Hot Chip @ Paradise - Boston, MA 4/14/08 Plus Interview w/ Joe Goddard
I’ve been blogging now for roughly 3 or so years and there is no question that this recent experience where I was able to interview one of the founding members of Hot Chip, Joe Goddard, on top of the show on Monday night was a pinnacle point in my blogging and music review career. Keep in mind folks, I don’t get paid for this. Many bloggers don’t get paid, we just really love doing what we do and getting to go to shows, getting free music and getting to interview our idols.
Below is both a transcript of the interview plus a little 3 and 1/2 minute montage that I pulled together by taking some of my favorite moments of the interview and putting them to pictures that I mostly found on Flickr. I’ve included a link to all those folks who are responsible for the amazing pictures taken at various Hot Chip concerts. And some of the pictures are just basic stock photos of the band.
Enjoy the montage and interview with Joe Goddard and if you’re just getting hip to Hot Chip, enjoy the ride.
Flickr Photographers:
http://flickr.com/photos/flashpics/
http://flickr.com/photos/magnusw/
http://flickr.com/photos/imassingham/
http://flickr.com/photos/gabiporter/
http://flickr.com/photos/oliverpeel/
http://flickr.com/photos/greenboy/
http://flickr.com/photos/andih/
Where to find more on flickr: http://flickr.com/search/?q=hot+chip
See pics from the Boston show over at Dreams of Boston
Read the full interview after the jump…
Transcription
The Square: Where do you see Hot Chip in the next year or so?
Joe Goddard: I don’t know exactly what is going to happen. I’m kind of happy with the level we’re at. We’re at a point where we can kind of do what we want and around the world there are audiences of people who will come and see us. What we’ve all been talking about is maybe next year we’ll do a bunch of different projects. Maybe not bring out an album but maybe that will happen cause we’ve got a few new songs we’re working on.
Al and Felix have their own band they’re working on. Alexis has projects with Green Gartside of Scritti Politti and we have our solo projects.
I think like a lot of bands, the position that is most enticing for us is the same kind of thing that Bjork, Flaming Lips and Radiohead have where they can just be artistic in lots of different ways and hopefully have this kind of audience where people are in to these different kinds of experiments. Like we’re going to work on a documentary later on this year.
The Square: What is that all about?
JG: It’s about a guy named Thomas Beck who is a Holocaust survivor. It’s going to be about his life and him talking about his experiences. He had like this obvious horrible part of his life during the war and then he went on to do these really remarkable things. Friends of ours are going to make that. It’s a really small project, not like a big budget thing so yeah, we’re going to make some music for that.
The Square: So you’ve got Coachella at the end of this tour and then ATP. Is that pretty much it or do you have other shows scheduled? (UK Festival tour just announced)
JG: No we’re doing tons of stuff. Not much in May and June but when we get into July and August we’re doing tons of festivals. Mostly around Europe and the U.K. but then we’ll come back to the U.S. We’ll probably do another tour hitting some places we haven’t been to in awhile like Austin City Limits.
The Square: What do you guys think about the U.S. South?
JG: To be honest, I have a good time most places in the states. This trip so far has been really really fantastic. People have been really excited about us playing and we’ve been enjoying playing. We took like a month out in January to rehearse and that really paid off a lot. We feel confident and know what we’re doing and we have a really great crew around us so we don’t have any real technical difficulties. So we feel free to have really great shows.
All the cities have been really great and we’re excited for the cities coming up that we have a great time going to. We have friends in each place and know like the good restaurants and clubs to go to afterwards.
So we feel kind of at home over here. And also every where we go I just buy tons of records. You can find so much cheaper original 60’s and 70’s rock, disco and soul that’s harder to find in the U.K. and I just love that.
The Square: Where do you go here in Boston?
JG: I’ve only been just down the road
The Squrae: At Nugs?
JG: Yeah, I bought some albums there today I might take a trip to a couple of other spots.
The Square: Do you ever go to In Your Ear?
JG: Yeah
The Square: That’s one of my favorites.
The Square: Are there other instruments that you guys have thought about bringing on stage? One that comes to mind is a saxophone because I was listening to “Crap Kraft Dinner” the other day and there is this really creamy, sexy sax solo and I was just thinking that since you’re all so musically talented that one of you probably plays the sax or the horn.
JG: Al is kind of like the virtuoso musician in the group he really knows how to play a lot of stuff. He plays the cello to a really high degree. I don’t think he can really play the saxophone but I’m sure if you gave him a couple weeks.
The Square: He looks like he could all of sudden just pull out of his bag this big sax on stage. I bet people would get a kick out that.
JG: The girl who did that original solo she’s a friend of ours named Emma. She’s played on like every record of ours. She is also like an amazing violinist and she plays in a string quartet. She played the violins on “Look After Me” and she played sax on “Out at the Pictures”. She’s another girl that we went to school with that we’ve known since we were like twelve years old. Yeah yeah, good solo.
The Square: How does the improvisation and the altering of songs work on tour?
JG: Sometimes someone will play something differently one night because it comes to them. And sometimes we will be traveling and decide to try and join two songs together or play a song in a slightly different version. To be honest, we improvise less now that we’re so highly rehearsed. When we started out it was a lot looser because we didn’t really know what we were doing so it would be different every night. Now, there are totally moments of improvisation and moments when we extend a bit cause it feels good to do that. But we know a little bit more what we’re doing now so it’s a little more tighter.
Often times when the songs are being recorded parts of the songs are totally improvised. Like when Alexis and I are recording in my room or where ever, I sometimes won’t tell him when I’m recording and when I’m not and I’ll capture something that he didn’t know was recorded and then we’ll throw it into the final recording of the song.
The Square: You recently came out with the video for “One Pure Thought”. Could you tell us a little bit about the inspiration for that video?
JG: Actually I can’t tell you too much about the actual style and the idea behind but what I can tell you about is who made it. It’s actually Felix’s big brother, Bevis and his partner Charlie. You can find their stuff online (Find it at martinandyoule.com). They live in France and Sweden. They’ve done tons of stuff for us in the past like Bevis did the sleeve for “A Boy from School”. They’ve done merchandise for us too such as t-shirts and bags.
When we were on tour in March he asked us to come visit him for one day in Paris. We met up with him and he filmed us dancing, hitting things and doing these various things and he just started animating those and created these different loops of us and the way it turned out was just kind of his vision and style.
The Square: I think it works perfectly for the song as the concept of One Pure Thought fits in with the simplicity of your movements yet you all come together at the end in a big group circle to bring all that simplicity together.
JG: Yeah, we’re really happy with the way it turned out.
The Square: The other night in New York City, did you guys play a cover of the Big Star song, “Thirteen”? We have a friend who swears he heard you play it yet it’s not on any setlist.
JG: He’s right in one sense. Alexis throws in a part of that song at the beginning of “A Boy from School” just before he starts to sing the versus. It’s the same thing that we do with “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac, we play that at the beginning of “Crap Kraft Dinner”. There is a little bit of New Order in “No Fit State” so it’s not strictly a cover but it’s more of like an interpolation. He also throws in a little bit of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette”.
The Sqaure: So is it a constant party for Hot Chip on tour?
JG: It can be crazy sometimes but not every night. Particularly like in New York we have tons of people that we know there like the guys from Gang Gang Dance or the DFA guys so we always have some messy nights in New York.
The Square: Joe, thank you very much for taking the time out from your busy tour schedule to talk to us and we with you and the rest of Hot Chip the very best as you continue on.
How was the show you ask. As Joe mentioned in the interview, they have gotten so tight as a band it’s not even funny. In fact, I could see that same show I saw on Monday night 10 times in a row and it wouldn’t get old that’s how amazing and tight they sounded. They’ve been practicing a ton and really getting comfortable with what their playing so even their improv moments are so precisely planned that their really no room for error in their show.
They’re releasing the single “One Pure Thought” next month along with some b-sides and remixes. If you can’t wait, head over to RecordStore and get the 7″ and the CD collectors box and get an exclusive download of the original demo version of the single at a really great price!
View YouTube video of the Boston 4/14/08 Show: (A Boy from School w/ “Thirteen” intro) (Ready for the Floor) (No Fit State) (Crap Kraft Dinner w/ “Everywhere” intro)
Official Hot Chip YouTube page: http://uk.youtube.com/hotchipofficial
Hot Chip on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/hotchip
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