Living In The Moment: HotWax Interviewed
It’s a potent mix; Tallulah Sim-Savage’s riotous howls and snarling guitar with Lola Sam’s darting stage presence and groove-laden bass-lines. Initially meeting at school, the two now cut shapes in razor sharp ’80s fits, varying in eye catching colours and textures, while drummer Alfie Sayers fuels the frenzy. This, that I am describing, is a HotWax show, the Hastings-via-Brighton trio who released their debut EP in 2023, combine 90s grunge and psychedelic rock sounds, thriving on intensity—both in their music and in their general outlook due to a heavy touring schedule.
—
—
During the course of two years and over 150 shows played, the noisy alt-rock trio have performed at multiple major festivals such as Reading and Leeds and All Points East, toured alongside Royal Blood and Frank Carter, and received approval from the likes of Wolf Alice, Elton John and one of their heroes, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Their debut record ‘Hot Shock’ meanwhile, serves as a reminder of their time on the road.
“The last few years, we’ve really been living in the moment. It’s been a whirlwind of craziness in so many ways, emotionally and physically. We’ve been in this mad excitement bubble of everything being quite chaotic and fun and seeing new things – that really influenced the record, and why we called it a Hot Shock, because it’s about the heightened emotions we’ve had over the past two years,” vocalist and guitarist Sim-Savage tells me when I ask about themes of selfhood on the album. Other songs meanwhile, touch on anxiety and intrusive thoughts.
Before meeting with me, the trio have had a pretty heavy press day separated by a wholesome trip to the stationary shop for pens and Pritt Sticks. Accordingly, ‘Hot Shock’ resembles a chance to scrap the school highlighters: “this album, it’s a moment in time, coming out of being a teenager and going into your 20s. I wanted the lyrics to be about experiences and emotions, and to do it for the songs, but also do it for myself as well.” Lyrically, the band cites Fontaines D.C., Autolux and Sonic Youth as inspiration.
When it came to ‘Hot Shock’, the trio brought in the all-female production team in Catherine Marks (Boygenius, Wolf Alice), Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, Let’s Eat Grandma) and Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint. The three producers aiding them to achieve a unique balance of melody, groove and rawness, steering clear from any suffocating click tracks. Instead, the band opted to record live in front of a crowd at London’s RAK Studios.
—
—
The result was intensity at its core, along with a sense of power and abandon. “People would always come to our shows and be like, I love the stuff you have on Spotify, but seeing you live, it feels so right!” Sim-Savage reminisces. Catherine Marks, after witnessing the band at a sweaty Third Man Records show back in 2023 declared her support outside the venue, wanting to record their album. “I want it to sound like the energy in this room. It needs to feel like a party,” she had said at the time.
Recording over 10 days due to Catherine Marks and Steph Marziano’s busy schedules, a first take would often perfectly capture the band’s energy and quirks. This was also aided by the producers’ enthusiasm and the fact that they really knew the sound HotWax were after.
“We found one week in July, and just experimented, and tried to make it sound as live and as raw as we could” Sam adds, “meeting our producers, that’s how the whole album came about”. While writing and recording two acoustic songs ‘Pharmacy’ and ‘Lights On’ with Stella Mozgawa in Joshua Tree, the wheels were set in motion for what would later become the single ‘One More Reason’. Mozgawa’s drum groove during a spontaneous jam session sparked a punchy bass line idea HotWax would later revisit once back home on UK shores.
“We wanted (the song) to have a drum machine, and the way we envisioned it was so different, but then again, with Steph and Catherine’s influence, it needed to be live and almost quite raucous and, in your face, rather than being electronic” Sim-Savage recalled of the song’s inception. Single ‘Wanna Be A Doll’ similarly went through multiple renditions, with Catherine helping on pre-production, coaxing the song along as “one of the best”. “We hated it because we just kept rewriting it” Sim-Savage remembers, “then once we finished that song, it just opened everything else up.”
Another track that almost didn’t make the cut, ‘In Her Bedroom’ stands out against its adjoining tracklist, contrasting due to its use of dynamic shifts, often used in psychedelic rock to create tension and release. The push-and-pull energy of the song is a welcome addition, adding to the album’s overall fusion of grit and groove. Sometimes this furiousness is aimed inwards too, on ‘Wanna Be A Doll’ there’s a portrayal of self-destructive tendencies while ‘Dress Our Love’ describes an unhealthy relationship, “dress our love into a wonderful gift”, Sim-Savage delivers, her lyrics equal parts self-sabotage and self-awareness.
—
—
‘Hot Shock’ is out now.
Words: Emma Way
Photo Credit: Jude Harrison
—
