Pitchfork

Hot Chip took the plunge into taste-revealing waters with the creation of their forthcoming DJ-Kicks mix, out May 22 via !K7. We recently spoke with Alexis Taylor, the British quintet's frontman, about the mix, the follow-up to The Warning, how the band juggles so much remix work, and their love for Diana Ross.

Hot Chip are still on tour, and their previously reported U.S. dates continue April 25 in Austin. They celebrate their DJ-Kicks comp with a series of newly-minted DJ after-parties in June.

Pitchfork: How did you narrow down tracks for the DJ-Kicks mix? Did you look to your established influences or did you lean toward newer songs that you guys are into?

Alexis Taylor: We were just thinking mainly about what we were listening to right now, so it wasn't a "Hot Chip's Biggest Influences" CD. If it had been, we would've tried to get more Devo and Prince and Robert Wyatt, Funkadelic, various people who aren't represented at all on that CD. But it gets a bit difficult to think that it's going to define us, so we didn't really bother with that.

It was just what we're into right now, what records we bought recently. It's representative of something we might DJ. We wanted to make it an interesting experience for people to listen to at home. It's not meant to be the definitive reasons for Hot Chip sounding the way they do.

Pitchfork: Was there a fear, going into it, of being pigeonholed after revealing what you listen to?

AT: Not at all, no. I don't really care if people know what I listen to. It's actually quite nice to tell people what you like. But it doesn't represent much of what I currently listen to because it's a dance record for the most part, and there's no room for things like Willie Nelson on there.

It's just quite nice to make mix CDs for people to listen to, even if you're making them for your immediate family or friends. And once in a while something like this comes along, and it's involving all five of us. It's slightly different from that, but it's not too far away. We tried to make something that would be interesting to people, and fun. I don't know if it is or not, but that was our attempt.

Pitchfork: How democratic was the selection? Were some members of the group naturally more vocal in the process than others?

AT: Owen [Clarke] is probably the least vocal, so I don't feel that that much of what he's into is well represented. And also, I didn't really feel like pushing loads of my favorite records. I feel like Joe [Goddard] and Felix [Martin] DJ the most, and it's quite nice to let them lead the proceedings on this. There are still things on there that everyone's into. We're all into the Grovesnor, and we're all into Ray Charles and the New Order tune.

I was a little bit tired 'cause the This Heat tune was so briefly exposed on this compilation. It would've been nice for that to take up a little bit more room. The purpose for me choosing that, other than just liking it, was that it changed the mood at that point in the record, but it seems a little buried.

Pitchfork: Was there an intentional focus on slightly more obscure tunes and your friends' music, like Grovesnor, in order to expose it to people who might not have heard it before?

AT: Yeah, it's nice to put things on the compilation that you are genuinely listening to and inspired by, but there's a couple of those things which haven't really made it out to many people, and it's nice to promote them, in a way. But they wouldn't have been on there if we didn't really love them. It wasn't like we were just putting our friends' music out there. It's just stuff that we're really into. Some of it happens to not have had a major release, so it was nice coverage for them to be on this CD, and everyone that buys it will now have heard of Grovesnor. His music is hard to get a hold of otherwise.

Pitchfork: Is there a specific key to a successful mix? Whether it's a DJ mix or one for friends, is there some element that always ties it together for you?

AT: I wish I knew what the key was. I feel like we're just really learning how to make a great mix. I think you just have to go with the mood that you create and not be afraid to throw those different things into the mix. It's not too considered, although we did have to work on this one. It's hard to get booking in a normal DJ club [laughs]. You have to work a little bit.

Pitchfork: At what point in the selection process did you write and record "My Piano"? Was that song influenced by the process of making this mix at all?

AT: No, it wasn't really. We were working on it before we began putting together this mix, but not long before. I suppose it is a bit of a bouncy tune. It's a little bit more straightforward than most songs. It's kind of a club record, so maybe the best place for it is a club mix CD. But it wasn't very considered in terms of, "Oh wow, we need to write an exclusive track! Let's write one about..."

We'd just been listening to that Diana Ross song "My Old Piano" quite a lot a few months before we wrote it, and so we had a little more piano partly from there. That's a song that Joe likes to DJ quite a lot, so we heard it a lot. It's not a rip-off of that, it just happens that-- I was reminded of my sentimental attachment to the piano and learning it at a young age. I don't really feel like I know what it's about, except the verses are about accepting failure when you're trying to write or create something. But the "My Piano" part of it isn't really about that, so maybe it's not the greatest pop song in the world [laughs]. It's a little half-baked.

Pitchfork: Do you find that it helps you to have specific songs or goals in mind on a track-by-track basis when you're recording? How do you balance the variety of Hot Chip in the studio? Is it like "Okay, this song is going to be like this, and this other song is going to be completely different," or do you see all the songs as sharing one very omnivorous sound?

AT: I'm aware that they are stylistically quite different, a lot of our songs, but it's not intentional. It's not like, "Well, we need kind of a slow one now, let's slow it down," or "We need one that's really crazy." It's just that I think we're quite good at allowing all of the different types of songs we write to exist and coexist in Hot Chip. We don't really say that there's a rule against writing a country ballad on the record. We just allow whatever we naturally write to be in Hot Chip, and I tend to play very different music from the other four members of the band, as they do from me. Everyone does their own thing and feels their own ways. It's not all a conscious decision about [how to] do a different style of music. It's just that I like writing songs that come out one way. I'm trying to accept that and don't really think I give a shit about whatever we've done in the past. I think the songwriting and the production sound gives identity to what we do. So it's kind of clear that it's by us, whatever the mood is.

Pitchfork: It seems like country music has been on your mind recently. Are there any country songs on the new record?

AT: I didn't write any songs that have a country feel, but there are a couple on the new record that are pretty simple and unadorned-sounding, so maybe that's the way it came out.

Pitchfork: Is the new record called Shot Down in Flames?

AT: No, we haven't got a title for it. Shot Down in Flames was one title we were going to give the second album because we felt that we had some nice reviews for the first one, and the second one would just get shot down in flames. But this one... we might call it 4.

Pitchfork: Even though it's your third album?

AT: Yeah [laughs].

Pitchfork: Do you have any ideas for track titles or a release date?

AT: Yeah, we've got about 20 songs written, so there's loads of track titles. There's one called "Wrestlers". We've been playing a few live that are going to be on the record. There's one called "With Hours of Pictures" and one called "Shake a Stick" that some people may be familiar when it comes to that time. That's going to make it onto there.

Pitchfork: Is DFA going to release it?

AT: Yeah, it'll be on Astralwerks and DFA, just like the last one was. We're hoping to finish it so it'll come out this year, maybe September. We'll see how we're going. We've got a lot of the writing done. We're just trying to finalize it.

Pitchfork: Do you guys write a lot on tour?

AT: Not so much on tour. We've been doing all this new recording in February and March and April. While we're on the road, we often have remixes and stuff we have to do, so we don't really write new songs very often. It does happen. Sometimes if I have an idea, I'll sit with the keyboard on the bus and write a song as it comes to me, but we're not like most bands that are writing during soundcheck and coming up with their new songs literally on the road.

Pitchfork: You guys have been really busy with the remix work. Is that by demand or by choice or both?

AT: Both, really. I think we need to calm it down a little bit and try to make our own record. But most of us, particularly Joe and Felix, can make anything good if we want to, so it doesn't matter what the ingredients are. If you're doing a remix, you can turn it into something interesting, if you're prepared to go down that route.

Pitchfork: Is there any talk of remixing something really challenging, like something that you all just think is really bad, and trying to make it good?

AT: [laughs] No. We don't actively choose to do that, and we try more and more to turn down things that aren't of real interest. But sometimes you end up agreeing to do something, and then when you hear it, it's not your favorite [song]. But you have to do it anyway, and you can still try to turn it into something good.

Pitchfork: Is there anything that one of you are into that the others aren't? How do you decide what goes into the Hot Chip melting-pot and what stays out?

AT: There's a lot that is shared, in terms of taste. There are a few things that don't seem to quite-- even if we are all a necessity to the group-- make the union. I just write songs on my own, and if they're good, they make it into the band-- you just do them in a different way. [I] just try and find an outlet for everything. So yeah, there's a lot that we all share taste in. We're not just trying to make wildly different records from each other or trying to play music that people hate. I guess it's 'cause we've known each other for a long time and turned each other on to different bands for years, it's quite easy. The harder thing is to not fall back on the formula and the things you've done in the past, because you're so comfortable with each other. It's hard sometimes to say, "I want this new record to sound completely different from before. How can we make that the case?"

Pitchfork: So how do you do that?

AT: You just have to be hard on yourself, really. You just have to be aware that it's music you'd like to sound new to people, and you want it to sound new to yourself. Push yourself, really, but also not get too caught up in all that, 'cause sometimes a song will sound great even if it's not the most avant-garde thing in the world.

Dates:

04-25 Austin, TX - Antone's *
04-26 Dallas, TX - Granada Theater *
04-28 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-04 London, England - The Cock %
05-06 Middlesborough, England - World HQ %
05-06 Chicago, IL - Smart Bar $^
05-10 Glasgow, Scotland - The Arches %
05-11 Dublin, Ireland - Triniti Bill %
05-11 Newcastle, England - Empire %
05-12 Leicester, England - Sumo %
05-25 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Stiff Kitter %
05-25 Edinburgh, Scotland - Sugarbeat %
06-01 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Festival
06-02 Bologna, Italy - Bologna Rock Festival
06-11 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom
06-12 San Francisco, CA - Fillmore Auditorium
06-12 San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop %
06-13 Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theater
06-13 Los Angeles, CA - Beauty Bar %
06-15 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Festival
06-16 Lawrence, KS - Granada Theatre #
06-17 Denver, CO - Gothic Theatre
06-19 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore
06-19 Vancouver, British Columbia - Plaza %
06-20 Seattle, WA - Showbox
06-20 Seattle, WA - Moe Bar %
06-22 Glastonbury, England - Glastonbury Festival
06-30 Knebworth, England - Wild in the Country Festival
07-06 Hampshire, England - Antiworld Festival %
07-07 Balado, Scotland - T in the Park
07-12 Dour, Belgium - Dour Festival
07-21 London, England - Somerset House
07-22 London, England - Lovebox Weekender
07-28 Malmö, Sweden - Jeriko %

* with Tussle
# with Tortoise
% DJ set
$ Al Doyle DJ set
^ with James Murphy, Pat Mahoney