By Marika Ley

P – Who is Randy Fitzsimmons?

MD- Our mentor,

NA- We can say what he is but not who he is.

NA- He’s a sixth person, sixth member of the band, he’s the guy that brought us all together, he’s part of what we do – mostly the song writing, he’s a big part of what we do but he’s not in the band as such.

P- Does he live at Hives manor?

NA- We’re not allowed to say.

P - Is he a style guru as well?

NA- Not as much as the songwriting. If he has ideas he’ll leave little notes or he drops us a line when he has an idea.

P – Doesn’t that absolve you of any kind of responsibility or accountability for your songwriting?

NA – We don’t hand it over completely, we get parts and ideas and then we rehearse as a band. We get parts and then Lego(tm)  it all together, like building blocks.

P – I’ve noticed the new album shows progression, it seems to have gone from a more stark, punk sound like older Stooges Motor City sound and it seems to have evolved with a bit of a sound-scape going, like a stroll through the Hives manor, almost with a carnival type feel.

NA- We had been listening to a  lot of Neal Hefti stuff, who wrote a lot of the Batman soundtracks.

We wrote in the same way that the Dead Kennedy’s were inspired by spaghetti westerns, we were influenced by a lot of stuff like movie soundtracks and strange stuff like that. One of my favorite songs is the Doctor Who soundtrack OF Ron Grainer's (sings in throaty baritone der der der dum der dum dum)

P- Do you feel that working with Pharrel Williams has really affected the way you’ve produced the songs?

NA- Yeah when we recorded with him, that was some of the first songs that we recorded for this record. I think we recorded three songs when we went over to Miami for two weeks and we went over a second time and recorded four or five more, it was really in part that we wanted to record with someone new and Pharrel has got a lot of good hip-hop stuff, its very minimalistic hip-hops beats. As fans of minimalistic rock say AC/DC, or old minimalistic stuff like Kraftwerk, we were always very intrigued by the minimalistic style of hip-hop when you have four sounds and it makes a great song. We really wanted to record with someone new and he wanted to produce us and we wanted to try and record with him, so it was a win win situation. Whatever we ended up with we didn't really know and it didn’t really matter, there are some demos that aren’t on the record that we really really like, would have liked to finish. I don’t know if they’ll come out – you know the hip-hop guys are pretty expensive! It could always surface on the next record, you never really know.

MD- but they keep everything they do and record in case they want to use it later.

M – Would you consider doing a soundtrack if there was a director you could work with?

MD – We’d love to, it’d be fun.

NA- It depends on what type of movie, I was listening a lot to vampire soundtracks, like Claudio Simonetti. It's just a nice break from listening to music, it’s probably the same reason why we listen to hip-hop, it's built in a different way. What we’re normally raised with - punk and rock and roll, intro, chorus, verse, chorus. And its great listening to vampire music that's straight from a movie, you can imagine people walking in hallways, then nothing happens for two or three minutes sometimes and it’s just strings or something and then a door opens and its like ‘kajging!’ (sound).

P- Thats how I imagine Hives Manor – the place must be really fun to be in (if it exists). 

What’s the song Puppet on a String all about?

NA – lyrically or what the song was about?

M – lyrically.

MD- It’s zombieish.

NA - I think the demo sounded more modern but its piano based, its like when we do Screaming Jay Hawkins stuff on the last record, say, ‘Diabolic Scheme’ was like our go at a modern r’n’b ballad. It doesn’t sound like a ballad but, that was our go at one, this record is sort of in the same vein, comes from that but its more based on modern sounds like keyboard sounds. When we recorded with Pharrel and Timbaland we get inspired by how they record things, they fiddle around with their midi keyboards and they blast the songs right back at you while they’re working on them. We have some songs like that that we wanted to finish, we just wanted to see how they were doing stuff and then we stole their best tricks.

P- Is there anyone else living or dead that you could work with?

NA- We were supposed to record a song with Andre 3000 from OutKast, (and currently living), that would’ve been fun but he was too busy with his acting career. Someday I think we’ll get a song together with him, he had a song that he played us that we possibly wanted to do and he seems quite keen. He was a fan of A Stroll Through Hives Manor Corridors as well, he likes it when we do that kind of stuff.

P- The sense of confidence you guys exude is immense, is it contrived? Is it an act? Do you honestly feel like you’re the best band in the world.

MD / NA– Yes!

MD Yes....No, you do what you do, we like our own music,

NA- We’ve been going 15 years perfecting our own ideas.

P- Ten years ago you were on MTV and Pele comes out and says ‘we’re the best band in the world!’ before you perfected it after 15 yrs,

NA- We only took three years to perfect it, maybe we needed five, we thought we started to sound good around 1997, 1996 but we’ve been around since 1993, so you gotta learn how to suck for a couple of years we weren’t happy all at once, we didn’t think we sounded great at once but we had songs and we did play but we were always moving towards something that we knew we wanted to sound like. I think we came close on the first proper record, on Barely Legal, that’s when we were kind of in control of what we were doing, previous to that sometimes we thought we sounded good but we weren’t completely in control of what we were doing, after that it’s all been good.

P- So you waited until you sounded good – confidence didn’t come first!?

NA- Maybe, the confidence was there,

MD-when we would do shows we would tell them to fuck off basically, that drew us a lot of attention because right from the beginning we believed we were the best band so we told everybody to fuck off. And then we had more people coming to the shows and you play for people who say they hate you and you start telling them that ‘you love us’, we believed that they should love us, we got even more of a reaction,

NA- it’s funnier that way, sometimes they love you sometimes they hate you for it, it’s funnier to get that sort of reaction. You can say it because you actually believe it, or you can say it to get a reaction. Both are good.

P- What are the rules of the Hives? You’ve created a structure of black and white, created an image, of being the best band in the world, is it liberating or confining?

NA - It’s both, it’s liberating in a way that we can just exclude all the other stuff that’s out there, but you’re also kinda set within a certain point of reference and you have to live within it, but it’s big enough for us to have a career of at least 50 years, I would think, of good ideas will come within that realm of the black and white scheme, everything is not planned…we make stuff up but there’s still enough stuff out there in that black and white universe that we can take stuff from and still use it’s not empty yet!

P - I felt that it was in your best interest to have a producer from a different genre like Pharrel Williams. You can definitely hear that you’ve opened different horizons and you can hear it on this album.

NA - Yeah that was the problem when we started out in ’93 we didn’t really know how to make the music we wanted to make. We were trying stuff all the time and if something sounded bad we would forbid that, so we had millions of rules – y’know reverb is not allowed on the guitar, that kinda distortion is not allowed, that type of drumming is not allowed, you’re not allowed to have two tones or whatever – all that stuff was rules to us. Which meant that after a while we ended up with nothing, we only had punk rules[!!!] we could only play a certain type of beat and certain type of chords so from that point on we started to sound good. But on the other hand when you’ve done that for two or three records you come to a point where those rules have to be...

P- tweaked a bit.

NA- yeah.

MD- Loosen up a little.

P - I did a little Hives test and mixed up your albums amongst my MP3s and from The Hives first three albums. Within the first two bars of a song, I know it’s The Hives coming on. The new record left me guessing a little bit longer until I heard the voice but even the voice is a little more baritone, not always at the heights of the high range as before. Is it only Pele singing on new album?

NA- Yes, we sing backing too, but he sings both falsetto and baritone on this one. He has a very deep voice but we never used it because it was forbidden in the beginning as we were only allowed the way we thought punk sounded best for The Hives, high range screaming.

P - Did he learn to scream first before singing?

MD- He learn to scream first for half an hour before singing.

NA- We learned how to play first, so he was forced to learn how to sing, we would sit and listen to our favorite records then talk about what was good about them and said ‘you should scream like this’ then he would try and do that.

P- There’s a definite soul, Detroit, Motor City sound.

MD- Yeah!

M- Do you like bands like the Dirtbombs? Those throwback, retro style bands and sound?

NA- Definitely, we are fans of The Gories, the Stooges, MC5 and we’ve toured with the Dirtbombs.

P- Bands tend to be like a brotherhood, are The Hives like that?

MD- Yeah, if they (Pele and Nicolas) weren’t brothers they’d probably be in two bands, because we were, like, 15 [years old] when we started you hit puberty and manhood, we’re in the same place at the same time, you become a family and you have fights and disagree and stuff but still it has to work somehow. Music never grows old because you get in a band and you’re born into something its the same as a family, you’re never going to grow away from your family.

P-  Are there side projects?

NA- Not really, we do record things on our own.

MD- Anyone can do whatever they want to do, if its a great idea we use it for us but if its something that wouldn’t fit in our framework, not bad stuff but we’ve probably got about 15 solo albums in our sound bag  along the way but we’re still very much making music and productive as a band.

P- 15 Years ago where did you see yourselves?

MD- where we thought we would be now? today?

NA- We thought we would have quit! Our plan at that point was to release three good records and then quit which that would ensure the fact we would never grow old and tired not be good anymore and we’re working on our fifth now!

MD- I thought we would have three records quit and I would become a kindergarten teacher.

NA-The bands that we were listening to then (say New Bomb Turks or The Oblivions) weren’t popular at the time, they weren’t getting rich off it and they weren’t doing it all the time. You do want to feel like you’re moving on to something new so, we didn’t think that any of our three records would be popular we just thought that we’d be a band that a few people would know about, a few people would really like, after we quit ten years later people would discover what a great band we were.

P- So you didn’t quit your day jobs?

NA - No, we have now but we did have jobs, we were trying to tour as much as possible but we didn’t really think about making money. We were only touring for the sake of touring.

MD- We never thought we would make money ever, i

NA- ...it was only with the second record that we made a bit more money and we started to tour Germany, Sweden and Norway, we’d be able to do a tour around Europe for the most part and we would get very little money but that money would take us one lap around Europe and then back home. But three days later we’d have to be out touring again, when we got home we’d get a call offering like 100 dollars more for per show, we’d say ‘we can’t possibly say no to that we’ve got to tour again!’ and that’s the way it grew. We would do tour after tour, month after month, getting a bit more money each time.

P- Each place that you went to did you notice a different reaction?

NA - Yeah and every time we would come through people would bring ten more of their friends.

MD- In the beginning we played to, like, nine people including the other band in a farmhouse somewhere but then next time it was twelve people!

P- And you dress up no matter what?

MD – Yeah, we had a full on show, like our show today but with nine people, in an empty room the same thing. We thought we’ve got to (put on a) show, we get to play live and we tried to concentrate on doing a great show and being better than anyone else around.

P- Is there a Hives philosophy?

MD- Erm... a philosophy? Well it depends on....It’s a hard question!

NA- I think the philosophy would have to have something to do with quality, the main thing about being in this band is that we hate is being bad. That’s one of the main driving forces almost, we hate being bad so much being bad that we have to be good all the time. Which is why we hate having a bad show, that’s why it’s such intense work, labor intensive. It’s because we’re so obsessed with the quality of what we’re doing.

MD - The philosophy was to do three records, then quit. Now the philosophy is to play as if every show is our last, as well as leaving your house and family you could die tomorrow so we enjoy our moment and hope for the best. So every time you play in the bands you play like it’s your last time.  So if this is the last moment of my life - you're going to make the best of it. So that’s our philosophy, to enjoy the moment while you have it.

P – And blow it up!

MD / NA – And blow it up!

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