Hot Hot Heat reveal new album details

Hot Hot Heat have just finished mixing their forthcoming album, and are aiming for a May release date, frontman Steve Bays told NME.COM.

The Canadian quartet have been working on the follow-up to 2005's 'Elevator' in a Vancouver studio for the past two years, and brought in a different co-producer on each song.

"We worked with about 15 different co-producers, which was really fun," said Bays. "I co-produced about 90 per cent of the album, and each song was co-produced by a different person. It's almost like a hip-hop record in that sense."

The album, which does not yet have a title, "has a real rockin' feel" and is "pretty tripped out," Bays said. "There are a lot of keyboards, and some of it is like a combination of T-Rex and Led Zeppelin. It sounds more alive than anything we've done before."

Bays said that two of the main tracks on the album utilise a full choir.

He revealed: "We held a party for two of the songs that had about 40 of our friends singing on it.

"'Happiness', the first song on the album, starts out small and pathetically sad, but it builds and builds and then explodes at the end. Kind of like 'Sgt. Pepper's' on heroin, with 45 seconds of a choir at the end."

The second song, 'Outta Heart', features not only a choir but also a full orchestra. "It's the most non-Hot Hot Heat song, but it's probably the best song on the album," Bays confessed.

Describing the mood of the album, Bays said, "Some songs are perfect driving-in-the-desert songs, and some are great seedy club songs."

Bays said that the band's ultimate goal was to end up with something that each of the four band members was totally happy with it. "We're pretty picky but we did it," he said. "I'm Canadian so I'm trained to be modest, but I think it's by far the best thing we've done. I can die happy after this album."

--By our Los Angeles staff.
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