The Hives

0:13We got the guys from the hives here, new record, Lex Hives, love it. The opening track, come on. You guys must be opening the shows with that. That's like the perfect concert opener. You're right. It was a really weird song to put like number seven on the album too. So we figured it had to be number one. Yeah. Only one word? Essentially though. It's amazing. It's amazing how to... Sim come on. I hope you can be like, come on. I didn't even call it one word but it's not grammatically correct. That's true. You could say it's one but it's not. You're right. I'm wrong. This record was supposed to just be you guys do it everything right? And then some quote, some Zen quote came about and that changed it all? Oh, yeah. I mean, basically it started with we were going to do everything ourselves because it felt

1:01like a fun thing to do. Like, let's build guitars and amps. Let's build the studio, then recording it, then release the album, then promote it. Let's do everything ourselves like DIY to the nth degree. But then we read a quote somewhere that was like a Zen quote that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you got to start with inventing the universe. So then it sort of feels kind of hopeless. So we used our same old guitars and got a studio that already existed. How do you capture that live raw energy on record? Because I find a lot of young bands just that's the one thing it's missing. You have to be able to play it that way.

1:49Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, basically what we do to capture the live energy of the live show is actually play the live show in the studio. We set up like it will be a show and we jump around and scream and sweat and that's how you do it. And everybody plays at the same time. And then when you hear, you know, you go back in the controller and listen to it and it's basically done. Oh, there you have it. Yeah, you can make it sound live by one guy playing it individually and then adding it together later. You're going to have to get enough mics to capture it all at one go. Where are you going with the pyro and the lights and the costumes and everything or is it just we don't really have we don't really have pyro on stage either. But the lights are I should say the lights. Not that either. It's mainly just us jumping around in in our get up in our stage where where did that this

2:39whole thing you guys are still white and black. How come it's like a Beatles thing almost. I have the uniforms. I think the uniforms came about because we were when we formed we were really sick of bands kind of not making the show of anything. Just showing up and you know in their street clothes and playing and being all the apologetic about it which was like the style in the 90s. So we figured it was way more fun to because it's a big deal like standing on stage and getting people pay money to see you and there's like lights going off and everything. You can't downplay it. It's too late for that. Like then you ought to be playing in a basement. So in order to provoke punk rockers also I think we started dressing up, started dressing really nice and smartly but playing punk rock.

3:31You guys have been playing together forever right? You've never have you ever played with other musicians? You've played with each other since you were like young kids right? Yeah that's right. Have you ever played with anyone else? No one again but not really. Not really professionally but it must be nice. Twenty years next year. Twenty years next year. You guys are you look my age. Twenty years you've been playing since you were like twelve thirteen. That's crazy. Yeah we've got if we keep doing it for two more years we beat the Ramones for longevity which is pretty amazing. So we can't quit. Yeah we've got to keep going in a couple of years. We've got to at least beat the Ramones. The record kind of does sound. Is that an influence for you guys? I hear Ramones in your music. Yeah we really like the Ramones. I mean anytime people are going to go down and down and down and down and down and down

4:17and down and down and down and down and down and down. Even the slow song on the record has got that. They invented what? No no no no no they almost invented that. Like super simple like just. We do something called five questions. Five quick questions. One more dancers. Road or studio? Road. Road. Landon or McCartney? Either. It's not one word. Okay all right all right we'll switch it up to Zapplin or Sabbath? Sabbath. Okay I go Sabbath. When you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics, melody or rhythm? Rhythm.

5:02Rhythm yeah that's the only thing that matters. If you don't have rhythm there's no point in having melody. When song you've written you're most proud of. I really like Main Offender. It's a song we made you know early on and it's you know kind of still. Yeah we'd make me very happy every night. I played. You played every night and it happens in every show? Yeah. We played it every night since we first wrote it I think. So yeah I'll just agree today. In one word the hives. Great. That's the first thing I think about. Nice. Greatness.