The Hives: ‘It’s been a terrible couple of years for the band’

Swedish band tell NME that they're 'out of the dark ages now though'

The Hives have spoken about their lengthy absence from music and revealed that they have endured “a terrible couple of years”.

The Swedish band, who last released an album in 2007 with ‘Black And White Hives’, will release their fifth album ‘Lex Hives’ on June 5 and singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist has told NME that the band are relieved to have finally finished it.

Asked what had caused the lengthy delay between albums, Almqvist replied: “It’s been a terrible couple of years for the band. We’re out of the dark ages now though, but we’ve had a lot of problems. Problems of all kinds. Rock ‘n’ roll kind of problems, but we’re ready to go now.”

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Then asked if he could into specifics about what kind of problems the band had incurred and if the line-up had changed at all, he replied: “All the stuff that happens in rock bios, all the things that seem like problems for a band, all that sort of thing. It’s the same band though, now and forever. We had every other problem, but not that one. It’s the same band. We feel really good now, strong, happy and excited.”

The singer also spoke the band’s decision to produce the album themselves, and said that this had added to the delay in completing the record.

He said of this: “We had a lot of producers on the last album and it took a long time to get all the schedules to work and actually get in the studio. So this time, we figured we’d produce it ourselves. In theory it should have been quicker. Turns out it’s not. Turns out you suddenly have five producers and everyone has to agree. I don’t know how to make an album fast; I don’t think we ever really did.”

‘Lex Hives’ will be preceded by a single ‘Go Right Ahead’ and the band are expected to announce fresh live dates in support of the album in the coming weeks.

You can watch a video from the NME Archive which features The Hives discussing their last album ‘Black And White Hives’ by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.

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