It simply doesn't get any than better Hot Water Music. The passionate lyrics, the hard-hitting dual guitar, and the unbeatable live show has created a band that is second to none in the world of indie rock. With their strong dedication to their fan's and non-stop touring it's easy to fall in love with these Gainesville rockers. Unfortunately if you're reading this, none of this is new material, however for the few of you out there who have not yet taken to their greatness, this is one band you should keep from flying under your radar.

HWM interview conducted at the House of Blues Anaheim on 2/21/03. Thanks to Hector at Epitaph for setting up the interview and Jason for taking the time to talk with us.

Joel Scheingross: So have you been to Disneyland today?
Jason Black: Oh no Disneyland today. I actually went and saw Chicago by myself.
Jason McKee: Was it any good?
JB: Yeah it was awesome, we’re going to try and knock another one out when we get done playing. The movie theater’s right 		HWM (pic taken at HOB Anaheim by JS)
over there.
JS: Do you get to do a lot of stuff like that when you’re on tour?
JB: It depends, we’re on a bus on this one, so if we’re not around stuff we’re pretty screwed, you know? Or if you’re not in the bus you’re still driving all day, so yeah not too much.

JM: Wait is the maroon van still around?
JB: Nah we just sold it.
JM: You just sold it!?
JB: Yeah we just got a new one, but we sold it to our friends.
JM: What was the mileage on that thing?
JB: It was like 200,000… 230… something like that. Yeah it was pretty bad. We had already put a new engine and a new transmission and all that stuff in it so we just like eh, screw it.
JM: Time to say goodbye?
JB: Yeah, time to get a new one.

JS: So you did the punk rock bowling tournament?
JB: I went out, I didn’t bowl at all.
JM: Who all bowled?
JB: You know what, none of us did. We just went out and messed around for the weekend. It was cool; got pretty messy. That hotel was a disaster area. The bar at the downstairs…I think they had no idea. They blocked out like 300 rooms or something so the hotel was just full a bunch of really old people and a bunch of punks. It was hilarious.
JS: So you guys do that every year?
JB: Oh no this was the first time we’ve gone. We usually end up being on tour or not remembering when it is or anything, but it was a really good time.
JS: So I don’t know do you remember the Tiltwheel team?
JB: Yeah yeah yeah!
JS: We’re from San Diego, this is for a San Diego zine and you know… I’m friends with those guys.
JB: Right on. Yeah Davey was at the San Diego show but I didn’t really talk to him much. He put ice on our bus and left. I don’t know what he was doing. But yeah those guys were out at the bowling tournament.

JS: So what’s the collective opinion of Hot Water Music on San Diego?
JB: Ah yeah we like San Diego. That was one of my favorite shows so far.
JM: Is it true that some of you guys might be thinking about moving down here someday?
JB: We always talk about moving out here every time we’re here, and then it just never happens for some reason. It’s one of those things where I think if we had a reason to…Like Gainesville’s so cheap and we really don’t have a reason to not live there cause we’re gone all the time. But at the same time it would be nice to live out here, so… It’ll happen eventually.

JS: What do you guys think about the Che Café in San Diego?
JB: Oh god we haven’t played there in forever man. That was a really fun show the one time we did play there.
JS: The reason I ask is because I was talking to Chuck after a show in San Diego a little over a year ago, and he was mentioning this grand idea of playing two nights in San Diego... One night at the Casbah and the next night at the Che.
JB: See I’d like to play the Casbah. I’ve never even been there. I hear really good stuff about it; like it’s just an awesome little bar. Yeah, that Soma place that this show was at was alright. It’s kind of boring though. I mean it sounds good and everything but…yeah…
JM: Yeah it’s a very bland venue.
JB: Yeah it’s just nothing. Just this huge room.
JM: So you guys would like to play the Che again?
JB: Yeah definitely.
JM: Do you think Hot Water would ever schedule some sort of tour where you’d just headline for all the kids?
JB: Ah yeah we were going to. We haven’t done one in so long! That Thrice tour… Those guys blew up after we got that thing booked so we ended up co-headlining, where we did the east coast and they did the west coast. And then this thing… And then we don’t have anything after this planned yet. The next thing we’re talking about is doing a big tour with Alkaline Trio and Bouncing Souls and Anti-Flag. Which would be just like all four of us having a lot of fun, but then it would be in these big places. Yeah, we need to do a normal tour soon. It’ll happen.
JM: Yeah we’re kind of missing out on the headlining.
JB: I know man I kind of am too. After three months off though, I’m glad we’re just playing a half hour a night.

JS: That was the other thing I wanted to ask you. I’ve been a fan of Hot Water for about two and a half years. And I mean, I know the fan base was even smaller before I was into it, but I just see it growing and growing and Hot Water’s one of those bands that’s so intimate and so personal… How does that affect you and how do you feel about that?
JB: It’s weird cause it’s one of those things where we don’t really want to put a cap on what we can do for the band, you know what I mean? But at the same time we don’t want to end up doing a lot of the stuff we’re not into, you know? Like doing this tour was awesome cause we really wanted to tour with Sparta so we knew that would be cool. And Glassjaw’s a cool band, I’m not super into them, I’m getting more and more into them though. I mean they’re nice guys, we’ve known them for a while and stuff so it’s like... We like playing with different bands and different people, but this show is just too goddamn expensive man. The guy that put the tour together, George was telling him last night, he was like “dude we’re playing in LA and it’s only like 1100 people with all four of these bands because it’s like 30-fuckin-dollars.” It’s ridiculous. So yeah it’s hard to make decisions cause you want to do new stuff and keep moving forward but at the same time you don’t want to kind of put yourself in a really uncomfortable situation or disappoint a whole bunch of people or anything like that, you know? So it is kind of a hard thing to do.
JS: Is it something you’ve been consciously thinking about?
JB: Yeah whenever we decide to Warped Tour or something, like now it’s not that big of a deal for us because we’re friends with a lot of people that organize it and usually a bunch of friends would be going on the tour too. But when we do that, we try to be like “alright we’re going to go back and do a normal tour” right after we do something like that. We’ve just been backed up doing a bunch of support tours lately.

JM: So are you guys planning on doing warped tour at all this year?
JB: No. No. I’m not stepping a foot into that thing this year man. (Laughs)
JS: From like a fan’s perspective, I think that's a good idea, cause like when you guys are playing the main stage at Warped Tour, unless you camp out there all day so you’re in the front, you just don’t get the same experience.
JB: Oh yeah totally man. They’re scaling down this year again, which is good, they’re going back to just four stages. Cause last year was just ridiculous there was like eight fucking stages. My friends would be on the thing for a day and I couldn’t even find their stage to go see them or anything. I was like “what the hell is this?” It’s just terrible. But yeah I don’t know. We’ve already done it twice, so it’s one of those things where I don’t know if it’d really do us any good to do it again anyways.

JM: You said you guys were going to be touring with Alkaline and Anti-Flag and everything. Where do you see Hot Water in maybe three, four years from now?
JB: Probably where we are now. I don’t know. Hopefully we’ll be able to not tour quite as much.
JM: You don’t like touring that much?
JB: I do but just being on all the time gets kind of tiring, you know? You don’t end up with any kind of normal life at all.
JS: I was counting it, and I think in the past fourteen or sixteen you’ve been to San Diego four times. That’s just incredible for a band from the other side of the country. We definitely appreciate that.
JB: Yeah I mean we always have fun. And you know you have to do it, and it’s a really good time. I mean, playing live is my favorite part, but it’s one of those things where eventually you don’t want it to just turn into work and take all the fun out of it.

JS: How many albums do you have left on your contract with Epitaph?
JB: One more. We haven’t really even gotten to that point yet. I mean we’re happy with Epitaph at this point so yeah, I don’t know where else we’d go, you know what I mean? They’re pretty big. (Laughs).
JS: No they’re cool people, like when I worked with them to try to set up interviews they’re always super nice.
JB: That’s the thing. Everybody there is really fucking cool. They’re not a bunch of idiot office people. Everybody’s really into the music cause they kind of grew up around it, you know? It’s really easy to feel comfortable with them.
JM: Would you guys have ever imagined that you’d end up here like four years ago or something?
JB: Nah. Not at all. When they called us we were just like “What!? No way! That’s a terrible label!” You know? But then right around when they started talking to us they got a bunch of other cool bands, and after meeting them we were like “Ok, they’re tired of putting out the same record over and over again too,” so it worked out good.

JS: So what do you think about the House of Blues, do you get good treatment here when you play?
JB: They’re really nice venues and they really do it up as far as food and stuff goes, but it’s one of those things where it’s kind of like a mixed blessing. Cause it’s like a cookie-cutter club, you can walk into any of them across the country and you wouldn’t know where you were. Like the one in Orlando is exactly like this, it’s in Downtown Disneyworld instead of Downtown Disneyland. It’s a little bigger than this, but I was walking around today thinking this is exactly like Florida.

JS: So I wanted to ask you about politics too. I see Hot Water as a fairly political band but your lyrics are only vaguely political…
JB: Yeah the guys have kind of make a conscious effort to sort of steer away from that kind of stuff as far as putting it out there in the sun like “this is what we think,” you know? Cause it’s always changing as we grow up and get older and get into different circumstances. But yeah it’s just one of those things where there’s enough bands doing it, we don’t really feel like that’s where we fit in. We just kind of like people to think for themselves sometimes.
JS: What do you think about like how Fat Records does that punkvoter.com?
JB: I think it’s awesome. I mean a lot of people are like “Jesus Anti-Flag’s politics are so basic and so boring.” Like yeah cop violence is bad, no shit. But at the same time when you’re twelve years old you haven’t thought about that yet. So there’s a place for all that stuff and I’m glad it’s out there. We don’t mind playing with the bands or being associated with the labels or anything like that but it’s just nothing we feel too comfortable going with ourselves.
JS: Yeah that’s understandable.

JM: So I’ve noticed over time, Hot Water’s record’s tone used to be unity, or everybody coming together as one. But with “Caution” it was more of a personal message, is there anything that sparked or influenced that?
JB: Yeah I think everyone went through some changes. I mean Chuck got divorced last year…You know just a lot of that being gone so much and having a lot of personal life stuff fall apart and shit out on us. This year’s been awesome so far but right around when we were doing Flight (and a Crash) and up until a few months before we did Caution” everything was kind of rocky for all of us as far as home life went. It just kind of got a little overwhelming and bled into the music because of that.

JM: Yeah that makes sense. So going along with that, has your guys’ musical influences changed over time at all?
JB: Yeah definitely. Day one of the tour Chris and I were watching Glassjaw and like five years ago we would have freaked out on this band and now we’re just like “they’re pretty good.” I mean I will end up getting into them, I don’t really listen to anything like that right now but maybe in a year from now I’ll only be listening to hardcore again. It’s always changing. I think the more you’re on the road playing with a lot of loud fast bands all year long, you go home and put on some Stones or something like that like and think “I don’t want anyone yelling at me anymore!”

JM: So what have you guys been listening to recently?
JB: Everyone’s been listening to a lot of indie rock lately. The Shins, The Spoons, a bunch of real sissy stuff. Hot Hot Heat--
JS: --That album is really good. It’s like when you put it in even if you don’t have any rhythm and you can’t dance, you still dance.
JB: Yeah it’s a really fun album.
JM: Well staying with bands, are there any Gainesville locals you guys would like to get the word out about?
JB: Well Against Me! is starting blow up. They’re on Fat now actually.
JM: Yeah they’re really good.
JB: Yeah they are just killing it. They’re getting better and better live too. Besides them, this band Strikeforce Diablo finally got their shit back together and they just recorded a full length. I haven’t heard it yet but I hear it’s really good. The new Gunmoll record’s really good. What else is there… There’s this new band Swayzee [sp?], we’re doing some shows with when we get back. They’ve kind of got this Flaming Lips vibe. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on there now, which is kind of nice.

JM: Yeah. I heard something about Gainesville being one of the top ten or fifteen or something cities for local music. Is it blowing up now or has it died down a little bit recently?
JB: Yeah I saw that thing in the Rolling Stone. It’s kind of funny because we only have one venue right now and it only holds like 200 people. So it’s like…(Laughs)… Funny that they picked now to do that. But yeah it is doing really well; it’s cool cause Against Me! is on Fat now and they’re starting to get a little recognition. And there’s this band Holopaw that’s on Sub-Pop. They’re like an alt-country-kinda-weird-indie-rock band. So it’s kinda neat because a lot of different bands are getting out there finally instead of just punk bands on No Idea.

JM: Well I guess I sort of wanted to ask what you guys think about the whole straight edge boom. If like anybody you know or anybody in the band that supports it at all...
JB: Our guitar tech is straight edge.
JM: So you guys don’t look down on it at all as just another label?
JB: Ah hell no. Me and Chris used to be when we were growing up a long time ago. So it’s kind of where we came from as far as when we were younger growing up... The hardcore straight edge scene.
JM: What do you think about it suddenly blowing up out of nowhere though?
JB: I always kind of get fearful of anything like that, where everyone is kind of just grabbing onto an ideology just because their friends are or something. It’s definitely not an unhealthy thing, it’s just one of those things where I don’t like it to breed intolerance of other people for no reason. Cause depending on where you are, there are some people who take it too far just like anything, you know?

JS: So what’s your drink of choice?
JB: It’s been Vodka Cranberry the past couple days.
JM: What about everyone else?
JB: It just depends, pretty much anything…
JM: Whatever’s around?
JB: (Laughs) Yeah basically. Usually gin and tonic if I’m at home though.

JS: Alright that’s about it. Except we wanted to have you just draw anything you wanted on this paper to post on the website along with the interview.

JB: Yeah, sure.

Jason Black proceeds to draw some sort of Mickey Mouse type head and frustratingly gives up and hands it back to Joel.

JS: Alright thanks a bunch for your time.
JM: Yeah man, thank you very much.
JB: No problem guys. 		Drawing by Jason Black

http://hwm.indiepress.com
http://www.epitaph.com
HWM interview by Jason McKee and Joel Scheingross, photo taken by JS at the House of Blues Anaheim

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