Major indie rock (continued)

The distance benefitted the band, it’s clear, but what about that thing about how major-label-record execs make all the major-label bands’ creative decisions? For acts like Hot Hot Heat, whose believability lies largely in their DIY quirk, majors can stay away from top-down cynicism and instead play off their own glut of prefab — customers sick of the slick now have a crunchy, supposedly more authentic indie alternative. For now, the situation’s win-win. Says Bays, "Until we really screw something up bad, they’re gonna trust our instincts, which is awesome. Fortunately for us, we wrote the songs we wanted to write. There wasn’t any label pressure. But there was pressure from our inner critic. We really didn’t want to be the kind of band that just repeated the same record, but at the same time we didn’t want to get so introspective and self-indulgent that we lost our audience. Whether or not it’s cool to admit, we still want to keep our audience."

After several self-imposed delays, Hot Hot Heat finally flew down to Los Angeles in August to record. The band’s hotel, stuffed with porno shoots, child actors, and Blind Date contestants, was "as LA as it gets," Bays recalls. That and what sound like some serious bug problems. "I remember once I looked up and right on my pillow, it was like a millipede, but it was purple, and I squished it and purple blood came out. One morning, these ants were so bad, they were in my shower even. So I killed a bunch of ants, and when I came back that day, all the dead ant bodies were gone because the ants remove all the dead bodies, which I thought was kinda cute. I guess it’s some pride thing that’s built into their genetics."

Six weeks of recording and maverick extermination — Make Up, by comparison, took only six days — allowed Hot Hot Heat time for some serious detail work, the band stuffing their songs with as many melodies and odd sounds as they could think up. That said, crazy guitar effects and underwater drum sounds are worthless if the songwriting’s shit. Bays and drummer Paul Hawley know how to write good pop songs, however, and like their last album, Elevator is brimming with good hooks. Duran Duran, XTC, and the dB’s get thrown around as touchstones (I’ll throw in Spizzenergi and a little D-Plan), but between Bays’s inimitable tenor and the band’s resistance to cool, Hot Hot Heat are the clever and infinitely more fun counterpart to electrified peers like the Killers, the Bravery, and the Faint.

"You don’t need to take yourself seriously to be taken seriously or to command people’s attention," Bays asserts. "We’re neurotic about the songwriting, obviously, but I don’t want to detract from the entertainment value. For most people, they throw it on and you have five seconds to convince them it’s a fun record and to keep listening to it."

Elevator sticks to traditional fare — getting old, breaking up, being bummed — so the focus is on what Bays does within those themes. First line in, the dude’s a total word playa: "Witless humorless conversation has filled me up like an old gas station/I’m wallowing in a pool of gasoline." Elsewhere, as on "Ladies and Gentleman," he navigates serpentine verse schemes: "He was in the habit of taking things for granted. Granted/There wasn’t much for him to take."

Bays also touches on the Hot Hot Heat biography, making oblique reference to the band’s indie-to-major jump. The strain of heavy touring, in fact, was the reason guitarist Dante DeCaro left the band after they’d recorded Elevator. Bays’s feelings about the band’s metamorphoses are summed up on "Move On," a B-side to their GB-only "Bandages" single: "Can’t believe they never bothered to move on/Can’t believe they never ever change."

At some point between now and two years ago, Hot Hot Heat realized the dead-end DIY/indie mentality no longer suited them. And like other bands who’d arrived at the same crossroads, they were fine with that — fine with having fans, with playing sold-out shows, and with, for once, making some money. Now, though, they have to articulate their system of musical values. Bays’s makes an admirable attempt: "The difference between an indie-rock band and a straight-up normal rock band is that most indie-rock bands can’t sleep at night if they don’t feel like they’re putting up something that they’re proud of. Bands like Modest Mouse and stuff, those kinds of bands. The average rock band is more fine with making creative compromises."

But that’s just bullshit. Who’s to say Velvet Revolver aren’t proud of their album? Who’s to say Modest Mouse didn’t just shit out Good News for People Who Like Bad News with the intent of pleasing the maximum number of people? And when an album’s good, who cares whether the band are proud of their work? Existential crises can be fun, but Bays nails it: "I just do what excites me at the moment, then I try to articulate it later."

Hot Hot Heat headline Axis, 13 Lansdowne Street in Boston, this Monday, March 7, with Louis XIV and the Information; call (617) 228-6000.