The Hot Lies

Adelaide's favourite quintet The Hot Lies are about to get heated up as the band gets ready to embark on a quick tour with some of Australia's hottest acts such as Evermore, End Of Fashion, After The Fall and The Veronicas.

There have been many events in The Hot Lies camp, including a line up-change, with guitarist Josh Delsar being replaced by newcomer Mikey 'A.D. Knee' Valentine - a change which has come at a great time for The Hot Lies as they have gotten stuck into writing for a new release.

"Mikey's alright!" drummer Jared Brown says. "He's a shit-hot good guitarist, that's for sure. It's totally changed the dynamics of the songwriting. It used to be Pete [Wood, vocals], myself and Pixie [Benjamin Pix, guitar/vocals] and we'd get together to write but now he gets involved too. Mikey can pretty much play anything. You can say - 'I was thinking something like this,' and in about five seconds he can come up with it and he comes back between jams with ideas, which is really cool," Brown explains.

With a new dynamic to the band, it could be difficult to adjust to fresh ideas and opinions. But not so for The Hot Lies.

"Anytime you play with a new person, sure, it's going to be a bit different - it changes dynamics but it hasn't been that hard. If people were expecting the new stuff to sound like the old stuff, I guess it does in a way, but in another way it's also new and different.

Brown adds, "I think the songwriting has stepped up a little, like, in how we learned about writing songs and I guess it's the same as anything - if you had five people painting a picture and one person leaves and you get a new person, then, ultimately, the picture is going to change because not everyone is going to have the same point of view. If the new person comes in and is like a puppet of the other four artists, then, you know...Mikey isn't a puppet," Brown laughs, "even though he's small, he's not a puppet. It's been cool so far."

The end of the month of October will see a huge tour take to the entertainment centres all across Australia for the Coke Live And Local tour. Indeed, this is set to be a huge opportunity for The Hot Lies to break through to a more diverse crowd that might not have been exposed to their music in the past.

"So it starts at the end of October and goes until early November, I think, and is just five shows all in all in the capital cities. It will actually be a pretty massive tour if you think about it - it will be lots of fun."

Brown tells me about how the Coke crew had recently set up a photo shoot with the members of each of the bands, who will be performing at the festival, at the Espy in St Kilda - which ultimately gave those bands who had not been acquainted before an opportunity to meet each other before the tour kicks off.

"They were all heaps cool and really chilled out. I was heaps surprised by everyone that they were that easy to get along with," says Brown.

But it only gets better for The Hot Lies, as on a more local front, the band are currently getting ready and pumped to play a little bit closer to home this weekend for Loxton's Handpicked Festival. The event will see the quintet share the stage with the likes of Bodyjar, The Spazzys, Butterfingers and, more locally, Liability Of My Own and Kasavett. Not a bad line- up at all!

"Yeah this show will be good," Brown agrees, "we did heaps of stuff with Butterfingers last year and this year, like a few festivals, so it should be really good!"

So with all these gigs coming up, make sure you catch them at least once as it will quite possibly also be your last chance to see them live for the rest of this year, what with the boys planning to hibernate and start working in full swing on their next album. And we can't wait.

Fiona Stafford

The Hot Lies play at the Handpicked Festival at Loxton Oval Sat 14 October. 'Heart Attacks And Callous Acts' is out now through Resist.