With a career spanning 20 years, Hot Chip are making their way back to Australia with their 2019 album 'A Bath Full Of Ecstasy' to perform a mix of festival slots and a handful of their own headline shows.
Al Doyle, Hot Chip's guitarist and synthesiser player, says the band love coming to Australia. “We’ve been making our way down there for a long time; it still feels exotic and humbling that people down there want to hear us.”It’s no surprise the band has been asked to headline Farmer & The Owl with their decorated career, but Doyle explains headlining is not something they will ever get used to.
“It’s a relatively new experience for us; we’ve been headlining for only the last couple of records and it will be our first headline in Australia,” he says.
“It sort of feels like your own show with a bunch of support acts. It’s also amazing to think that the majority of crowds will be there to see you and are enthusiastic about your show.”
Hot Chip have been touring for the majority of their career, but Doyle says that life on the road will never get boring.
“It can never be the same as it was the first time ‘round; I distinctly remember quite clearly being on a tour bus and being very stoked. [But] we’ve done it so much now that I know this is where I belong; it’s what feels right to me, it’s where I feel comfortable.”
With their seventh studio album, 'A Bath Full of Ecstasy', released in June last year, Al says the record has been a success with fans and critics alike. “It’s gone down really well at live shows, we’ve had really good radio coverage, and people seem to be really familiar with the songs. We can’t ask for much more than that.
“It feels really good to have another album out. We’re always happy to play new stuff, especially live, because the other songs have been around for the best part of 20 years – it’s nice to have an injection of new materials, it really invigorates the performance.”
For the first time with any of their studio recordings, the band enlisted the help of outsiders with the production of 'A Bath Full Of Ecstasy': the late Philippe Zdar (Cassius, Phoenix) and Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Sampha).
When asked about what it was like having the help on the record, Doyle says it was a mix bag of emotions. “There were points where we were feeling protective of our process,” he says.
“It’s not that we needed help at a technical or even more artistic level, it was more to do with pushing us in a direction we couldn’t push ourselves [to] get us in a productively uncomfortable situation.
“The album is different in a very powerful, raw, and exciting sound that was a lot to do with them and we were very grateful [to have their input].”
And the future for Hot Chip is just as exciting with Doyle predicting they’ll soon be working on another record. “We haven’t gone away [from the public’s perspective] so far; there is no end of the crystal ball just yet.”
Hot Chip 2020 Tour Dates
Sun 1 Mar - Kambri (Canberra)Wed 4 Mar - The Fortitude Music Hall (Brisbane)
Fri 6 Mar - Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
Sat 7 Mar - Forum Melbourne - sold out
Sun 8 Mar - Golden Plains Festival (Meredith, VIC)
