The Making of THE WARNING by Hot Chip – featuring Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard

For the 20th anniversary of the second Hot Chip album, The Warning, we take a detailed look at how it was made. Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor initially connected as young teenagers in secondary school in southwest London in the early 90s. They bonded over being music obsessives, listening to a wide variety of genres, reading the music press, going to gigs together and eventually recording the songs they were writing. While they attended different universities, they continued to collaborate and officially formed Hot Chip in 2000. One of their early releases caught the attention of Moshi Moshi Records, who signed them to a deal. Their debut album, Coming on Strong, was released in 2004. Around this time, they developed a full band sound, adding other members, including Owen Clarke, Al Doyle, and Felix Martin. For their second album, they signed a deal with EMI Records. The Warning was eventually released in 2006. In this episode, Joe Goddard describes how Hot Chip’s sound evolved over time as they began to embrace house music and develop a harder hitting style that was influenced by disco, hip hop and grime. As they were working on the album, they connected with James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy of The DFA for a remix and found fellow like-minded musicians in the dance-punk revival that was emerging during this period. Goddard discusses how the limitations of home recording with Cubase software and vintage synthesizers like the Casio MT-70 helped inform their sound. Alexis Taylor discusses his love of singer/songwriter music, American indie rock, and 80s pop, which contrasted with but complimented the tracks that Goddard was putting together. As a duo, they developed their signature style where they would trade off singing and often sing together in unison using falsetto over a low register. Taylor also describes writing autobiographically and how a breakup around this time informed some of the reflective lyrics he was writing. From signing to a major label, to developing song ideas quickly, to expanding as a duo into a full band, to the stress of malfunctioning equipment in their live show, to taking inspiration from key artists like New Order, Prince, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin and ESG, to a Royal Trux album credit turning into a key line in “Over and Over”, to the enduring relatability of "Boy from School,” we’ll hear the stories around how the record came together.