Rockezine.com interview with Hot Water Music on Aug 15, 2002

with Jason Black on Aug 15, 2002

Dead on honesty & passionate rock: Hot Water Music For years, Gainesville, Florida’s Hot Water Music operated in relative obscurity releasing countless singles and albums on small labels, while steadily building up a hardcore fan base worldwide. With last year’s “A Flight & A Crash”, the boys from the sunshine state joined Epitaph and more people took notice of them. With their latest album “Caution”, the band is set to join the big time. Formed in 1994, the band’s new disc is again filled with the their patented blazing guitar driven and heartfelt rock. And it comes at a perfect time, since the ‘genre’ known as ‘emo’ is at the peak of its popularity. Bassist Jason Black sat down with us to talk about the band, emo and of course the new album.
		“Compared to our first Epitaph release, Caution was so much easier to record. We could have been better prepared for “A Flight And A Crash.” When we went into the studio, we were still changing things in the songs and we had also just joined Epitaph, which was a bit weird for us. Here we are, used to doing things on our own and all of a sudden we have a label that sets up press days for us. We weren’t used to that, and it probably counteracted a bit. So, “A Flight...” was basically a growing-pains kind of album. On “Caution” we were much better prepared. “
		What was different this time around? This time we really got everything together; we accomplished the things we wanted to do with the arrangements of the songs. We didn’t have a laid-out plan, but we took way more time in the studio and we did more demos. Producer Brain McTernan came down from Washington DC to Gainesville to work with us there on some songs. It was so much easier.
		If Brian puts his name on an album, he really wants it to be the best it can be. When we first worked with him, we weren’t used to a producer who actually involves himself with the songs. If Brian hears a part of a song which he thinks could be better, he makes suggestions. At first we were like “Whatever, you’re not in the band!”, but once we got past all the pride and we got to know him better, we were more open to him going into the process as being part of the band and that made it a lot smoother. You know, if he works on an album, he definitely wants it to be the best it can be.”
I like a lot of bands whose records all sound the same...		So smooth was the keyword here. A well-known guest also appears. Brian Baker (Dag Nasty, Bad Religion) plays guitar on the final song “The End”. We had just toured with Bad Religion and were recording in DC. We thought it would be a nice idea to invite him, so we just called him up, since he still lives in DC. We asked him if he wanted to play some parts on our album, and he said “yeah”. So he just hopped into his car, drove over and played his parts.
		As usual Scott Sinclair’s artwork for “Caution” is beautiful. How did you get involved with him? We didn’t have a cover to put on our album “Finding The Rhythms”. Scott had been a friend of us for a while and he just had some stuff lying around and we ended up using some of his material. When we did our next record we checked to see if Scott had anything and he did. From then on, it became sort of a tradition. We have now come to the part where we send him our material first and he can get his head around the songs and get into the lyrics while he paints. We don’t explain to him what the songs are about, we just send him the lyrics and he takes out whatever he wants to take out and paints something.
		Art has become a tradition, but musically HWM wants to develop its sound. We don’t want to alienate anyone, but we also don’t want to repeat ourselves. I like a lot of bands whose records all sound the same, I like them for that reason, but for me, as a musician, repeating myself wouldn’t work. For all of us this is basically our first professional band, so we want to do as many musical things as possible with it. I would like to experiment more with reggae and dub. I want to see if we can do it. Not that we’d become a reggae band, but I really like what Joe Strummer or bands like Soulside and Fugazi did. They definitely have that bouncy dub backbeat. I think after all these years together we feel comfortable enough as a band to stretch it a little bit and see if we can do it. But we take our time and don’t rush anything.
		So, what do you think is the secret of writing a good song? Hmm, a good song has everything that it does need and nothing that it doesn’t. I think it has to be to the point and honest. It doesn’t have to be well-recorded or even well-performed; it just has to strike a chord. In Hot Water Music, Chris (Wollard) and Chuck (Ragan) write the lyrics, but we all come up with parts of the music. For instance, I might hear a song by Avail or The Cure and think: “That song has a really cool feel to it. I wonder if we could do this too.”
		Then I try to figure out the chord structure and the kind of transition and try to come up with something that I can bring to the band so we can see if we can do something with it or not. Rarely does anyone come up with a finished song. And even if that does happen, we still work on it and change it around. In the end though, when it’s done, most of the time it sounds completely different from the thing that inspired you in the first place.
		You just release so much material; singles, split-CD’s, compilation tracks. How do you manage to keep up such a schedule? We do have other interests, Chris has just finished an album with his other band, The Sheryl Cro(w) Mags, but this is pretty much what we do. When we’re done with a tour we go home and take some time off, but pretty soon we start practicing again. 3 or 5 times a week for 2, 3 hours and we come up with a lot of material that way. We record these sessions to check what works out and what doesn’t. Then we’re like: “Ok, we have a bunch of songs, let’s record them.”
		And we’re basically workaholics and we have a good chemistry, because this line-up has always been the same. We know each other well enough, so we get to the point where one of us starts playing and the others go with it. There’s not a lot of talking going on. But yes, if you look at our back-catalogue, you would expect a band that’s been around for twenty years or so.
The thought of getting bigger is a bit scary.		Because of the current interest in everything emo, things seem to also heat up around Hot Water Music. You could get a lot bigger. Well, every time I think about that we always manage to fuck it up somehow, which is probably for the best, hahaha. The way we did it this time around, touring with Bad Religion, going on the Warped tour and then putting out the album, definitely didn’t harm us. Hopefully it will do something. I mean, we are all happy where we are now, but if it takes a turn for the better, it’s good.
		The thought of getting bigger is a bit scary. I have seen it with other bands: getting huge doesn’t last long. Once you’ve become big, it’s very hard to maintain that status. And when it all goes down, you start to get disappointed for all the wrong reasons. We’ve been better off, because it’s been really gradual for us the whole time. So, if we sell a couple of more records: cool. If not, also cool. We’re more long-time than short-time, we’d rather do this ten years more without getting huge.
		What do you think of that term emo anyway? There’s good music and bad music. Good music is soulful, strikes a chord and definitely has some depth to it. We consider ourselves more of a rock band. We all grew up in the punk scene and that’s really important to us. Emo came out of that punk scene. I was talking with Chris about it today, and I don’t actually hate the term. What bothers me is that there are bands that get the tag that might not fit into that category, I mean, an artist like Bruce Springsteen is more ‘emo’ than most of these bands.
(Miguel Tegen)