Just pretend you're not happy, stay still!
"Happiness is limited, but misery has no end," sings frontman Steve Bays as a first greeting on Hot Hot Heat's latest album Happiness Ltd. SUPERSWEET wants to know what makes this band happy or NOT happy. So we sit him down with buddy guitarist Luke Paquin and just let them talk and talk and talk. Oh boy, it's quite amusing when you learn they have both once turned from greenish blue to orange and how waking up and spending time with Steve Bays could be the most precious thing on Earth! Let's not forget about the music though, Happiness Ltd, go out and get it!
1) MIMES
Steve: There’s people in Victoria that dress up [in gold and silver] but all over their body. They’re like mimes but they’re all gold and then one’s all silver and they had one little whistle thing they go... (makes noise).
Luke: They do the robot.
Steve: They won’t move for 30 mins (smiles).
Luke: That make steves happy!
Steve: Yeah mimes, I like mimes.
Luke: Mime is money!
2) HOME SWEET HOME
Steve: I like BC (British Coulmbia, Canada) a lot, I miss it. But I think everyone likes where they live where they grew up. I’ve been away most of the year, I definitely think there’s something to be said about your hometown definitely. I think that’s what most inspires me. I mean if I grew up in you know Zimbabwe I’m sure I’ll feel the same way about that. I don’t think it’s just the city.
Luke: I’m kinda in a strange situation where I live between Vancouver and California, and as soon as I get to California I want to get back to Vancouver and vice versa it’s good I never get too cooped up because I can just run to my other apartment in another country you know.
Steve: I really like when I have a full day at home to just work on music that’s all. I think that’s part of why the record took a while to come out because it’s so fun to wake up and be surrounded by a bunch of instruments to be able to have basically just a home studio I think that’s the main thing I want to focus on when I get home is getting a house and building a real home studio.
3) TANNING
Luke: You said you wanted to work on your tan!
Steve: Yeah, I want to work on my tan too! I’m tired of being pale and too green.
Luke: I got one of those spray on stuff but I think I put it on too thick and i just turned orange, it’s hideous! (Laughs)
Steve: I once actually tried, when I was probably like 6th grade or maybe my 8th grade my cousin gave me that tan stuff because she was doing it. And she was already kind of tanned - she has olive coloured skin whereas I was pale with greenish blue skin that doesn’t take well to any tan, she put it all over me and my skin totally went orange, I had to go to school with fake fake tan.
SS: Did you get bullied for turning orange?
Luke: Oh no, he got all the ladies! (Smiles)
Steve: No! No! Not at all! (Laughs) I remember I freaked out, I was so mad at her for doing that to me then I think I went swimming or something to try wash it off. By the second or third day it was fine but there is that one day at school where it was…
Luke: ...It was probably one of the worst days in your life?
Steve: Put that one as NOT happy!
Luke: Oh that was NOT happy? (Laughs) I have a cousin who’s completely orange and I don’t have the heart to tell her to cut back! [She is in] Chicago, another place where people like spraying themselves orange. All the big cities in the US, it’s a popular phenomenon right now.
Steve: Yeah, I think it’s hard for people to just accept that something that brings people happiness has a peak or like a max.
Luke: Too much of a good thing.
Steve: Yeah it’s like, ‘Oh you like being tanned?’ - 'Fine I’ll be even more tanned than that!'
Luke: Do you like to get high?
Steve: Cool!
Luke: I’ll do 3 times as much!
Steve: Cool! I’ll move to Amsterdam and do nothing and do that for 5 years and I’ll…
Luke: And then rejoin the Chilli Peppers! (Laughs)
4) EXCESS
Steve: Too much of a good thing is bad and it’s hard to accept it, it’s so tempting.
Luke: That’s kind of one of the themes… if we can somehow tie this in (laughs) that is one of the themes behind the Happiness record is there is such a thing as too much you know.
Steve: Yeah, definitely. I know Paul’s (Hawley, drums) like that - he’s gotta find something that he’s excited about but when he does find it he just overdoes it.
Luke: You don’t even hear from him for a month.
Steve: Yeah, right now that’s Diet Coke (laughs) with whisky.
Luke: (Laughs)
Steve: Honestly it’s like chasing the dragon. He’ll wake up at eleven and he’ll be like giving you lizard tongue going (whispers) ‘I’ve had like 3 Diet Cokes already! I’ve been chasing the dragon all day!’ (laughs).
5) LISTENING TO MUSIC
Steve: I like the feeling you got when you got excited about when you’re listening to music again.
SS: To your own music or music in general?
Luke: I listen to only Hot Hot Heat! (Laughs) No no! I don’t think I’ve listened to this record since it came out.
Steve: You mean since September?
Luke: Yeah, I don’t know, It feels almost like it was over a year ago when we actually did it.
Steve: Yeah I probably haven’t, I mean I probably listened to it like crazy when we were doing the demos and when it was done and then I took a while away from there and went to mix and master it so I went back to it and I got excited about it. But now I’m completely over it. I kind of reach the point where like I probably I don’t think I listen to Make Up the Breakdown. I don’t think I listen to anything after it’s been done for about a year and now it doesn’t even feel like it’s us. When I listen to Make Up the Breakdown or anything around that period I don’t even know who that was.
Luke: Well, Judi Dench she said she’s never seen one of her films, but she’s done like a hundred films probably. I don't know if I necessarily believe that but it sounds cool (smiles).
SS: But at the Oscars, she's got to see the trailers?
Steve: I bet she’s like, ‘Damn! I don’t even remember me in there’!
SS: Do you feel like you’re a different band now then?
Steve: I definitely go through a period where I listen to it and I can pat myself on the back and I’m planning to pat myself on the back if I do something good because most of the time I’m criticising what I don’t like, so you kind of use those moments where you’re allowed to drink two glasses of wine and play it to somebody. But after that I don’t feel like I own it or belong to it any more. Like right now I feel like there’s just so many ideas right now and actually it’s kind of pissing me off that I can’t get it down. I love being on tour and everyone can see it that when we play we all have fun playing shows but it’s just started in the last week or so that I need to start doing things that make me feel like I want to do this again because after six months of touring you start to feel like an entertainer and no one’s really listening.
Luke: Because you’re so entertaining!
Steve: (Laughs) Well, that’s good. But I used to do magic tricks when I was a kid too.
Luke: But you’re bringing joy to dozens of people around the world!
6) SHOWERS
Luke: Oh man, I found the showers today which is quite exciting when you’re on tour in the UK, it was nice facility to wash my hair, brush my teeth. It doesn’t happen everyday.
Steve: I think as a musician when you first start touring you’re just so overwhelmed by the little facts that people give a shit enough to want to come see your band play. But then five or six years into it you start going, 'Is it going to be this state of my life till I die?', you know, like hanging out in small tiny rooms in England eating mayo and crisps and that does definitely make me start thinking about alternative ways to die happily other than just being on tour.
Luke: And you don’t want to see Steve if they forget to bring mayo. He turns into a monster! (Laughs)
7( FRESH START
Luke: We got an extra musician now to play cowbell and tambourine and stuff, Jimmy, and he just puts so much mayonnaise on his sandwich I can’t even watch him eat.
Steve: That’s a good point, that’s one thing that brings me happiness is I like people that are doing something for the first time or are new to something, people that don’t think, taking things for granted.
Luke: With him, he’s kind of reinvigorated our whole band, we just did a whole US tour that we’re in smaller market that they didn’t even know we existed and having this guy kinda… it makes me happy just to see how much fun that he’s having being part of that and this is his first time traveling the world with his friends. If I start getting down or becoming a bit of a brat and he’ll just tell me to shut the hell up, that I don’t know what I’m talking about which is refreshing from a friend especially when you’re surrounded by the people that are paid to like you.
8) WATCHING PEOPLE FALL
Steve: I really like documentaries about people that fail at achieving their dreams (laughs) I don’t know why. Like American movies and the other one I just watched the other night called Overnight about the guy that wrote scripts for The Boondock Saints and it’s about how he burns every bridge, he gets a good buzz going in Hollywood and he burns every single bridge and he also has a band that gets signed and he ruins that too. (Smiles)
9) QUALITY TIME
Luke: I’m just happy to wake up everyday and get to spend my time with Steve Bays.
Steve: That’s such a lie!
Luke: It’s a good way to end an interview though.
Steve: You can’t end an interview with bullshit!
10) MISTER LONELY
Luke: I was really happy and excited that (Director) Harmony Korine got a new movie coming out and it’s Diego Luna plays a Michael Jackson impersonator and Samantha Morton is Marilyn Monroe imporsontor and they fall in love.
Steve: And let me guess... they’re both failures at their professions right?
Luke: Yeah they’re not good.
Steve: Yes, see, again, movies doesn’t have to be documentaries as long as it’s about people that fail (smiles). I think we could all relate to failures on some level.
Luke: Yeah I fail daily at something!
Steve: (Laughs) I couldn’t really see a movie about Michale Jackson impersonator that really succeeded.
Luke: Right.
Steve: I think all like to see the Homer Simpson character more than we like to see..
Luke: Superman?
Steve: Superman! Yeah definitely!
Luke: Would you rather be Homer Simpson?
Steve: No way! No way! (Laughs)
Luke: If I could be Superman I would!
Steve: I think of myself as Aquaman... a little bit!
Luke: Alright!
Photography: Burak Cingi
Graphics: Chern Pekanan