“We Want That Rock And Roll Feeling!” The Hives Speak Out

After more than 10 years since releasing their last album, Swedish garage punk icons The Hives have finally re-emerged with a run of tantalising singles as they gear up for the release of their new record ‘The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons’.

Ah, but who is this titular figure, we hear you ask…?

Randy Fitzsimmons is the name of the illusive, mystery-figure who the band claim writes all their music, The Hives themselves merely acting as puppets, performing the sonic concoctions of Mr  Fitzsimmons. As the story goes, their prolonged hiatus from recording was due to the apparent disappearance of Randy Fitzsimmons. However, after learning of his ‘death’ from their local newspaper, the band were led to Fitzsimmons’ tombstone. They then began digging up the ground where their puppet-master was supposedly buried but did not come across a body at all but instead they discovered “tapes, suits, and a piece of paper bearing the words ‘The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons’”. Herein began the new project.

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Now, with their suits adorned and the tapes transformed into a fully-fledged 12 track collection, the album is just around the corner, set for release on August 11th. We spoke with lead vocalist Pelle Almqvist about their unwavering commitment to their high-energy rock and roll attitude, their renowned live performances and the unexpected return of Randy Fitzsimmons. 

A large proportion of UK readers will have first come across The Hives thanks to their 2001 compilation album ‘Your New Favourite Band’ that combined the best of their first two records into a kind of promotional tape to show those outside of Sweden what The Hives were all about. A brazen idea with an even more brazen title that perfectly defined their early attitude. “Alan McGee was in Germany for some reason and saw us on TV and wanted to sign us. We were like, well, we just put out a record and, you know, we’re pretty happy with that but we have no new songs. So we came up with the idea and thought it’d be pretty funny to make a greatest hits after just two albums. It certainly broke us in the UK. I think it was also partly a joke. We thought ‘how do you get popular in the UK? You say you’re everybody’s favourite band’.  It was so funny to see it actually working! It was like manifest destiny…”

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However, at this time, things still hadn’t picked up for the band in their home nation of Sweden and it took this defining compilation record, which featured hits ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’, ‘Main Offender’ and ‘A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T’, to really grab the attention of fans across Europe. “We kind of never were popular in Sweden at first because in Sweden you couldn’t really tour. We got popular in mainland Europe first. We immediately kind of decided that we gotta go to places like Spain and Germany and play and we would tour there. That’s why we were like a thing on German MTV at the time. I guess Germany was like the first place that got us. The goal was to make three great albums that we liked, one vinyl LP, a rock video, and a tour but we assumed that we would never make any money at the time”. 

Yet, this lack of popularity was almost part of their identity at the time as they refused to dilute their in-your-face attitudes and attack-minded rock sound to conform to the mainstream. As Pelle explains, “we didn’t like any popular bands so we assumed that popular bands were bad and if we would play great music, we’re probably weren’t going to be popular. That was our real analysis of the situation.  Although there was a brief identity crisis in like… ‘Hang on, if we only like bands that are not popular, and our analysis is that popular bands are bad and we’re a popular band, what does that mean?’”

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Now, over 20 years later and with a greatly increased mainstream notoriety, The Hives are sounding as undiluted as ever. Their new album is filled with straight-to-the-vein rock and roll riffs and Pelle’s distinctively angular vocal shouts that even verge into rap territory thanks to his machine-gun delivery style. Tracks such as ‘Bogus Operandi’, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ and ‘Countdown To Shutdown’ have the sing-along sonic euphoria of their early hits while ‘Rigor Mortis Radio’ offers a swagger-filled, stomping groove and songs such as ‘Stick Up’ and ‘What Have I Ever Done To You?’ see them experiment with a more diverse array of styles, incorporating some more atmospheric electronic sounds and cinematic brass sections. It’s big, bold and radiates an audible joy from the band. This love for the music is evident, with Pelle enthusing: “We never really paid attention to what other people would think about it, you can’t. You have no idea what people are gonna like, especially after this much time. You just have to make something that’s true to what you wanna make and we were confident in that. We’re more confident in our process”.

Now all they want, Pelle explains, is for the world to hear it. “Once we’ve made whatever music we want to make, however weird or fast or idiotic it is,  we want everyone in the world to hear it and love it…or at least hear it, if they don’t love it, that’s fine, you know but we want it to be heard everywhere! It’s more fun to be ambitious and hungry than to just be like, this is fine”.

However, the band would argue that the beauty of their new album is nothing they can take credit for. Of course, this triumphant return is all thanks to Randy Fitzsimmons… “We needed the songs. We always wanted to make another record but we didn’t have the songs until now. The songs come from Randy Fitzsimmons and he disappeared and he didn’t have any contact with us so we couldn’t make a record until all of a sudden the songs showed up and we could. Once they were there, it took just a year of intense rehearsing and some short bursts of recording. We thought it was never going to happen and we’d kind of given up”.

Although Pelle refuses to take credit for any songwriting or lyrical input, he does discuss the effect the band want the album to have on those who hear it. “We want that rock and roll feeling that’s like a mix of euphoria, something vaguely sexual and something destructive. I think that’s what we’re looking for, you know, that reaction. It’s kind of a feel thing more than anything else. If we can make people feel that feeling they’re going to want to feel it again”.

This concoction of euphoric, seductive angst pours out of every song on the album. Yet, if you know The Hives, you know that their music is made for the live environment, as Pelle says himself, “If rock and roll is not better live, you’re doing something wrong”. They have become widely known as one of the best live rock bands, a reputation that recently saw them tour across the world as support to Arctic Monkeys, playing to 800,000 fans. Perhaps the most impressive element of The Hives project is how their live performance has maintained its intensity for 25 years. Pelle explains that their unforgettable early performances were born out of a will to make “the other bands in the DIY punk days to be jealous of us and feel like they couldn’t go on stage afterwards… That was kind of our main goal, to ruin it for a lot of other bands! Because we liked when bands did that to us, like, when you feel like you can’t follow. We wanted people to have the reaction like ‘you can do that?! Is it legal?’”

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Pelle adds that the trick to maintaining this energy of the years lies in feeding off the crowd and soaking in the joy of performing. “The thing with our show is like, we give so much energy and then it kind of bounces right back. So on one hand your body gets tired but your soul feels better and better. So it’s not just tiring, like it also gives you a lot of energy”. 

“We want it to be like ‘Oh shit, what was that?’ We just don’t like doing a show where we don’t have that energy. You kind of focus all your energy onto one point. I don’t want to have some kind of un-energetic rock show, that sounds terribly boring to me. We love doing that, that super high energy rock show, like, jumping off of things and screaming and tearing stuff down and all that stuff. It’s what we love doing the most, so that’s why we’re gonna do it. You have to have a moderate amount of cardiovascular fitness, I suppose but some kind of movement is needed just to feel good as a person, I think. Afterwards I feel both euphoric and exhausted. It’s a great feeling. I get to feel that so many more times than most people and that’s why I’m happy”.

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Get tickets to see The Hives live in 2024 and pre-order their new album, out August 11th. 

Words: James Booton
Photography: Ebru Yildiz, Bisse Bengtsson, Dean Bradshaw