Hot Hot Heat

For the album that would become "Happiness LTD.", Hot Hot Heat began writing new material in January 2005, the very day they launched a globe-trotting tour to support Elevator. “We wanted this record to be written on the road,” says the band’s co-founder and frontman Steve Bays, “partly so the influences would be more varied, but also so we could test out the songs live before we recorded them. We wrote music everywhere — Spain, Japan, Australia, the U.K. — so each song has a different mood.”

While the new album retains Hot Hot Heat’s trademark playful melodies and witty wordplay, Bays says that what started out as a modest, live-sounding effort ending up being the band’s most adventurous and experimental album yet. “It’s difficult to describe its overall musical direction, but if I had to choose two adjectives I’d go with ‘big’ and ‘aggressive,’” he says. “As a band, we got most excited about the over-the-top, epic-sounding songs, so we kept pushing the tracks that way. The album has its fair share of seedy club songs, but they are dirtier and darker.”

Lyrically, the album is about struggling to hold on to optimism and innocence in the wake of having your heart crushed. “It covers the journey from bliss to misery and the attempt to get back to bliss, while acknowledging how exciting the ride can be in between,” Bays says. “There’s an arc to the record as a whole; it almost comes across like a film, musically and lyrically.”

Hot Hot Heat’s new album — the first with guitarist Luke Paquin, who joined the group after the departure of guitarist Dante DeCaro — was co-produced by the band, which also includes drummer Paul Hawley and bassist Dustin Hawthorne, and an array of top-notch producers including former Marvelous 3 frontman Butch Walker, legendary mixer Tim Palmer (U2, David Bowie, the Cure), and Rob Cavallo, known for his work with Green Day and My Chemical Romance amongst many others. “We were way more involved with the production on this record than ever before,” Bays says, “so it made sense to work with certain people on certain songs.”

"Happiness LTD." boasts a host of wonderfully unique songs. According to Bays, “’Outta Heart’ is the most non-Hot Hot Heat song we’ve ever done.” The song features falsetto vocals, Theremin, a full orchestra, and “a gang of girls singing backup.” Bays says the last song written for the album, “Harmonicas & Tambourines,” has lots of tricks - like four drum kits at once - that make it more than just a dance song. “It’s seedy and dark, but pretty,” he says.

“Like every album we’ve done, the new one feels drastically different than our previous ones,” Bays says. “We put a lot of emphasis on surprise this time around. There are lots of twists and turns and unpredictable arrangements and instrumentation choices — yet somehow it maintains an overall timelessness.”

Beginning as a noisy, synth-based combo in 1999, Victoria, British Colombia's Hot Hot Heat evolved into an aggressively catchy indie rock band two years later, when keyboardist Steve Bays took on the vocal duties, and guitarist Dante DeCaro joined their ranks. The group's new lineup -- which also featured founding members Paul Hawley on drums and Dustin Hawthorne on bass -- brought a newfound sense of melody and witty wordplay to their music, which they debuted on their 2002 EP Knock Knock Knock. The EP, along with tours with groups like the Walkmen and the Dismemberment Plan, paved the way for the full-length Make Up the Breakdown, which arrived in the fall of that year. An album of their earlier, noisier work, Scenes One Through Thirteen was also released on Ohev. The group rounded out a busy 2002 by signing to Warner Bros. shortly after Make Up the Breakdown's release. After touring for most of 2003, Hot Hot Heat spent the following year recording; that fall, DeCaro left the group. However, his work appeared on the resulting album Elevator, which Sire released in spring 2005. The album was nominated for a 2006 Juno Award, and that spring, the band returned to the studio to record their next album, working with producer Rob Cavallo (who has also worked with Green Day and My Chemical Romance). Happiness Ltd. was released in 2007. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide