ITM talks to Hot Chip main-man Alexis Taylor ahead of the UK electro band’s imminent arrival in Australia for a run of highly prized live shows including dates at the Splendour In The Grass festival and alongside DFA Records buddies LCD Soundsystem.

Hey Alexis, how’re you today mate?

Good thanks, I’m just at home with my family as we prepare to go out on tour.

Right, anywhere interesting on the schedule for this time?

We’re actually off to Barcelona to do the Sonar festival there, which is pretty exciting for us. We’ve done it a few times now and it’s always a great place to play.

Now that Hot Chip is several albums deep into your career, have you found that the dressing rooms are getting increasingly bigger with each album you release?

Oh, I don’t think the dressing rooms are getting bigger, that’s not really going to happen, but definitely the stages seem to get bigger. That happens whenever we put out something, we always end up playing on a bigger stage or in a bigger venue than the time before. So I guess that’s a good sign that things are, you know, progressing!

You’re coming out to Australia soon for Splendour In The Grass down here, and it’ll be the first time you’ve played here with the new album.

Yeah, that should be really good, it’s been a while since we were there but we’ve always had great experiences.

You’re also going to do some sideshows away from the festival this time, and you’ll be playing those with LCD Soundsystem, which is pretty exciting. Obviously you’re both on the same label overseas, what’s your relationship like with James Murphy and the band?

We love those guys, they’re good friends. I’m excited for those shows as well, it should be great to play with them again.

Having worked so closely in the past, are you planning anything special for the joint shows? Will we see some cross-pollination of members?

That sounds good. I think we’d probably do something like that, you know, like a big finale with everyone on stage. We’ve frantically been practicing for the tour because we’re coming over without Joe [Goddard] this time. He’s about to be a father and he won’t be able to make this trip so we’re trying to figure out how we’ll do all of the songs without him. But maybe we could get James Murphy or someone else from LCD Soundsystem to join us and do all of Joe’s parts…that’s not a bad idea actually!

Awesome, I hope it happens then.

It could work really well now that I think about it, but who knows if it will happen. I’d like it to but if it doesn’t I know that I’ll have to explain it in every interview I do for the next six months…

You guys released One Life Stand earlier this year, now that it’s out there how do you feel about it?

It’s been good so far I think. Like I said, we’re playing some bigger shows on the tour for the record so I guess that’s an indication that people have received it positively. It’s funny though because the record was finished last year, months before it was released by the label, so it’s sometimes a challenge to keep focussing on this material that you wrote so long ago.

Does that mean that you’re already working on the next record?

Yes, we’ve already started to record some demos and ideas for the fifth record. We’ve written a few things for it and we’ll see what sticks.

I would imagine that you guys would be the kind of group that would write songs on the road and keep doing demos on your laptop. Will you be doing that on tour?

“We used to record a lot of material in that way and especially Joe is great with that, but I think at this stage we’re enjoying working in a proper studio with a lot of instruments surrounding us. I think we’re going to move away from things that sound like computer music and do something heavier. Having said that though, the songs that we have written so far aren’t that heavy and still sound kind of like computer music, so who knows how it will turn out.

I get the feeling that you guys are almost always working on music – you do solo stuff, and Joe has been doing 2 Bears recently – is it important for you to be continuously writing and making music?

That’s what we do and don’t know if any of us could do anything else if we couldn’t do this.

Having worked for so long at Hot Chip and now doing stuff on the side too, how do measure success?

I think that is it, really. If we can do this and do it the way we want to then I’ll be happy. I remember when I was in high school some friends of mine were in a band and that got signed to do a record on this label called Fridge and all I wanted to do was get signed like that. But it’s changed so much and I don’t think that’s as important anymore because there’s all this stuff on the internet that can get you directly to your fans.

How do you feel about downloading on the internet? Is it a good thing for a new fan in some way-off country to be able to download your new album with one mouse click?

It’s difficult to say, and personally I’m not informed enough to have a definitive opinion about it. But I think that is a good part of downloads and file-sharing. If you think about it, record labels weren’t always here, but they came to make money from artists and now that that is in question people are getting anxious about it. It may be that the time of big labels is over.

That’s an interesting take on it, and I’ve been feeling a similar sentiment recently from other artists who’ve said that there’s this kind of diminished value placed on an album, like something that is start-to-finish and not just a random song bought off iTunes.

Yeah, the iTunes thing annoys me. I remember I used to be in record stores every weekend and I would look up at the 12” records on the shelves and just love them. But with iTunes you can’t even see the cover art, it’s just this square designated to the corner of your window or whatever. It just feels like this arbitrary thing.

Hot Chip will play the Splendour In The Grass festival kicking off on July 30th. Check out the details of their joint LCD Soundsystem dates below as well!

Mon 26 July – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Thursday 29 July – Festival Hall, Melbourne