Some like it hot

The argument about which side of the Atlantic originated the whole idea of punk rock is one that has raged for 25 years now but one thing is certain: come the 21st century, it’s the Americans who have made the art form their own, turning their own brand of the three chord dash into a global phenomena.

“It’s pretty bizarre, isn’t it?”, agrees Chris Wollard, guitarist with Florida’s Hot Water Music. “I don’t mean to talk shit or anything but I think that a lot of American punk music is technically just like pop music. It’s just dressed up a little differently. It’s just totally commercialism in America, which is probably why it seems as though we have a really strong scene at the moment. In our sense, all the punk bands who have been touring their asses off underground are still doing it and it hasn’t really gone up or down”.

Hot Water Music, you see, are not just another bunch of day-glo punk popsters. Emo, hardcore, rock – whatever you want to call them, their Caution album is a wondrous blast of heartfelt emotion and musical intensity. And, like all of their underground contemporaries, they have got to this point through the most direct route possible – constant touring.

“It’s brutal, it’s really brutal”, says Chris, dodging the traffic outside a venue somewhere in London. “We only have one day off in a month on this tour and that’s to take a 24-hour drive. It’s totally exhausting. But everywhere you go you’re meeting people that you’ve built up strong relationships with over the years so you end up going for it every night. You don’t want to miss the chance to hang out with all these people and see all these cool cities. Accepting the fact that you’re lucky enough to tour like this, you just run yourself into the ground”.

Is touring here similar to the experience at home?

“I don’t think so,” Chris reckons. “I think people are a little more passionate in Europe, music is still really urgent here. The States is different, there’s a show every single night of the same kind of stuff. No matter what you want, it’s everywhere all the time. You get to places like LA and sometimes they don’t even care. In Belfast the people really cared. I just love touring here, it’s the highlight of my year”.

Given that he is so disparaging about the whole punk thing, can we take it that it’s not a tag that Hot Water Music particularly aspire to?

“At the end of the day, I’d rather be thought of as just another band,” he says. “There’s a lot of things about us that some people would consider punk and others wouldn’t. I think punk rock is more about the way you operate, the way you go about things. It’s not really a sound thing. Some of the most punk things I’ve ever heard don’t sound anything like anything else”.

Chris concedes that the problem is punk has become something of a musical strait jacket, with neither bands or audience particularly open to anything that sits outside of the three minute, three chord remit.

“That’s always the case, no matter what,” he says. “Somebody gets inspired by this, then they play some stuff that’s similar to it and hopefully they find something of their own on the other side. That’s just people influencing each other and I think it’s like that for just about everything. Each scene starts to get watered down until someone does something different”.

Doing something different is what Hot Water Music do very well, from their effecting and intelligent songwriting to the dark, disturbing paintings that adorn their record covers – all of which screams ‘We are not Blink 182!’

“It’s all kind of part of it,” the guitarist reflects. “For us, we wanted the way we came across visually to be part of the band too. Scott, the artist, is almost part of the band and he gets to add a whole different dimension.”

If you had any doubt that this is a man steeped in punk principles, he leaves us with this parting comment:

“You grow up listening to music and collecting records, you learn to really, really value them. As soon as you ever get the chance to make one yourself, you want it to be the best thing that you can do”.