HotWax Discuss Their Roasting Recording ‘Hot Shock’

For the sound that they possess, Hot Shock is an ideal title for HotWax’s debut album. The British group features lots of vintage punk rock spirit and attitude, and that’s laced throughout this debut full-length. The album was released just last month via Marathon Artists. They tried to make a tight, potent-sounding record designed to be played in front of a crowd. They feel that they shine brightest in a live setting, and they wanted to capture that with this record. That’s why a part of Hot Shock was recorded live in front of a crowd at London’s RAK Studios. Recording in that environment helped create the flair and energy that you hear on the album.

Since they first emerged, HotWax has taken a very hard-work approach to how they conduct themselves. They began self-releasing singles in 2020 before releasing their first EP, A Thousand Times, in spring of 2023. They quickly followed that up with the release of Invite Me, Kindly later the same year. Singer and guitarist Tallulah Sim-Savage met bassist Lola Sam when they were in high school in Hastings, England. They were in music class together, and the teacher paired them in the same group. They then met drummer Alfie Sayers at a music college in Brighton and formed HotWax in 2021.

Today, we are joined by HotWax to learn more about the band, their background, and the recording of Hot Shock.

What is the story behind your name, HotWax?

Hotwax: “We named our band after the song ‘Hotwax’ on Beck’s album Odelay. When we first started HotWax, we used to play our shows pretty much improvised and would love merging genres, and we had a much more psychedelic sound. We love the way he mixes genres and production-wise how some sounds are so lofi and janky and some thick and silky.”

Who are your biggest influences?

“An all-time big influence for us is Yeah Yeah Yeahs, one of the first bands that got me into guitar music. As a three-piece, they are so influential to us and Karen O as a frontwoman had a big impact on me growing up. Her striking, powerful stage presence and complete commitment to the shows are so important to me. Other bands who have had a big influence are Ty Segall, The Breeders, PJ Harvey, Beck, Autolux, and Pond. We all listen to different music from one another, though, Alfie listens to a lot of jazz and drum and bass. I’d say ’90s bands and grunge bring us together.”

HOTWAX ‘Hot Shock’ album artwork

Tell us about your Hot Shock. What was your experience of making it? What went on behind the scenes?

“We wrote Hot Shock in snippets of time between multiple tours and an absolutely packed festival season. Any periods of time at home we would be almost frantically writing ideas for the album, it was all new material but it all came together in the end. This definitely had an impact on how the album sounds, really in the moment and a real marker of that point in our lives, high emotions, fast-paced, poignant, and careless.”

What is your writing process like?

“Our writing always starts with either me or Lola writing a chord progression or a riff, always the music first, we show one another and then build the song from there. I write all the lyrics and Lola has a set up in her bedroom where she evolves these ideas into demos. This is pretty much how our process has been throughout the band, sometimes changing or differing, and I think to change up our sound we will try different methods to keep things new.”

HotWax interview. photo courtesy of artist

Do you have any touring plans in support of the new record?

“We are doing an in-store tour around the UK which is something we have never done, playing the album and signing our new record then we have another UK and EU tour after! Headline tours are something we haven’t really done much of before, we’re so used to being the support, so I think it’s going to feel quite different. It’s going to be a crazy feeling seeing people turning up just to see us, I think very rewarding. I cannot wait to get back on the road. When we are at home I lose my sense of self a bit.

“One of our favourite venues we ever played in Madrid on tour with Deap Valley.”

If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only take three albums with you for eternity (assuming there was a solar-powered CD player), what would they be?

“Autolox, Future Perfect, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell, and Radiohead, The Bends.”

What has been the most memorable moment of your career so far?

“I would say touring America. It was one of our first proper tours, we were supporting Royal Blood in the UK and then came with them and played all around the West Coast, so not only was it extremely exciting to be on tour with a big band for a long time but also our minds were blown by America. Before we started touring as a band we had barely travelled around the UK and now the band has brought us to all these amazing places, we really felt we went down well in America and enjoyed meeting everyone so much after the shows. It was so surreal for us, the vastness of everything, we didn’t want to fall asleep in the van because we just wanted to stare out the window on the long drives. I really hope we come back soon.”

When recording your latest batch of tunes, did anything strange, wonderful or terrible occur?

“When we recorded the album mid-way through we set up the room for a gig and invited all our friends along and had an open bar. We played the album through and recorded the whole thing. There are some songs up on our YouTube from this. This idea came about because the first time Cathrine Marks (who produced the album with Steph Marziano) saw us play live it was at a really small sweaty gig mid-summer in the blue basement at Third Man Records in London. She couldn’t see us because she was at the back so she was just listening, after the show we spoke to her and she said we wanted to replicate the way the show sounded and the energy of it live on record, so we did a year later at Rak Studios. Us and Steph in the studio.”

HotWax interview. photo courtesy of artist