Sacrifice. Loyalty. Camaraderie. These aren’t just words, they are the qualities that have defined Floridian punk icons Hot Water Music’s songs, lyrics and ideology for the past three decades.
Instead of celebrating 30 years of existence with a nostalgia lap or formulaic album, the band decided to mark this milestone with their most ambitious collection of songs. Released last Friday, VOWS sees the band taking their pioneering punk sound to bold new heights via inventive arrangements, pop-friendly sensibilities and a new generation of musical guests that include Brendan Yates and Daniel Fang of Turnstile, Thrice, Dallas Green of City and Colour and Alexisonfire, The Interrupters, and Popeye Vogelsang of Calling Hours and melodic hardcore greats Farside.
To capture these songs, Hot Water Music chose to reunite with longtime collaborator Brian McTernan — who produced the band’s classic albums such as 2001’s A Flight and a Crash to 2002’s Caution as well as 2022’s Feel The Void — which allowed the band to revisit the raw, guitar-driven power of its classic releases like 1997’s Fuel for the Hate Game and Forever and Counting while still capturing the current dynamics of the band.
Not knowing what the endgame was, the band wrote these new songs with the simple intention of releasing music to celebrate this hard-earned milestone, be it a single, EP or full-length. What they were sure of, though, was that they didn’t want to make a new record just for the sake of it; this record had to be exciting, relentless and, above all else, necessary.
To celebrate the release of VOWS, Maniacs sat down with the band’s Jason Black, one of the most universally respected bass players in punk rock, for a chat about what drives Hot Water Music to continue to look to the future, when so many of their contemporaries are transfixed by the past.
Jason, your new record VOWS is about to drop and as a long-term fan, I have to say this one ranks with some of your absolute best. How were you able to be this innovative and forward-thinking, more than 30 years into your career?
“Thank you. Two things that I think have been pretty integral with the last two records are the fresh set of ears. There are five members now, so adding Chris brought a whole new perspective and songwriting input, a new angle on things. Also linking back up with Brian McTernan, who knows us well, knows the band well, was good for us.”
“We’ve been friends with him forever and we’ve done a lot of records with him, but he produces as well, and he produces us in a way where he is trying to make the Hot Water Music record that he wants to hear as a fan, instead of the record he wants to make purely as a producer. With us, he wants to make a record that everyone who likes the band is pumped and super psyched on and I think he has his finger on the pulse of what works for us, and what works for the people who like our band and how to give them something that they’ll be excited about.”
He’s not the only one who wanted to be involved in the record as a fan either. The album has features from Brendan and Daniel Fang from Turnstile, Thrice, City and Colour, and The Interrupters. The guest list on this is wild. How does it feel to be in a position where people have had such a huge impact on music and want to be involved in a Hot Water Music record?
“It’s super awesome. We were lucky enough that everyone that we asked said yes. Everyone that you’re seeing as guests on the record, were the first collection of acts that we asked. Given we’d released a record relatively recently for our 35th anniversary, we were asking ourselves ‘what’s the point of this record, how can we set it apart from our other records, and we thought ‘We haven’t had any guest spots in a minute, so maybe we can try and make it more of a mixtape or something.”
“It was important not to be shoehorning it in there or making it awkward, so fortunately, everyone we asked said yes, and the spots they filled were the spots we’d hoped that they would contribute to, except Dallas, when we asked him to sing on After The Impossible we didn’t expect him to sing the whole fucking thing, front to back, basically as a duet, so when we got that back we were like ‘holy shit, this is awesome, thank you!’.”
“With Turnstile, Brendan’s vocal part and Daniel’s percussion part, they wrote those, we asked them ‘Would you guys want to do something?’ and they came back with their super cool stuff. It’s nice to hear what someone else would do with one of your songs, especially when it is something that you like and whose music you respect. I was very pumped to have everybody on there. We’ve been friends with Thrice forever, so it was nice to kind of close that circle with those guys. Chuck’s also done a bunch of shows with The Interrupters lately and become pretty tight with them, so having Amy and Kevin contribute some stuff was great. It was all super cool, it’s a good cross-section of artists we were able to get involved.”
It’s hard to talk about Hot Water Music without mentioning Chuck Ragan’s voice, which is aging like a fine wine. What is it like as a musician, writing songs with Chuck as his voice has developed through the years?
“I think it impacts how we write, more so than what we play. It’s been super cool to watch, I think the first record that I noticed it was on Exister or he had done a ton of solo shows and from my perspective anyway, and I don't think he would disagree. It's like, very like borne out of the idea that ‘if you exercise the muscle, it will perform better’. That’s kind of the case with him, across the board, if he’s been singing a lot, he can really get cooking.”
“It’s parallel to me, I can sit at home and and practice all day long, but if I haven’t been playing shows, my calluses aren’t the same. So we’ll do a bunch of shows and I’ll get blisters, and if I don’t keep those up, then the next time I come back to play, it’s an issue. I think it’s the same thing with his voice, once he hit that point where it was dialled in, it’s been cool to see him treat his voice as more of an instrument. There’s not a lot of people that can do that. There are not many people who sing the way he sings in bands like ours, so it’s cool.”
Another thing that is impossible not to notice on Hot Water Music records is the bass playing and this one is no exception. You write some of the most innovative and intelligent baselines in punk rock, so I’m curious, do you have any favourites from your career??
“My favourite bassline is Remnants off the new record. I mean, it's one of my favourite songs we've ever done. It's just got such a cool groove.I love percussion, I listen to a lot of music with congos and stuff in it anyway. I like having that kind of element brought into it. I definitely like the Chili peppers vibe, which is what I grew up on as a kid too.So just having Brendan and Daniel on it, it kind of ticks all the boxes for me. Manual from Forever and Counting, we've put that back in the set last month, it's been fun to play that again, too. That's a super, super cool fun line.”
What do you think it is about punk rock as a genre that allows for such creativity as a bass player?
“One thing, if you were comparing it to metal, a lot of times if you’re going start shredding on bass, you're probably in unison with the guitar. I mean, there's obviously some bands that are super rhythm section driven, like I feel like Metallica,is kind of one of them, where things are a little separate, but you're still kind of locked in that zone, due to the guitar riffs being the hook as much as the vocals.”
“With punk, it depends on the band a little bit, but I’ve been really lucky, especially these last few records, where the guitar playing has opened up a little bit more. In our band we kind of put our songs into two buckets, where we have the Social Distortion bucket and the Fugazi bucket basically. When we’re more heavily in the Social Distortion bucket, there’s a little less for myself and George to do, we can’t be stepping all over everything.”
“ Luckily, we’ve kind of had both feet in the Fugazi bucket lately, so there’s been a lot more space for us. We’re lucky in the sense that the way the guys play guitar isn’t super traditional, there is a space, and I don’t think I’d be able to play anything that I do if Goerge wasn’t our drummer. So much of what he and I write is written together, playing off-of each other, so our parts are very informative of one another.”
Let’s get a little bit click-baity quickly before we go. If you were to name the five best bass players, in the history of rock and metal, who would you choose?
“I mean Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Flea for sure, Les Clapool, Norwood Fisher from Fishbone and Doug Wimbish, so yeah, I’ll go with those six.”
If you had one thing you could tell people about VOWS, to encourage them to pick it up, what would it be?
“I think in a vacuum, it's our best record.”
“No one’s ever gonna say our newest record is their favourite record, I know, everyone has their favourite record that pulls on their heartstrings, due to the nostalgia that’s liked to it. I have that too, like my favourite Jawbreaker record is 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, even though Dear You is by far the better record, that’s just what I’m attached to, for whatever reason.”
“So I think if all our records were by different bands, this would be by far our best record. These are the best songs we've done, it’s a very cool selection of vibes. I think it's interesting. I don't think it drags on. I think there's a little something for everyone on there. And we've kind of got into some new territory for the first time in a minute, so I feel I feel pretty good about it.”
VOWS is out now.
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