: "After we did those rehearsals we almost felt we had rehearsed too much!"

Well, the show is extremely tight now – with a few songs segueing into others. Having seen the band play live for about three or four years there’s definitely a sense of there being ‘a show’ now. How do the sets come together?

Alexis: "In the old days Joe would call out a song, and we'd play it. Then we upgraded to writing on napkins ... but we never thought of playing a 'set list' until now. We went through a period of changing it every day. Eventually we got bullied by Al into doing it as a set list!"

Joe: "There are benefits - short changes in between songs, you don't have those big bits of silence that make you feel bad."

Alexis: "In all the live recordings we have ever made there's probably more in-between tuning and banter than actual songs."

Joe: "There’s a videotape of us playing from 2001 – there’s so much talking you have to fast forward for three minutes to get to the next song! All your ideas about playing shows change depending on what's happening with your career; you start off and you think you're being professional by deciding before the show which songs you might play. Those levels of expectation and what you are supposed to do change constantly. Our show is slick now - and in some ways that feels weird - but it does make the show run smoother. All these other people that work with us – lights, monitors, sound engineers - know what song is coming next, making their job easier. But it feels weird coming from playing 10, 12 years, and just doing whatever you wanted."

Alexis: "I remember, for years - when we weren't signed - being impressed by terrible bands who were really tight. I didn't like the music but they had something we could never have tried to do at that time.

It’s finding that balance. It’s nice to have a fast-paced show, but the songs have got to be up to scratch.

Joe: "Yeah. It's like when people DJ, and it's very slickly mixed but no good songs... it's much more important to have the good songs."

= = = = = =

Well, Hot Chip don’t need to worry – they have great songs in spades. Their show that night is phenomenal – the entire crowd going bezerkoid. Kenny comes along to the show, and we pogo up and down bear-hug style. After the gig we meet up with Alexis, and head along to a club where Joe is DJing. A great night out.