Band Of The Week #176 - Hot Milk
This week’s Band of the Week is the exciting HOT MILK - who have just released their new EP ‘I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead’ via Music For Nations. We had a chat with the band about how the EP came together and their plans for the future.
Hey there Hot Milk, how are you? So your EP is here, how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
Thank fuck for that!!!! Not gonna lie man it was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to get through, we have never been more fuckin sad than when we were going through this recording process... It was just us two and nobody else to kind of give us a pat on the back or tell us we were doing the right thing. We had to trust a lot of initiation and ourselves, which for two people who don't really feel super confident in themselves was really fucking hard... For it to be out there now, it feels freeing and like my ears have been wiped with a KFC hand wipe... I am refreshed. - Han
It is called ‘I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead’ - can you tell us the meaning behind that?
Our brains have existential nihilistic tendencies my friend... I cannot tell you the amount of time I have laid in bed crying about my place in the world and how much ketamine I have taken to transport me to a place I can understand the very fabric of the universe our place in it... i have fully broken my brain by this point... Everything I do is ruined by over analysis and i now see everything on this plain very differently. This whole EP just a corner of the creative work i have created around these thoughts, i paint about it too. - Han
Where was the EP recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process?
We recorded the EP in my spare bedroom, I've been building a home studio for a few years and trying to perfect producing... We always want to stay in control of our own music so for us producing it ourselves is very important. We do like to go and spice things up sometimes and work with other people just to keep things fresh, it can get a bit weird just me and Han in a room for weeks and weeks you know. We wrote half of I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I'm Dead in LA and then to some weird party in the Hollywood Hills afterwards n played it to all these proper coked up Hollywood heads haha, they loved it and that's when we knew that we would probably keep it haha. - Jim
What are the key themes and influences on the EP?
Just everything we feel everyday of our lives... The dread of life and nuances of worry about the future... We always try to be ourselves and live everyday to it's maximum potential but I think we naturally have overthinking brains naturally so this is our attempt to capture some of the overflowing thoughts from our heads... Think of a boat filling up with water, this EP is a bucket trying to get it out and stop us drowning. In terms of influences we listened to a lot of drum n bass when driving before we started writing this so there's definitely elements of that in there, obviously that mixed together with classic hot milk hooks and some nice serrated guitars and this is what you get. - Jim
Do you have a favorite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
Mine is.... "all your bread and circus dreams, romanticise about retrospective regime, slowly lose your appetite as your forced to feed on the morals of a soundbite".... I just felt well smug after i wrote it hahaha... its one of them where i knew what i wanted to say and it just came out right ya know... its nice when that happens ya know. - Han
Now the EP is out there, what next for you?
Who fuckin knows what fate has in store!!!! More touring hopefully and just keeping this family growing.... Gonna write another EP before we commit to a full album coz we feel like thats gotta be a story and we have to be in a good place first.. We're not there yet if you know what I mean. We just wanna keep working on ourselves and making sure we are all ready for whatever happens next, we would love to get outside of Europe next... I think that's when we will really start to feel like we're in a band and feel accomplished, right now we lack confidence in ourselves and we want that to change, with the love of the people who like our band I'm sure it will. - Jim