Next Hot Chip

Electro quintet's plans for a new album and other solo projects in 2009

28 November 2008 - Hot Chip’s guitarist Al Doyle says their next record, the follow up to Made in the Dark, could be out by Autumn next year.

The band have had a hectic 2008, with a string of successful UK and European festival appearances including Glastonbury, Bestival and Benicassim, as well as touring all corners of the world.

According to Doyle, they’ll get cracking on album number four after Christmas.

“We’re not rushed about it, we’ve all had a very busy year,” he explained. “We’re quite exhausted so I think probably the earliest it would be out is Autumn and we would be working fast to do that.”

They are likely to record in a studio in east London which Doyle and Felix Martin run.

As for when exactly, he said: “I think probably at the start of next year before and after our trip to Australia. We’re doing a festival called Big Day Out. When we come back from that we’ve got no commitments at all so we’ll get back into the studio.”

Hot Chip related material

All the band members have also been working on side and solo projects, which means there should be a variety of music coming out next year under the Hot Chip umbrella.

Doyle explained: “That’s not to say that we won’t release other music before that. We’ve got lots of stuff that might come out anyway, some other little projects.

"I think probably the earliest it would be out is Autumn next year and we would be working fast to do that."
Guitarist Al Doyle

“Alexis [Taylor] just released a solo album, Felix and I will probably release an album next year that we’ve been working on and I know Joe [Goddard]’s got various different projects that he’s keeping on the backburner. So, there’ll definitely be Hot Chip or Hot Chip related music coming out.”

Personal connection

Meanwhile the band have been mulling over whether they would follow in the footsteps of the Chemical Brothers and Basement Jaxx and take to the stage in some grand arenas.

But Doyle thought they would have to rethink how they would go about a live show in that environment: “We’re the kind of band that Brixton is the biggest venue that you’d really wanna see a band like Hot Chip play in because we do thrive from the crowd.

“It’s too far away, or if you don’t feel like you have that personal connection with the crowd, then it becomes like watching a movie. It doesn’t really have that connection that we feed off.”

However, they wouldn’t rule it out: “We haven’t written it off but I think we would have to think very carefully about it before we did make that decision.

“I think we would have to probably change the way approach the show and we don’t want to sleepwalk into that, we’d want to do the best we could. It’s like a whole new form, a different scenario and method of working.”

Georgie Rogers