“We throw away a whole lot of stuff that most likely can be form of commercially profitable, as a result of we predict it doesn’t really feel proper,” says The Hives‘ Pelle Almqvist with the identical cavalier bravado that you just see from him on stage. “We give it to different individuals like, ‘This music has an excessive amount of of a refrain, fuck that! Throw away all of your hits after which see how fucking good your file is!”
His fellow punk-as-fuck bandmate guitarist Nicholaus Arson agrees: “We’re higher than that! That’s the way you keep a perpetual teenager. You’ve gotta make unhealthy choices on a regular basis!”
We meet the Swedish storage rock veterans of their dressing room at London’s Emirates Stadium. They’re hours away from opening for Arctic Monkeys on their big stadium tour for ‘The Car‘, and it’s simply a few days since we noticed them tear the roof off the way more humble 600-capacity The Garage in Islington – their first return to the venue in 22 years. “It was a really sweaty affair, as they are usually,” recollects Almqvist. “It’s an excessive amount of firepower for a venue that small. It’s nearly just like the core nuclear reactor is over-heating.”
Still, as you will have witnessed in the event you have been amongst the ma-hoo-sive crowd they pulled to The Other Stage at Glastonbury 2023, storage rock on a stadium scale is The Hives’ grand one-size-fits-all strategy to taking part in. “It’s the one factor we all know the right way to do,” says the frontman along with his world-renowned humility. “Luckily, it’s a fairly good factor to know. This tour is oscillating wildly between 70,000 individuals and 700. It’s a selected set of circumstances, however fortunately we’re fairly good at each.”
The ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’ hitmakers are actually on hearth in the intervening time, and so they’ve loads of motive to be. Their exhibits are explosive, there’s a renewed starvation for the band, and so they’re about to drop their first album in 11 years with ‘The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons‘ (due August 11) – named in honour of the lack of their (sure, fictitious) founder and mentor who handed in mysterious circumstances.
We sat down with The Hives to unravel this, in addition to discuss inspiring the Monkeys and protecting the rock’n’roll flame alive.
What are you able to inform us about touring with Arctic Monkeys? Drummer Matt Helders informed us you have been certainly one of their first actual inspirations…
Pelle Almqvist: “They informed us that the primary week or month that they began the band, they noticed The Hives and The Strokes and that was the factor that actually began it off for them. We toured with them in South America about 10 years in the past and had a good time, so I’m actually glad they wished us again. It’s a very nice tour to be on; it’s actually enjoyable. I feel Arctic Monkeys are fucking wonderful. They’re the one good actually standard band – and that’s not straightforward to do.”
In the UK, it appears pure for a band like Monkeys to be in a venue like this. Does the idea of ‘stadium rock’ change world wide?
Pelle: “I suppose there’s a sure kind of particular person that may solely go to issues in a really large place. That’s a part of the expertise; they possibly don’t like The Rolling Stones that a lot however they go and see the present as a result of it’s a spectacle with lots of people. AC/DC, hats off, they’re the world’s greatest band and so they’re a stadium band.
“It’s nearly being massively standard and you then determine it out. It’s exhausting to start out a stadium band – it’s important to steadily turn out to be one.”
There’s gotta be some huge cash in that concept…
Pelle: “There’s some huge cash in it when you’ve got a present that’s minimal.”
Nicholaus Arson: “The pay-to-play stadium circuit… that’s fairly large.”
Pelle: “Yeah, that’s costly – simply lease it and make it simply guestlist.”
Nicholaus: “What we’re right here at these exhibits is simply followers. They’re music followers. We toured with AC/DC, and that’s nearly three generations [of fans] by now.”
Have you discovered that too? There appears to have been a renewed curiosity in The Hives…
Pelle: “It’s true for all bands like AC/DC or Iron Maiden – while you’ve been round for some time it’s important to choose up children. We had a whole lot of bands that we favored or have been mates with and they might by no means get new followers. It would simply be the identical ones with a number of dropped off and those who remained cared a bit of bit much less.”
Nicholaus: “Your band and music dies alongside together with your followers. A band that pulls new followers will stay on without end. You gotta have some form of regrowth. The exhibits and the crowds are at all times re-energised by youthful followers. If we’re projecting power, they’ll react to that.”
Pelle: “There are a whole lot of teenage women, that are nice for a rock crowd as a result of they’re the loudest factor on the planet – 50,000 teenage women is such a loud sound.”
Nicholaus: “It’s solely rivalled by Formula One racing, which is tremendous fucking loud.”
There’s additionally been much more love for that scene you got here from. Since your final file we’ve had the e book and movie of Meet Me In The Bathroom, and the phenomenon of indie sleaze. Have you felt the main target shift again to you during the last 5 years, and this starvation for a extra primal rock?
Pelle: “We discover, however then stuff simply occurs round us. It’s cool, I suppose! You at all times hear, ‘Rock is again, rock is useless, rock is that this, rock is that’. It’s humorous that it’s now thought of a ‘historic occasion’ and all that shit. Meet Me In The Bathroom is principally a historical past e book about shit I did once I was an grownup! I feel that’s cool, and it was cool when it occurred.
“For us in the course of it, it was exhausting to grasp how cool it was till after the very fact. You have to recollect how fucking horrible it was earlier than that.”
Nicholaus: “We by no means look again or reminisce about something, actually. We as soon as tried to rejoice our tenth anniversary however we missed it by a 12 months. That’s the one time we tried to look again, in any other case we’ve been always transferring forwards – or a minimum of making an attempt to make new data, despite the fact that it’s been a lame-ass scenario during the last 10 years or so.”
You talked about how shit it was earlier than, however your first album got here out in 1997 – so that you pre-date the indie explosion…
Pelle: “That’s the place you’re proper. That stuff, the ‘storage rock revival’ factor, was not the beginning for us. We’d been round and performed with hardcore bands, we performed with indie-pop bands, we’d play something simply to get a present. What we have been doing was separate to all of it, then one thing occurred and we have been like, ‘This stuff’s really good’ – The Strokes, The White Stripes, all of it. It was cool however for us it already existed earlier than it obtained standard.”
You guys are at all times writing your individual historical past anyway. You may say that each Hives file seems like a best hits file…
Pelle: “Thank you very a lot – that’s the nicest factor the NME has ever stated about us!”
Nicholaus: “That’s gotta be a 5 out of 5!”
Pelle: “Maybe a best hits by a very shitty band! Even in the event that they’re all shit, then a minimum of they’re getting higher! But thanks, possibly that’s why this one took us 10 years…”
Yes, it’s been 11 years since final album ‘Lex Hives’ – what on earth have you ever been doing?
Pelle: “Not sufficient! Flailing wildly at one another, making an attempt to make one thing occur. And lacking Randy Fitzsimmons, and subsequently lacking songs. You can’t make a best hits with out the songs. We’ve been taking part in fucking phenomenally, however there’s nothing to play!”
Nicholaus: “Since we couldn’t make data, we have been nonetheless touring to a good extent so we may fake we have been busy doing one thing essential, which I suppose we have been, however not as essential as making new data. That’s essential. If you’re going to really feel such as you’re a band who’s doing shit, you’ve gotta make data.”
Pelle: “It didn’t really feel good. We weren’t followers of the scenario. If you’re a fan of The Hives and also you have been offended at us, we have been additionally offended! We hope it by no means occurs once more.”
What are you able to inform us about when issues modified?
Pelle: “It was about discovering the songs. When we obtained the songs via this mess of Randy Fitzsimmons dying and selected what to do, it simply 4 or 5 weeks of studio time after which a 12 months of ending it.”
Nicholaus: “It was fairly fast to the purpose the place it was nearly surreal and we have been like, ‘This is definitely changing into a file’. The items fell into place.”
Pelle: “Back to the ‘best hits’ factor; we’ve at all times been of the opinion that there’s a whole lot of fucking nice rock music on the market. In order to make a file to make sense then it’s important to add to that. It’s exhausting to only jam and do one thing together with your left hand after which suppose that it’s match for public consumption.”
One factor that we hear too typically in interviews is, ‘We make music for ourselves and if another person likes it, then that’s a bonus’. Do they actually imply that?
Pelle: “Well don’t put it out! Just hearken to your individual file if it’s so fucking enjoyable!”
Nicholaus: “For us, it’s important to do it to a degree the place you prefer it. If you’re making an attempt to do one thing that may please different individuals then it’ll be tremendous exhausting in any other case.”
The Hives at all times seem to be the quintessential social gathering band. If you don’t exist for an excellent time, then what’s the MO?
Pelle: “Sometimes it’s not an excellent time making one thing that seems like an excellent time. Our factor isn’t the unique rock’n’roll in that model of music, however it’s that feeling: simply making your mind explode with endorphins.”
Nicholaus: “Like being electrocuted, it’s purported to be a bodily response. It’s not tears of unhappiness.”
Pelle: “It’s not music that’s about how we’re as individuals or me baring my soul about my divorce. Some individuals make artwork to grasp themselves higher, however the factor about The Hives is that we predict this music must exist. It’s purposeful: partying, getting individuals to scream and soar up and down at exhibits, that endorphin rush is out life’s goal.”
Pelle, you latterly stated that “rock’n’roll is a perpetual teenager”…
Pelle: “Yes, I feel it ought to be. There’s nothing extra miserable than grownup rock music. ‘Oh nice! You took away the one factor about it that was enjoyable! Now it’s rock with out power!’ I actually like Dire Straits, that’s my picture of an grownup rock scenario, however I don’t suppose that’s what we ought to be doing.”
Nicholaus: “There needs to be some unhealthy decisions in there. It needs to be a child making an attempt to determine shit out, making an attempt to have enjoyable, or simply reacting to stuff.”
Pelle: “Plenty of power however no course – that’s rock’n’roll!”
You’ve nonetheless made a fairly various file, although. What would you say you have been making an attempt to seize on this album?
Nicholaus: “Just The Hives’ power. Whenever we play these songs, I really feel like we’re trade leaders within the discipline. Fast-paced, energetic, rock’n’roll and punk. It’s an excellent feeling, and from having been away for therefore lengthy, it was what we ended up doing from sheer pleasure. You need to come again with a bang, you don’t need to come again with ‘grownup rock’.”
Pelle: “Imagine ‘The Hives have been away from 10 years and now they’ve matured’. It was essential to go the other approach. This needs to be fucking silly and infantile, even worse than we’ve been earlier than! The punk songs on this album are nearly worse than our first file. ‘The Bomb’ and ‘Trapdoor Solution’ are nearly like us reaching the ceiling of it.
“‘What Did I Ever Do To You’ was nearly born out of the frustration of not making a Hives album. We purchased this factor out of The Yellow Pages which was a prototype this man made from an organ linked to a guitar linked to a vocal mic. It was a one-man band contraption and fucking ridiculous. The patent got here with it, and that music again out making an attempt to make some ‘different’ form of music.”
Nicholaus: “Whenever we wrote one thing on that and it sounded cool, we thought it gave the impression of a pop-py model of the band Sucide. Whether it’s The Stooges, Kraftwerk or early hip-hop, what it has in widespread is a beat and somebody singing excessive of it for 2 or three minutes.”
Pelle: “Plenty of the music we like could be very minimalist, and that’s so exhausting to do. Ever line needs to be right for it to work.”
For these not within the know, what are you able to inform us about Randy Fitzsimmons and the shadow that he’s forged over the whole lot that you just’ve executed?
Nicholaus: “It’s greater than a shadow, he was just like the core of our band. He was essential to us even assembly one another within the first place. Some individuals may say ‘mentor’, and I suppose that’s true as properly, however he was additionally simply one other member of the band, actually.”
Pelle: “And one with very, very clear opinions, which was good. Having somebody with a producer mentality was useful.”
Nicholaus: “And he wrote all of the songs, which was essential.”
And you misplaced him in fairly horrific circumstances?
Nicholaus: “We don’t know the circumstances, we simply know that he was gone. We noticed an obituary for him, however we don’t even know if he’s useless or not. We know that there was a grave, we dug up the grave and he was not in it. Instead there have been tapes and fits. I don’t need to name it an indication of life, however it’s positively somebody faking their very own dying. Someone has an excellent sense of humour, aside from the truth that he is perhaps useless! If it’s true, it’s fucking unhappy, however at this level it feels fairly first rate.”
If Randy doesn’t reappear or resurrect, have you considered what you’re going to do subsequent with out him?
Pelle: “Not wait one other 10 years.”
Nicholaus: “You by no means know. Every Hives file nearly feels just like the final we’re going to make, simply because a lot work goes into it. Then we simply go off touring like loopy, however that’s the one approach we all know the right way to do it.”
Also, Pelle – how’s your head recovering? You vs the microphone, who gained?
Pelle: “We’re each nonetheless right here! I used to be swinging the mic, then Nicholaus stepped on the cable. I’m unsure if it was intentional or not. As a complete expertise, I’d say that it’s optimistic. People appear to like the truth that I bled a bit of. I’ll gladly give them that if it helps. Way worse issues have occurred.”
Such as?
Pelle: “I as soon as fell off stage in Switzerland, handed out, then completed the present. It offers you an opportunity to indicate that you just don’t give a fuck and nothing can cease you. I really recognize the problem. Getting harm on stage is like, ‘This is my alternative to not give a fucking fuck about it and simply do it anyway’.”
Nicholaus: “That’s what makes a rock band actual to you anyway. If Dave Grohl falls off stage and comes again and finishes the present with a damaged leg or if persons are throwing beers and so they hold taking part in, that’s what rock bands ought to be doing.”
Are The Hives gonna be like The Rolling Stones and simply hold going till you keel over on stage or flip to mud?
Pelle: “I can consider worse issues. I’ve at all times thought that it’s a query of creating one good album after which break up up or simply hold going without end. Those are the one two dignified methods. You’re both Sex Pistols or The Rolling Stones.”
Nicholaus: “We don’t need to be a novelty act going round taking part in our outdated data. You wanna make nice data that are to par with what you’ve put out within the par. You need to beat the 5 out of fives.”
The Hives launch ‘The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons’ on August 11, earlier than a 2024 UK and Ireland tour. Visit right here for tickets and extra info.
