Features

 

 

Hot Hot Heat in the hot seat

September 18, Commodore Ballroom

Joseph Paling

Vie might be the capital of
British Columbia, but it ain’t no city.
Isolated on the bottom corner of
Vancouver Island, a little below the 49"
parallel, Victoria is a place that, by a
mere fluke of history, is not part of the
United States. Despite its isolation and
unique history, some amazing bands
have come from Victoria and other parts
of the island, especially in the punk rock
scene. Dayglo Abortions and No Means
No are two bands hailing from the
island with long and illustrious careers.
Other (albeit more) recent acts like the
Unicorns, Islands, and Three Inches of
Blood also have their roots there. The
Evaporators even made special mention
of the island on their most recent record,
Ripple Rock.

But this is not a story about
Vancouver Island—this is the story of
the biggest band to come from the
island: Hot Hot Heat.

The band comes from Victoria, but
listening to them you wouldn’t know it.
They basically play the sounds of the
late 70s and early 80s new wave, but
with an updated modern twist, as if
Queens of the Stone Age crashed into
Duran Duran.

Currently, a lot of big bands are doing
the new wave thing, the Killers and
Interpol being two of the most well-
known examples. Alongside the
remnants of the Garage Rock revival —
where only the White Stripes seem to be
left standing—the past and the present
seem to be making love in some kind of
bizarre anachronism, which would be
humorous if it were not for one thing:
Hot Hot Heat and these other groups are
really fuckin’ good.

Now, although it is a long process to
get an interview through a record label
like Warner Brothers, I had the
opportunity to speak with Steve Bays,
the lead singer of Hot Hot Heat, a
couple weeks ago about the past,
present, and future of his BC band.

Hot Hot Heat was not always playing
the kind of music they are now. At one
point they had a different singer, no
guitarist, and played a form of punk
rock often described as no wave. Bays
hid in the background while their old
singer, Matty Marnik, who could sing
only one note (but sang it quite well),
took centre stage. Marnik had been in
bands with drummer, Paul Hawley,
before, including a group called Detroit
Deathwatch, which I first saw at a small
local hall in the rural village of Merville
on the island. Shows happened in

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Merville because it was a tiny hamlet
located between Campbell River and
the Comox Valley: a short drive for
people from either place, despite being
in, pardon the song reference, the
“Middle of Nowhere.”

Detroit Deathwatch eventually
withered away, but this same group of
indie kids quickly met up with more
musicians. Bays talks about how he was
coaxed into playing keys with Matty
and Paul.

“T was really against it, but I did it

this cage. Basically, you’re just trapped
on this little island which has all these
different social norms and social rules.
It’s very self-contained.”

Although still young, Hot Hot Heat
became a big fish in a small pond,
releasing several records for the
Vancouver-based indie label Ache
Records, and touring most of Western
Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

Eventually, Marnik and the band
parted ways. This separation has been
the subject of much speculation, but the

“While they are still a relative upstart
band in Canada, they have made the
cover of magazines in Britain with
headlines that read along the lines of
‘Bigger than Radiohead’”

anyway. I hated playing keyboards for
years,” he recalls. “I played piano since
I was eight, but that was in my other
life. I was in various improv and jazz
groups on the side, and had never really
merged the two worlds before. I wanted
to do the DIY punk rock thing. I liked
playing heavy drums.”

Hot Hot Heat came from what was, at
the time, a vibrant music scene. Bays
was even promoting all-ages shows
with fellow indie star, Cam Pipes (one
of the lead singers from Three Inches of
Blood).

“We'd do up to three or four shows a
month for a couple years,” said Bays.
“Victoria was so caged; it meant a lot to
us had to do as much as possible within

band has maintained that it was
amicable. Recent news supports this, as
Marnik has been spotted in the audience
at the band’s shows in Vancouver and
Victoria. Regardless, the band was in
the position that, in order for it to move
on, it needed to make its sound more
dynamic. Bays could sing and
understood melody: Marnik was out,
Bays was in. Then, the band got a guitar
player, and changed their sound
completely.

Bays summed it up succinctly: “We
started in 1999, and I started singing in
2001.”

Interviews from the era seemed to
focus very heavily on this sudden
change. Most music journalists were
demanding an explanation as to why the
band kept their name while changing

their sound. In fact, a lot of people were
really surprised and perplexed by the
transformation. Some people quit
paying attention to the band
immediately.

At the same time, the change quickly
got them a much larger fan base. Very
early on, they became heard in the most
unlikely of places for a Vancouver
Island band, quickly landing a record
contract and getting a gig in Hawaii.

“That was a total trip for us,” Bays
exclaims. “It was done by a fan of the
band who paid our way for us to play.
We played a couple club shows and one
bar show. It was right when we signed
to Sub Pop, and it was really exciting!”

Despite that by the late 90s Sub Pop
had lost its monopoly on the music
scene, the band were quick to sign with
them. Bays explains why they went
with the label and with Jack Endino as
producer for their first album.

“We were very green to everything,
growing up on the Island,” Bays admits.
“Oh, we like Sub Pop, because they put
out Nirvana, and we like Jack Endino.”
(Jack Endino being the man who
recorded Nirvana’s first record, along
with the Black Halos and the Murder
City Devils’ better produced records.)
Bays maintains that this choice was a
stubbornness beyond the rational.

“We really didn’t know any producers
other than him, and Sub Pop was like,
“Are you sure you want to record with
him, we got all these great people you
can work with,’ and we were like, ‘No,
we want to work with Jack Endino at
Mushroom [Studios in Vancouver],’”
said Bays.

Their album, Make Up the