Q: Your debut album, It's Too Drunk To Be This Early, sure is a slick, high-energy effort. Explain the process by which the songs were written and the album put together. Was it a drawn-out affair or a wham-bam approach?
A: The songs on the album come from stuff written over the past three years.
When we went into the studio, it was after securing small one-week sessions.
This was because everyone has a day job, and we can only really ask a week of people's time.
It took about six months to record it all then raise more cash for mastering etc - all in, it took almost a year to make.
We wanted to emulate the sounds of the bands that influenced us - mainly West African soul from the '60s and '70s.
So we did a lot of backward techniques and put it all through tape a lot [in the mastering, too].
Q: There are some interesting textures on the album. Take, for instance, the dirty guitars of The Ballad of Joe Stalin or My Rites or the fuzzed-out intro to Headlights. Have you always enjoyed that wall-of-sound approach?
A: Again this comes from the West African soul influence - they only had access to handed-down equipment and would fix up their amps a certain way or whatever and really developed a beautiful kind of rough simplicity that we find really important and affecting.
Q: Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, once said, "It's the grit that makes the groove". Though he was referring to sampled material rather than live performance, can you relate to that ethos?
A: Yeah the Fat Boy is right. Grit is rawness. A lot of funk/soul bands around the place suffer these days from being too over-produced and poppy. It came from harsh times, that music.
Our influences are the southern style of gritty funk [Meters] and afrobeat [Fela Kuti] and other funk and soul from West Africa.
Q: Is the Hot Grits a full-time concern for you and the other members? Do you have day jobs?
A: Everyone in the band has day jobs. Only our drummer is a full-time musician, with everybody else taking jobs ranging from nurse, actor, designer, gym instructor, tree feller, fortune teller to carpet layer.
Q: Your CV is growing all the time, with a range of festivals and support slots. Is it easier now than, say, five years ago? Have you noticed a growth in audience/support?
A: It's so much better now, but I think that is because we can honestly and confidently rest on our music to get us fans, where as, say, three years ago we weren't nearly as confident in our sound.
We were still kind of paying our musical dues - paying homage to the kind of music we were influenced by rather than coming up with original material of our own.
Q: Given your upbeat vibe, is it a case of the bigger [audience] the better? How much does an audience affect your energy levels? Would you still be able to put on a show for, perhaps, three men and a dog?
A: Well yeah, we just played an awesome gig in Picton for about 20 people and rocked it. We have good jams no matter what, but a great gig often depends on if we are playing before or after another act . . . or just on the amount of beer involved.
Q: Do you enjoy getting down to the South?
A: We have never played lower down than Nelson, so are all excited about our upcoming tour dates. Taking our sound to new ears is definitely a turn-on.
We have two days off this whole tour, and they are in Queenstown. Hopefully, we are going to book a house where we can set up our instruments and jam out for two days; take the opportunity to work on new ideas.
The Hot Grits plays at Sammy Entertainment Venue, Dunedin, tonight and at Revolver, Queenstown, tomorrow.
