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Hot Chip: Techno, Electro, Pop, Soul or What?Exclusive Interview with Joe Goddard from UK Dance Band
What do you get when you throw five soul, techno, pop, and indie rock fans into a blender and mix with a liberal dose of humour? Ask Hot Chip. Even they're not so sure.
As confusing as the recipe may be, the resulting band is particularly delicious. Mixmag, NME and others heaped album-of-the-month/year accolades on 2006’s The Warning and this year’s Made in the Dark. Not to mention that live, the band simply cannot be beat. But some are regularly befuddled by the band’s inherent all-over-the-mapness. Are they dance? Techno? Soppy? Goofy? Sleepy? Dopey? Suite101.com caught up with producer/synth player/vocalist Joe Goddard during the band’s spring North American tour to try and answer the questions: What is this strange thing called Hot Chip? And is it okay that nobody knows has a clue what you’re on about? “Yeah, totally!” beams Goddard, backstage at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom. “But it’s a real issue in some ways, because we realize that we play a lot of different kinds of music and we love that. Even when we’re trying to make a kind of straight-ahead pop song, we try to throw in weird references. That’s a really important part of a lot of the music we’ve loved in the past, and something we love to do now. But it really does make it difficult to describe because it’s anything and everything.” Pop Rockin' BeatsSo, you’re at a party and someone asks you what your band does. How do you answer? “We like to call it pop music. The best pop music can be anything. It can be a Timbaland track that also sounds like a house track. And although under the term ‘pop music’ we try and have these kinds of experimental, rock and soul moments, we do want it to be catchy. To be honest, the music that most of us are drawn towards is pop music through the ages.” Yes, but, Hot Chip is rather plinky and electro. So, for example, when a band with such diverse tastes has to come together in a room under the auspices of release a compilation album of “your” favourite tracks (ie, 2007’s ridiculously kooky and wonderful DJ Kicks mix) how the hell do you choose? DJ Kicks, Band Arguments...and German Techno “There are a few bands that we all love like Robert Wyatt and Kraftwerk and classics like the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, but not many. There will often be a fight over the stereo, like ‘Oh, I’m tired of this techno music, I want to listen to some folk’. And the difference between Alexis [Taylor]’s taste which is very based around real instruments, voices, folk and soul music, and Al [Doyle] and Felix [Martin]’s, who largely listen to German minimal, pounding techno, is huge. There can sometimes be disagreements there. Sometimes when we’re working out songs and rehearsing, Al and Felix will be trying to push the song in this direction of a hard, techno song and Alexis will be trying to drag it back to being more soulful and live and with more vocals.” So where does Joe sit? “I’m kind of in the middle. I’ll buy techno and I’ll also buy stuff that Alexis loves. Owen [Clarke] is as well. That’s part of the group dynamic. I’m more of the kind-of producer. I try to take influence from everyone in the group, to keep it working.” And work it, Goddard does. Besides remixing dozens of other bands’ tracks (from Amy Winehouse, Queens of the Stone Age, Gorillaz, Scissor Sisters on), he’s the one who’s waving the flag for bands who have rediscovered techno’s playfulness and inventiveness. Things have certainly changed since a few years back in the UK when brooding, superstar DJs treaded the boards. Death to Serious House Music“There’s definitely been a reaction to the po-faced seriousness of house music, trance or techno from a few years ago,” says Goddard. “A lot of the stuff that’s going on in the UK – and in the States to some extent – is a reaction to that. It’s about making things a little more cut-up and exciting and different again. In the UK, people like Sinden and Switch and Hervé as new producers have made house music into something where every 16 bars there’ll be a new bass track or a new vocal, and it’s often done with a sense of humour. I think that’s really, really important. Everyone got a bit tired of the other stuff. In the US, people like Diplo and A-Track are doing similar things, and we try to take influences from all of this going on. We try to keep an ear out to what’s going on in the world.” Thank the dance gods somebody is listening. Because for Hot Chip, it’s all in the mix. Read more from this interview with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard as he chats about touring Made in the Dark and what it takes to be either really excellent live - or really rubbish.
The copyright of the article Hot Chip: Techno, Electro, Pop, Soul or What? in Electronica (Music) is owned by Mikala Taylor. Permission to republish Hot Chip: Techno, Electro, Pop, Soul or What? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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