Kerry Alexander’s soft but straightforward vocals drive the tender, indie-pop band Bad Bad Hats’ sophomore album, Lighting Round. Following their strong debut LP, Psychic Reader, Bad Bad Hats continues to provide fervor in songs that confidently approach feelings of hope with heartbreak. Behind her voice and lyrics are a dreamy and infectious instrumental arrangement with melodic, clever ambiance that swings between lulled moments on “1-800” to the ardent driving forces on “Nothing Gets Me High.” Alexander spared some time to talk with me about the making of their new album, Lightning Round. They will play the Hi-Dive in Denver on Wednesday, August 22nd.
You just released your new record Lightning Round, on August 2nd. Have you played any shows since then?
Kerry: So we’ve only played, I guess, one show since the album’s been out. That was in Chicago, I guess it was last weekend. And then we have our release next Saturday… Or this Saturday. Wow. Okay.
It’s coming up quick!
Kerry: Things are happening really quick, yeah. But our release show will be our second show since the album has been out. We have been playing a few of the songs from the album on the tour from this past summer.
So you’re still comfortable with playing the songs even though they’re newly released?
Kerry: Yeah! We try to do that because last time, when we released Psychic Reader, we didn’t give ourselves a lot of time to play the song in front of people before our release show. I, especially, remember feeling very scared on stage. So now I was like, “Nah, I’d like to feel a little more comfortable and at ease at our release show.” So yes, we purposefully tried to give ourselves more time to get comfortable with the songs.
Understandably so, I wanted to say that I saw you all play in St. Louis when you were on tour with The Front Bottoms this last year. It’s really cool because I had never been to St. Louis before and I was listening to Psychic Reader a ton during that trip. Now, whenever I go back to listen to it I always get weird flashbacks to seeing you in St. Louis or just random parts from that trip. I was wondering if you had any songs or albums that are like that where you go to a new place and are listening to music that gives an impression of an event in your life?
Kerry: Yeah, I was actually just thinking the other day about this. I studied abroad to Paris in college and it was one of my favorite experiences of my life. I was living on my own for the first time and it’s such a great city and I really enjoyed it. I think that it was in the perfect time in my life. I was just thinking… I was listening to a lot of music while I was there but I associate two albums, specifically, with being there. A Jessica Lea Mayfield album, which I forget what it’s called now but I think her first album and then Darwin Deez’s first album. Those two I just listened to over and over again in Paris. Now, whenever I hear those albums I always feel like I’m really instantly taken back to that time in my life, and really associate it with that experience. But I like that about music. I think there are a lot of songs in my life that I really associate with a certain age or a certain trip or something. I always liked making mixes for road trips and stuff. So I have a lot of CDs like that I associate with certain trips. But that’s what I like about music in general, that it does that.
Yeah, absolutely, do you have any specific tour playlists that you listen to or is it just a large variety of whatever everybody is listening to at the time?
Kerry: Oh yeah! I think that they develop over the tour. I feel like I have a set of songs going into the tour that I like or I’m really excited about. So I play them for everyone in the van and feel out to see what people like. The ones that everyone likes get added to the tour playlist. We’ll do the thing where whoever is driving chooses the music usually so we’ll all find songs that resonate with us. But sometimes we’ll hear a song in a restaurant or something and that gets added to the playlist. I like when that happens too, because those songs really become reminiscent of certain tours. So that’s always a fun project, to make the tour playlists.
So I wanted to talk about Lightning Round a bit. Was the entire album recorded live or was it just a few specific songs?
Kerry: Yes, not the entire album was recorded live. We’ve seen a few people write that and we just leave it out there. (laughs) I think that came up because on Psychic Reader we didn’t do anything together. I think we did almost everything track by track and one at a time. We did Chris on the drums, and we did all the bass tracks, then the guitar… Everything was just one person recording something at a time. So, for Lightning Round any live recording was a very new experience for us. On the album, for “Absolute Worst” and “365” almost all of the instruments were recorded together and then we did a few overdubs on top. A lot of the songs, the bass and the drums we did at the same time. Which was kind of exciting to see that come together at the same time. Some of the other songs, three of us would go in and play keyboard or two guitars or something. So we tried to do as much as we could with multiple people playing something at the same time to get that feeling of collaboration and improvisation at some points. But, no, not all of it was live but a lot of it was for us.
Are you planning on playing those live recorded songs on the tour or do you think they have more potential for live shows?
Kerry: Yeah! It’s always a little tricky to put together sets… It was a little easier this time because everyone was playing something or knew what they were doing. But we often record as though we have an eight-piece band. We have a keyboard, we got a synth, we got shakers. But we like doing that in the studio. To me that’s what’s fun about being in the studio. You’re able to stretch your legs and get creative with what you have and play whatever is available to make the song cool. But then it can be a challenge when we put together the tour. We’re like, “Okay, there’s only four of us… So how do we accomplish all these instruments?” But that’s a re...
