The Hives Go Behind The Scenes Of Their New Album

Sweden’s prime rock export The Hives have officially served up their seventh studio album, The Hives Forever Forever The Hives. Fresh from tearing through Australia on their first headlining tour in over a decade, the album continues the band’s tried and true approach to rousing, electric garage rock with hooks so sharp they could take out an eye. Of course, behind every great album is a slew of great stories – and that’s just what Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, the band’s irrepressible frontman, has assembled exclusively for Music Feeds. Stream The Hives Forever Forever The Hives below, with Almqvist’s favourite stories from the making of the album after that.

The Hives – The Hives Forever Forever The Hives

1. Man vs. Beastie

Mike D from the Beastie Boys came to the studio in Stockholm on the first day we were in there. We were recording the album with Pelle Gunnerfeldt, who’s our usual producer and mentor. He’s been around since our first album [1997’s Barely Legal]. We’re all big Beastie Boys fans, but I think he might be the biggest one. When Mike showed up, everyone was like, ‘This is going to be fun’. But then, everybody got really nervous pretty quickly. Pelle started stumbling over cables, and connecting things the wrong way. It was pretty funny.

Mike was going to sing on a song – just the one line – and when he was in the booth, he did the classic Beastie Boys hand gestures. He still sounded exactly the same. Everybody got goosebumps, and time stood still. He was going to add the organ to another song, so he walked out into the recording room and started playing the organ riff to ‘So Whatcha Want’. I guess that’s just what he plays when he’s sitting at an organ. You realise that all these classic things come from him just.. being him. That’s just what it sounds like. When you’re a fan listening, you feel like there’s surely there’s more to it. But no, that’s just him.

2. Lean On Me

We recorded the album in the studio where Yung Lean recorded a lot of his classic stuff. All these different mumble-rap people still use that studio, because it’s owned by his ex-label; I guess they’ve had that studio for a while. You could get to the studio in the morning, and someone would be asleep at the mixing desk or something like that. It’s kind of a weird place; you don’t think about that much in such a safe haven of Stockholm. But yeah, a lot of… shall we say, interesting young musicians were around in the studio when we were finishing the record up.

3. On The Road Again

We recorded the album during touring, so we would come home, go straight into the studio for a few weeks and then go back out. It was pretty intense, because we decided that we were going to put out a record really quickly. We were kind of doing it parallel to launching the other record, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimons. That was kind of exhausting, but it was also pretty hilarious at times. Plus, it meant that the band was in really great shape. Everyone was playing really well together, so that made it smoother.

We usually do a record, do a full tour of the world, then another half-lap of the world, and then we take six months to a year off. I’m starting to realize why we used to do that now, that we’re not doing it anymore. It feels really fun, though, to have momentum again for once in our lives. I don’t think we’ve ever had that, in the way of making a record then making another one quickly. The shortest before this has been maybe four years. [Editor’s note: It’s actually three – between Barely Legal in 1997 and Veni Vidi Vicious in 2000.]

The Hives – ‘Enough Is Enough’

3. Take A Chance On Benny

Benny from ABBA came by the studio while we were recording. He actually owns the studio itself, you see. I’ll never forget… he came in and asked us, “So… you got any hits?” It’s a pretty great thing to ask if you’re from ABBA. It’s like, we do, but not like them! He’s a great guy. We’ve recorded in his studio before, so we all got to know him. He’s real friendly and approachable. He’s still in the building next to you when you’re in the studio trying to make music for hours, working on all this vintage 1980s equipment that he still uses to this day. He does four hours a day pretty consistently.

He actually played the organ with us on a record before. One time, we were doing a movie soundtrack, and he was involved in financing the movie. We had this song that’s kind of a ballad that doesn’t sound like The Hives a lot. We performed that song on Swedish television, on basically the biggest Swedish talk show, and he played the organ during our performance. He hadn’t played the organ since the 60s. He used to be in this garage band back then called Hepstars. Everything he played just sounded like the 60s. After the performance, he said to us, “I haven’t played like that in 40 years.” it’s official: Benny Andersson was in The Hives for a day. An honourary Hive!

4. Living It Up

Everybody always liked the song ‘Legalize Living’ when we were rehearsing it. It felt pretty special, because it always sounded great in any scenario. Because of that, it was a lot easier to record than a lot of the other songs on the album. Whenever our confidence dropped on some of the other songs we were recording, we’d just be like, “let’s just go back to working on ‘Legalize Living’”.

It was in one of those return sessions that we made the decision to add sirens to it. It is kind of cheesy, but as a band we decided on this album to not stay away from cheesy stuff. All of our favourite albums have really cheesy moments on them; these super over-the-top indulgences. It makes sense when someone else is doing it. This was our moment to be like, “if you’re going to be a rockstar, you’re going to have to be the person that does rockstar things”. So, we put a siren on the whole song and that felt great. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta go full tilt!

The Hives – ‘Legalize Living’

5. Highly Strung

If I could indulge on another story about ‘Legalize Living’… the intro is the sound of an orchestra warming up. We’d been to the BBC and done one of these Peel Sessions, and we were walking around the studios. I opened a door, and there was an orchestra warming up in this huge hall. You just open a normal door and it’s like you’ve entered the Batcave or something. It was probably the most terrifying noise I’ve heard in my entire life.

As soon as I found the other guys and told them what happened, I said, “we’ve got to start the album with that. Apparently the most recognizable piece of music on earth is ‘Beethoven’s Fifth’, so I wanted to start with that – but on electric guitar. If you get the THX intro, then an orchestra warming up, then ‘Beethoven’s Fifth’ and then you start the record by singing about how everyone’s a little fucking bitch, I think you’ve then done all that you can to kick things off in a big way. It’s moment after moment to make sure it starts out on a high note.

The Hives Forever Forever The Hives is out today via Play It Again Sam.