CraveOnline had a chance to speak with Chris Dangerous of the Hives about their new "Black and White Album", touring with Maroon 5, disco rock and The Hives' recording process...

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CraveOnline: Who exactly is Randy Fitzsimmons, and what role does he play in the band?

Chris Dangerous: Well the thing is, that he sort of started the band… We’ve answered this question about 8 billion times I think, but he’s sort of the brains behind the band so to speak. He’s very involved in the songwriting and stuff, he just doesn’t want to go on tour and be in the pictures and all that. But he’s sort of the sixth member.

CraveOnline: Is it true that you had recorded 20-30 songs for “The Black and White Album”?

Chris Dangerous: Yeah we had a lot of songs this time. We never had this many before. But I mean, we could have recorded and released the album a year ago, but since we didn’t want to do it the same way, like the other 3 albums, we decided to work with a producer… and we couldn’t really agree on just one. So we traveled the world and found some great people to work with. Some were in projects at the time so we had to wait for like 5 months for some of them, and while waiting we couldn’t just sit around doing nothing, so we just wrote songs, pretty much, and recorded in a lot of different places.



CraveOnline: See, now I heard that you recorded most of the album in Mississippi…

Chris Dangerous: Oh yeah, mostly, like 50% of the album was recorded in oxford Mississippi by Dennis Harry.

CraveOnline: What made you choose that particular place?

Chris Dangerous: Mainly actually because there is this Buddy Guy record called “Sweet Tea”, that we just thought sounded fucking amazing. And Dennis Harry recorded it in Oxford Mississippi so….you know, that’s how it went.

CraveOnline: Where did you (or Randy Fitzsimmons) find the inspiration to do so many songs in so many different styles? The new album sounds like a decade’s worth of material for most bands…

Chris Dangerous: Yeah, well that was sort of the plan, to make sort of a greatest hits record of a band that didn’t really exist... I mean we’ve always done some weird stuff but this time we figured, we’re not gonna release anything we’ve already recorded and done. I mean we’ve even got one or two great songs that aren’t on the record. As I said, we made the songs over like a year, so a lot can happen in that time.

CraveOnline: What are you going to do with the rest of them?

Chris Dangerous: We don’t know really. I mean we could release like EP sort of singles here and there… But I don’t know really, this record isn’t even released in America yet so you gotta take one thing at a time. But yeah I mean there’s a lot of stuff that’s good that eventually will go on another record.

CraveOnline: I notice that there are more than a couple of disco rock songs on your new album. What was your (or Randy Fitzsimmons’) inspiration for those songs?

Chris Dangerous: If you listen to the song, “I Miss You” by the Stones, it’s like one of the best songs we’ve ever heard. And then we also like AC/DC songs so we could do like “Hey Little World” but sort of like a disco AC/DC kind of thing.

CraveOnline: Funny you should mention “Miss You”, I was just thinking that your new album reminded me a bit of that same Rolling Stones album, “Some Girls”.

Chris Dangerous: Ah yeah, we love the Stones of course.

CraveOnline: Do you often get compared to the Stones by rock critics?

Chris Dangerous: Not really. It’s mostly Pelle, because people think he looks like Mick. That’s usually the Rolling Stones connection we get.



CraveOnline: What’s it like touring with Maroon 5? Do 12-year old girls enjoy the Hives as much as the rest of us do?

Chris Dangerous: It’s great, its so much better than we’d ever imagined it to be… We haven’t done the tour stuff in a long time, and when we were asked to do this, we were like “I don’t know why should we do that, we can tour America by ourselves”… But then when we started to think about it, we were like, wait a minute, we’ve had some great times opening up for other bands, and that’s how we started, we used to play with anyone. Even though they hated us, it was so much fun, you know, just to get a reaction out of people. But on this tour, I mean its amazing, we’re playing at arenas that are big as hell and there’s like 10,000 people who have never heard of us before we start playing. And you know, fifteen minutes into it we’ve got them all standing up, and half an hour after we’ve started, at the end of the set, we’ve got 10,000 new Hives fans. That’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to gain new fans man.

CraveOnline: What new bands are the Hives into these days?

Chris Dangerous: We like our new record a lot! And me personally, I’m a Springstein fan, so I listen to his new record quite a bit. And the new White Stripes record we listen to a lot, we listen to pretty much anything. Usually before we go on stage we’re sorta into 70’s disco music right now. Great warm up music man. “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen is probably the best song to get warmed up. Yeah, that song works really, really well.

CraveOnline: Here’s another one you probably get asked a lot: What’s with the matching outfits?

Chris Dangerous: It looks fucking good! We started with the black and white thing back in ’96… We always sort of looked up to those kinds of bands who sorta went the extra mile like the Ramones and Devo or AC/DC and we just figured, okay, lets just do black and white. We didn’t have any money at the time so we just went to thrift stores and bought everything black and white, and then when the cash started rolling in, the first thing we did was we bought ourselves suits. You’re supposed to dress up if you’re gonna perform to people you know, we’re showmen, we’re supposed to look good. It’s the gang mentality thing. It’s really fucking cool.

CraveOnline: You guys are known for your crazy stage dives and onstage antics… Ever suffered any injuries as a result?

Chris Dangerous: Oh yeah loads and loads and loads of injuries. I mean everything from bruises to… I got an inflamed arm right now! We’ve got bruises all over and stuff like that. And then you know how it is when you sing and you get the microphone in the mouth, and have to get the teeth switched out.

CraveOnline: What is the craziest place you’ve ever been to on tour?

Chris Dangerous: Our first time in Japan was fucked up. It was so different from anything else. Now it’s getting more normal, you know, by western standards. But it was really weird, just the fact that you go on stage, and you play a song and as soon as you end it… it’s dead silence. Like when Pelle talks, he wants the reaction out of people… but they’re like standing completely still, and not clapping, not screaming, not anything. It’s weird, yeah, so that has to be sort of… the weirdest place.



CraveOnline: It’s not that way anywhere else?

Chris Dangerous: No not really. I mean its not that anymore in Japan either. Now they’re sort of getting familiar with how a rock audience is supposed to act or whatever, I don’t know. It’s just culturally very, very different. They’re so polite, they don’t want to be in your way, and they definitely don’t want to scream when someone else has the microphone and talks.

CraveOnline: Ever gone back home and played in Fagersta?

Chris Dangerous: No we haven’t played our hom town in a very long time because it’s a really small place.  I mean the town, 12,000 people live in the city. The last time we did, we played at this lake, and but we put a big fucking raft on the lake and we played on that. We had about 5000 people show up for that one.

CraveOnline: Half the population!

Chris Dangerous: Yeah it was a big happening. But we’re going back. We finish the European leg of the tour in Stockholm on Dec. 4th, so if we play Sweden we want to play all the summer festivals going on at that time.

CraveOnline: Will you be coming back to the US after that?

Chris Dangerous: Definitely, we’re gonna be back in February, on our own headlining tour.

CraveOnline: Do you know who you’re going to be playing with?

Chris Dangerous: I might know but I’m not telling you!

CraveOnline: It’s still a secret?

Chris Dangerous: Mm-hmm.

CraveOnline: Allright, fair enough. Okay, if you had to pick just one favorite song off of your new album, what would it be?

Chris Dangerous: Right now for me it would be “Wont Be Long”. Yeah. I can’t really explain why, we just play really, really well on it, and Pelle sings like a god on that one. I sort of get the same feeling listening to “Won’t Be Long” as I do listening to “Pet Cemetary” by the Ramones. You know, it’s one of those songs that the hardcore fans are not supposed to like, because it’s a bit slower and it’s got some melodies and stuff, but hey, I love “Pet Cemetary”.



CraveOnline: Where there any songs that you were really disappoined didn’t make it onto the final album?

Chris Dangerous: Yeah there’s a few. But you know we can’t really agree on 14 songs out of 25 0r 30 or however many we have. It’s impossible. It was sort of a long fucking voting kind of thing and the songs that are on the record are the ones that finally made everyone’s final list, blah, blah, blah, that’s how we did it. But the new “Black and White Album” is the best one we’ve done, you should buy it, and check us out on tour when we come back on tour in February. It’s by far the best one. There’s no point making one that’s worse than the previous one. It’s same thing when we perform songs. It has to be the best song you ever heard, otherwise there’s no point in doing it.

CraveOnline: How does Randy Fitzsimmons do it?

Chris Dangerous: Do it? Hey, he’s a genius. He’s our genius. And you cannot rent him at any cost!