Hot Hot Heat

Hot Hot Heat was a Canadian indie rock band from Victoria, British Columbia, formed in 1999. The band was signed to Seattle label Sub Pop in 2001 and Warner Records throughout the majority of their career.

The band has released five full-length albums to date, their first and critically acclaimed, Make Up the Breakdown (2002), Elevator (2005), Happiness Ltd. (2007), Future Breeds (2010) and their last before disbanding, Hot Hot Heat (2016). The band's style makes use of electronic and traditional instruments and has variously been categorized as dance-punk, post-punk revival, and art-punk.^{[citation needed]}

After five years of scant activity following the touring cycle of Future Breeds in 2011, on March 13, 2016, Hot Hot Heat announced new music with a limited edition 7" record, "Nature of Things" which was released for April 16, 2016, in participation with Record Store Day that year. Preceding that release, on April 5, the group officially announced they had disbanded and would release their fifth and final self-titled album on June 24, 2016, via Kaw-Liga Records, with the album's lead single, "Kid Who Stays in the Picture" premiering alongside the announcement.

Following an eight-year hiatus, Hot Hot Heat reunited at the end of 2023, with the release of their comeback single, "Shock Me" on December 1, 2023. However, the reunion would be extremely short-lived following an announcement by the group on January 26, 2024, stating all intentions to release new material and subsequent live performances were effectively cancelled. The reasoning was further explained in part due to lead vocalist and primary songwriter Steve Bays no longer being able to commit to the group's plans.

Dustin Hawthorne, a drugstore clerk, and Steve Bays, a personal assistant, had been in many different bands together since 1995 and met Paul Hawley in 1998. In 1999, Hawley bought a Juno 6 keyboard and asked Bays to try playing it, as no one else knew how. Hawley took over the drums from Bays and Hawthorne played bass. Matthew Marnik, who was a friend of the band, sang vocals. The band's original sound can be considered electropunk.

The band soon changed direction to a more melodic, pop-influenced style, losing Marnik and adding guitarist Dante DeCaro. Strongly influenced by the new wave sound of 1980s bands the Cure, XTC, the Clash, and Elvis Costello and the Attractions, the new lineup, with Steve on vocals, quickly released a series of 7" singles and toured extensively in Canada and the American Pacific Northwest, joining up with similarly styled indie rock bands such as Les Savy Fav, the French Kicks, Radio 4, Ima Robot, and Pretty Girls Make Graves, and opening for established Canadian rockers Sloan on a national tour.

The band's touring exposure attracted the interest of Seattle record label Sub Pop, who signed Hot Hot Heat in 2001, leading to the early 2002 release of EP Knock Knock Knock, produced in part by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie. Although Hot Hot Heat got its start as a hardcore band, by the time it made contact with Sub Pop, its sound had mutated into what would soon be known as dance-punk. The band stood at the forefront of a movement that would explode on the indie rock scene within another year. That release was followed up quickly by the band's first full-length release, Make Up the Breakdown, produced by Nirvana and Soundgarden producer Jack Endino.

That album quickly found critical acclaim, and its singles "Bandages" and "Talk to Me, Dance With Me" received regular airplay on MTV and radio, including influential Los Angeles, California station KROQ-FM, on whose charts both reached No. 1.