Hot Hot Heat - Bandages - Stream Full video

The hotly tipped Canadian funk punk band Hot Hot Heat will release their debut single ‘Bandages’ on March 24th. The single, described by NME as “the best rock song you can dance to since Hotel Yorba” has already caused tongues to wag from airplay on Radio 1 and XFM where it recently won the listener vote on the music:response chart.

At this early stage the band have been favourably compared to The Clash, The Cure, XTC and Talking Heads. Kerrang! have tipped them as a ‘Face Of 2003’ declaring “it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility to see Hot Hot Heat nestling up alongside the Strokes, the hives and their skinny-hipped retro-rock brothers in arms in the upper reaches of the charts over the next 12 months” .

The band originate from Victoria at the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Hot Hot Heat naturally made a lot of noise early on – punks with synthesisers instead of guitars in what Steve Bays describes as a ‘technical synth-pop math-rock band’.

When that became more constraining than liberating they changed. Their singer left, Dante DeCaro was recruited on guitar and the microphone pressed into the hands of keyboardist Bays. Emphasis changed, melody came to the fore, people danced and it was, above all else, fun.

In April 2002, Sub Pop released Hot Hot Heat’s “Knock Knock Knock” EP: 5 songs in 16 minutes, produced in part by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla. The band toured, playing shows with Les Savy Fav, Radio 4 and Pretty Girls Make Graves. And, similarly disaffected youth, bored to tears with the arms-crossed prim restraint of perhaps the dullest generation ever to grace North American rock clubs, came out in droves with their dancing shoes on.

In May 2002, Hot Hot Heat headed into Vancouver’s Mushroom Studios to record a new album with the legendary Jack Endino (“Bleach” Nirvana). The result, “Make Up The Breakdown” (released here March 24th) replicates the breathless excitement of the band’s live show; 10 tracks of complex, rhythmic art-punk. “Bandages” is the first fruits of this session, an art-rock new-wave anthem with a mad bit of reggae stuck in the middle.

More than New Wave revivalists with an innate talent for catchy songs, Hot Hot Heat blend angular post-punk with danceable pop, making a good case for punks to get on the good foot.

Steve Bays – Vocals, Keyboards
Dante DeCaro – Guitar
Paul Hawley – Drums
Dustin Hawthorne – Bass