We chat to Hot Mulligan’s Chris and Jonah about their new record, the track almost called ‘boobs,’ and Chris’ dad’s screaming cameo.
Hot Mulligan have never been a band to do things the conventional way, and their latest record The Sound A Body Makes When It’s Still is no exception.
Pieced together with their trademark mix of humour, mania, and vulnerability, The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still is set to be Hot Mulligan’s most cohesive album yet. In addition to bold riffs and careful sonic nuances, it’s chock-full of addressing fears and finding solace in the fact that regardless of the uncertainty of the future, we exist in this moment. Despite the subject matter, Hot Mulligan find the light moments of comfort, even when it feels impossible.
Co-vocalist and guitarist Chris Freeman describes the album’s core as fear – self-awareness of the kind you can’t escape – while guitarist Jonah LeRoy calls it his first real chance to shape a full-length from start to finish. Recorded once again with producer Brett Romnes at Barbershop Studios, the sessions pushed the band to keep experimenting until the very end.
We caught up with Hot Mulligan’s Chris and Jonah to chat about the messy birth of the record: the songs that shaped it, the family features (including a scream cameo from Chris’ dad), and the inside jokes that nearly made the tracklist.
Blunt: How are you feeling about finally getting to share this new record with the world? I’m imagining that you’ve had it done for a while. How long has it been in the works for?
Chris: Jonah, did we start it this year?
Jonah: No, it was last year.
Chris: Really? When?
Jonah: November, I think.
Chris: Okay. Gotcha. So it was a little bit of a blur, I’ll give you that. We were back in and out a few times. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been sitting on it for that long because we did just finish it up this year and as soon as we finished recording it, we needed to get the artwork done, we needed to do the music videos, we gotta plan a tour, we gotta do this and that and it’s like, “Holy f**k man I just wrote the song, give me a second to breathe.”
What does this new record mean to you and how did you come up with the title? How does it relate to what you guys are exploring thematically?
Chris: That’s a good question. Most of the theme of the record is fear, so “the sound a body makes when it’s still” is kind of this self-monitoring, self-realization of your own fear that you have created.
Jonah: It’s unique for me because it’s the first full length that I’ve been a part of. I recorded on the EP that we did last year, Warmer Weather, but this was the first full album that I’ve contributed to. So it was just a whole new experience for me. I’ve never spent that much time in a studio and helped write a full album like that. Everything was pretty new to me.
What was the first song that you started writing for this record together? And did it make it onto the album in the end?
Chris: The first one written at all was probably ‘Moving to Bed Bug Island’, which is the first song, but that one initially was not written together. That was from a demo that I had before we went into the studio for the first time that Tades enjoyed. So we did do some reworking from there, but it didn’t change that much compared to the demo overall. And then out of the ones that we jammed live together. I think ‘Monica Lewinskibidi’ might’ve been one of the first ones.
Jonah: I think either Monica or whatever ‘poops bagels’ is actually called.
Was there a song early on in the process that shaped the sound or the direction for the rest of the record?
Chris: No, I don’t think so.
Jonah: I don’t think there was. The first session, I think, yielded the most songs that we ended up not using. We had maybe seven or eight songs from the first session and I think only two of them made the final cut.
Chris: ‘And A Big Load‘ and the focus track, ‘Smells Like Fudge Axe in Here’, were actually the last songs written for the record. So I think it just kept getting better as we went along.
Who did you guys work on this record with and what was your experience working with them? What was their effect on the writing and recording process?
Chris: We did this one with Brett Romness at the Barbershop Studios in Hopatcong, New Jersey, just like the last one. And the one before. So it was good. It’s comfy. Brett’s just another member of the band, it’s awesome working with Brett. He’s really great at communicating with each band member and making each person feel like they’re his favourite. He’s also unbiased and he’s not pushy for anything either. I think the only thing he’s maybe pushy about is trying something. If you say no to something, that’s kind of wrong – don’t say no. You have to at least try, and if you try and you don’t like it afterwards, then at least you found out for yourself.
For both of you, what’s your favorite track from the record? Is there an unsung hero or maybe a song that you’re most looking forward to playing live?
Jonah: Yeah, I think my favourite track on the album is ‘Monica Lewinskibidi’. And I think we are planning on playing that at the upcoming shows. I hope so, at least.
Chris: We are?
Jonah: I think so.
Chris: I gotta practice.
Jonah: Yeah, I love that song. I would say that song and ‘Slumdog Scungillionaire’ are my favourites.
Chris: ‘Slumdog Scungillionaire’ is one of my favourites as well. And then I think ‘Mixmaster Wade On The Beat’ because my dad features on it. My dad is Wade.
What does your dad do on the track as far as the feature goes?
Chris: He screams, he doubles the scream that I do, it was awesome! He came to visit me at my place in Los Angeles for the first time after I’ve been living here for a few years. And while my girlfriend and my mom were out doing something, I had my dad come into my little home studio and record some screams for me.
Could you share any of your favourite working titles? I’m guessing you had some crazy working titles, based off the final tracklisting…
Chris: Yes, ‘This Makes Me Yummy,’ I think that’s the first interlude, that one was called ‘Cum Interlude”’ And then Track 14 [‘Monster Burger & a $5 Beer’] was called ‘Boobs’. Track 13 [‘Let Me See Your Mounts’] was ‘Stroke Myself’, ‘And A Big Load’ was called “Fast Crap”, ‘It Smells Like Fudge Axe In Here’ was called “Hump Song”, and then there’s ‘Poops Bagels Way Better demo’, which was track 10. I don’t know which one that is now.
Jonah: Mix Master Wade.
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Do you wish you had kept any of the working titles?
Chris: ‘Boobs‘ would have been f**king sick.
Jonah: It’s weird because through doing these interviews, I’ve realised that almost every member has said that ‘Boobs’ should have been the song title.
Chris: Ryan’s not saying it should have been.
Jonah: I was going to say, I don’t know who was against it.
Chris: It’s got to be Ryan. He’s the only one that wouldn’t want to call it just boobs.
So how do you go from boobs to then ‘Monster Burger & a $5 Beer’?
Chris: Because somebody at some point says “we can’t just name a song boobs” so then you gotta dive deep in the bag for another inside joke. What’s funny about it is I bet one person said, “we can’t name it boobs,” and there were four suppressed opinions that were like, “you know, I kind of wanted to name it boobs”, but no one put up a fight about it. We all just said, “okay, he doesn’t want it to be boobs. It won’t be boobs.”
How do you know when you have finished a record and what was that point for you with this album?
Chris: First things first, the record was done when we got no more studio time. I don’t think we picked a set amount of songs that we wanted to do. I don’t think we stopped writing songs at any point and said “the record is done”. In fact, I know that’s not the case because we had a good amount of stuff to pick from and then we made the track listing for the record and we sequenced it and we were like “we don’t have the singles” because like I said, we kind of didn’t talk about anything that we were doing the whole time we were doing it, we just hit record and made songs. So “And a Big Load” and “It Smells Like Fudge Axe In Here” were the two last songs that we wrote for the album because we knew that we needed singles.
Anything that you guys want listeners to take away from this record and from Hot Mulligan?
Chris: I just hope they like it. I don’t think I got any grandiose “Oooohh experience my record” in any way.
Jonah: Yeah I think we wrote an album that we’re super stoked on and we’re proud of, and if anyone feels as good about it as we do then that’s great and that’s all we can ask for.
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