I heard Olympia alternative band,
Hot Hoodoo, for the first time while I was working the kitchen at the 4th Ave Tav. They reminded me of the Afghan Wigs, Mudhoney, Nirvana, and a lot more grungy nineties bands. When I saw them heading away for the night. I excitedly stopped them to ask if I could get an interview. I was super stoked when they agreed and I went home to think about what the hell I should ask these guys.
In preparation, I listened to the demos they have up on their
Reverb Nation page. At first, I found myself wondering if I had found the right page. This band sounded a bit more ethereal, more trippy, and definitely more jazz-influenced. It was reminiscent of Pink Floyd and some stuff Josh Holme did for the desert sessions. Could it be the same guys? The track "Mother Liquor" brought to more familiar ground and I managed to assure myself these were the same guys I had seen days earlier.
So what now? All my interest was about that live show. This wasn't what I bargained for. I mean, I liked what I was hearing, but now I'm wondering what was more indicative of their sound. Who Hot Hoodoo really are. I decided to just ask the standard questions and see where we took it. I was glad to find out, those guys really didn't find the recordings to be a good representation of their sound either.
I met with Hot Hoodoo at the Gyro Spot, downtown. I've never interviewed anyone before this, despite being on the other side of the questions more than once. If I were to include the transcript, or the actual recording, you'd all get to see that I, as usual, got ahead of myself and talked a lot. Maybe too much. Probably more than the guys in the band. I was tired, kinda high, and really excited to finally sit down with some musicians and share some point of view. As such, I found it hard to stay focused and get what I came for. That being said, I feel like I got some good stuff out of these guys. Here's the interview without all the weird in-between bits, and Paulie stories:
Me: How long have you guys been playing together?
Grant: We've been a band for... What is this? The third year?
Tyson: I'd say like two years and three months, probably. So, a little over two years, yeah.
Me: How'd you guys end up working together?
Grant: Tyson and I went to high school together. We jammed. Just the two of us.
Tyson: We've been jamming since we were pretty young, and then we met Josh through another guitarist that used to be in our band. We used to be a four piece.
Me: What are your major influences? I was listening to the stuff you've got up on Reverb today, and... to me, I heard some Josh Holme stuff. Like, maybe a little Queens of the Stone Age, maybe?
(Confused looks from all three members of Hot Hoodoo.)
Me: I don't know... Maybe that's just me...
Grant: Yeah, it seems like everyone who listens to it has a different impression.
Me: ..but you seem to have a little bit of a late 90's Seattle vibe in there.
Grant: Yeah, that's kinda what holds it together, but...
Tyson: Our style has kinda changed a little since we did those recordings. We're a little funkier now.
Grant: Stuff's changed, and those recordings didn't exactly sound like us.
Tyson: I remember when we recorded them, we recorded them very slow. Not a lot of energy. We're actually going in tomorrow. Starting our new album.
Me: Yeah. You guys are recording at South Sound Sound, right?
Tyson: Yeah.
Me: I recorded with that guy... [long, unnecessary story about my recording experience, why Jason Suko is awesome, and how other people I know had good experiences there.] You made the right choice.
Grants: Seems like a lot of bands, locally, are going to him too.
Tyson: Yeah, it seems like the big choice.
Me: We found him by accident. Just searched online, "recording studios in the Olympia area."
Grant: (Points at Tyson) Isn't that what you did?
Tyson: Yeah. (laughs)
Me: So, what can you tell me about that new album? I read somewhere... Is it supposed to be a concept album?
All: Yeah
Tyson: It's a concept album. It's uh...
Grant: Hopefully adding little tid-bits that aren't in our live set.
Tyson: We're gonna do more percussion work in the album than we do live. Add shakers. A lot of shaker work. Probably some bongo stuff, and...
Drums: There's a whole thing that you're supposed to do the album as you are live. Then it's like... you can make it so much cooler if you add all this crazy stuff to it.
Tyson: We want this album to be really rhythm heavy.
Grant: A lot of my favorite albums definitely have added stuff in there.
Tyson: The old psychedelic albums with all sorts of crazy stuff going on in them.
Me: You guys into Pink Floyd at all?
Grant: Yeah.
Tyson: I like a lot of Pink Floyd.
Me: I heard a lot of Pink Floyd in the guitar.
Tyson: I am a pretty big fan of Pink Floyd. So...
Me: Is there any other psychedelic stuff that heavily influences you?
Grant: (Points at Tyson) Hendrix for you, for sure.
Tyson: I like Hendrix. All that odd ball stuff. Fuzzy Duck.
Grant: It seems like we're both pretty into the psychedelic rock. Hendrix, the Doors, Cream.
Me: Do you guys have a mission statement as a band? Any political statement?
Tyson: We don't have a political statement yet. We just want to play as often as we can. Get as many people to listen to it as possible, I guess.
Me: What are your goals? Are you trying to make this a career?
Tyson: Try...
Me: Get a couple tours under your belt?
Tyson: Yeah. We're actually working on a tour this summer. Washington, Oregon, and California tour.
Grant: We'll try that and see what happens.
Tyson: We're starting to branch out a little more. Up until now we've only really been playing Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle.
Me: Have you guys done anything to promote your music outside of Washington?
Tyson: Not really. At all.
Grant: We've only had that little demo that we weren't super impressed with.
Tyson: We're waiting for this new album to come out and then we're really going to start pushin'. Pushin' everywhere.
Me: So I guess the obvious question... If you could play with any artist or band, living or dead, who would it be?
Grant: The band I'm really into is Kingston Wall. They're from Finland. They were in the 90's. Like, psychedelic rock.
Tyson: They are pretty cool. I'm gonna say Blind Melon. Yeah... I'm going with that.
Grant: Blind Melon? Interesting choice.
Josh: Love and Rockets?
Tyson: Yeah... Don't say "the Love Rockets."
Josh: Well, I'm super into punk rock music. So... I don't know though. I just like bands that have tons of energy.
Me: So like, Bad Brains then?
Josh: Bad Brains is a good band!
Me: Back flips on stage.
Grant: That's what you need to do, Josh. Back flips on stage. It will improve our stage-presence exponentially.
Me: So what are everyone's names and what do you play? I should have started there, and I totally skipped it.
Tyson: I'm Tyson. I play the guitar.
Josh: I'm Josh, on bass.
Grant: Grant on drums.
Me: I think I have everything I need. Wait... do you guys have a time you hope the new album will come out?
Tyson: Shooting for early May.
Me: Do you guys already have your art work planned out? Order of Songs?
Grant: We have our order of songs. That's where we're really struggling. Our album art.
Tyson: We have ideas, but...
Me: Are you going to get an artist to do it? Are you guys artistically inclined? You gonna do it yourselves?
Grant: We're not terribly artistically inclined, and we don't really know anyone that's a good artist.
Me: I know some artists who have done album art. Maybe I could put the word out.
Grant: That would be cool. We were thinking that cool, psychedelic, Israeli Gears type of album cover would be awesome, but none of us has the aptitude at it.
Me: Maybe we can put that up in the interview and see if anyone wants to get back to you.
Tyson: Do it. Yeah.
Grant: Yes, because if we're in charge of the art it would turn out pretty questionable.
Me: How are you planning on releasing it?
Tyson: We're going to do CDs and digital.
Me: Have you ever thought about pressing any vinyl?
Tyson: Yeah. It's a little more expensive.
[I give a long spiel on why selling vinyl is better, and how record players are becoming common place again. (Post comments about what a hipster I am below)]
Me: Do you guys have any cool shows coming up?
Tyson: We're playing Jack Fest at the Midnight Sun on the 11th [of April].
That's where I stopped the tape. We bantered a bit more, Tyson dropped the adage, "Nothing kills the mood like a metronome" in reference to not using one on the new album, and we parted ways. I thought of several questions on the way back to my car.
All in all, I was nervous, but I had a great time and I feel like I got to know Hot Hoodoo a lot better. If you haven't seen them yet, be sure to find them on Facebook and Reverb Nation, to keep track of when they're playing and where. It's definitely worth your time. I, for one, can't wait for the new album.
