There’s this odd dance you end up doing when interviewing Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. What you really want to talk about is his band’s reputation for über-nerdiness, a collective persona honed in a thousand photoshoots in which Hot Chip goof around in silly spectacles and oversized shell-suits. But he is known to be highly sensitive to journalistic critiques of his dress sense. Ask him flat out about his geeky tendencies and the worry is he’ll go into a sulk. You have to build up to it.
Luckily, there are some fascinating tertiary topics for us to get stuck into. A few days before our chat, for instance, Taylor gave a vaguely controversial interview in which he more or less dissed N-Dubz singer turned X-Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos for baldly stating that the break-up of the band had made it harder to pay her mortgage. The way the internet’s reporting it, you’d think he’d called around to her house and daubed something rude on her window.
“I was speaking about the way people are nowadays very honest in terms of talking about the consequences of a record deal, or what have you, coming to an end and that being a problem for their mortgage,” he says. “I’m sure that is exactly the reality for the lady from N-Dubz. In the context of the conversation I was having with the journalist in question I was remarking that some people seem motivated by the short-term gains of having stardom, rather than loving records and wanting to make them. Who is to say which is more valid? In one sense, I’m quite impressed by people who say they can’t pay the mortgage now that their band’s broken up.”
He’s worried he might be coming across as a snob. Just to be clear, he does not have issues with throwaway pop music. Some of it he loves.
“I don’t even have a problem with bad pop,” he notes. “I don’t have a grand take on any of this. It’s all valid. If something offends my ears, I simply turn it off.”
Hot Chip, the greatest British exponents of wry electro tune-age since the Pet Shop Boys, are, in contrast to Tulisa and her ilk, around for the long haul. They’ve just put out their fifth album, In Our Heads, possibly their finest to date. It’s also their first release since leaving EMI for heavyweight indie Domino. Upon quitting a major, musicians are often quick to heap derision on their former pay-masters. Taylor offers a more nuanced insight into life under the corporate boot-heel.
“There were hundreds of good things about being on EMI,” he reflects. “There are some really great people. At the same time, it’s difficult remaining with a label that’s being bought and sold all the time and is making people redundant. You have all of these people in fear of losing their job, people for whom Hot Chip is not necessarily a priority.”
Hot Chip’s creative axis is Taylor and co-songwriter Joe Goddard. Though the band remains as busy as ever (recently remixing Bell X1’s ‘Flame’), the pair have also been engaging in extra-curricular dabblings. Goddard has his 2 Bears side-project; Taylor fronts an outfit called About Group. That sounds like a lot of plates to keep spinning at once.
“It’s interesting and enjoyable to make different kinds of music in different settings. I find it more interesting than being locked in one mode exclusively and maybe getting a bit exhausted from that. It’s good to juggle.
“Joe and I have made music together since we were 16,” he continues. “We’re 32 now. We do understand a lot about how to work in partnership. We know it without having to discuss it too much. We can see what the other is getting at. It’s a nice working relationship. I really like the music Joe comes up with. He seems to like the music I come up with. We each contribute something that wouldn’t occur to the other person. It’s a good combination, I would like to think.”
This seems as suitable a point as any to bring up the ‘N-’ word. After all Hot Chip have achieved, how irritating it must be to be pigeonholed as a bunch of nerdy bed-sit musicians dressed like Dungeons & Dragons fans en route to their first rave.
Taylor sighs. Then sighs again. Eventually he stops sighing and says something.
“The vast majority of journalism about our band is distracted by the glasses being worn or the unconventional dress sense and doesn’t seem to pay attention to whatever is happening in the music. Most of the people who say derogatory things about the band are themselves badly dressed or nerdy. This has become a cliché and all boils down to early press shots where I wore big red sunglasses. I would really love for people to write about our music. The other week we did a big Guardian article that was supposed to set the record straight. All it went on about was our image. It didn’t do us any favours.
“We are inspired by bands like Devo, who took a nerdy image and made it their uniform. The difference is that they were very regimental. They all dressed the same way. You ‘got’ what they were about. With us, some of us are dressed in sports wear, some aren’t. I don’t think people quite understand. However, odd it may sound I do have an interest in clothes and think about what I wear. I’m really not a nerdy type at all. Even stuff people assume I’m nerdy about – music equipment, computers and so forth – isn’t of huge interest. Of all the people in Hot Chip I’m probably the one that knows the least about all that stuff. The stereotype simply isn’t true.”