Scaredy cat dogs, day jobs, dodgy crushes and swearing. Lots of swearing. So much swearing yer girls could make a sailor blush. Plus politics, cruising with Chris Jerico, and generally putting the world to rights. And a bit more swearing. The Hot Damn! are a pick n mix riot of colour. Vibrant – nay, radiant – in personality, language, songs and clothes. And Gill Montgomery (vox and guitar) and Lzi Hayes (bass) are bloody great to talk with as well. Jo! Jo Wright!! Joanna Lea Wright!!! You are supposed to be interviewing Gill and Lzi to promote The Hot Damn’s! new album ‘Dancing On The Milky Way’ and their headline UK November tour. Oh fu………
Rainbows at the ready, ultra-colourful Gill, Lzi and the rest of The Hot Damn! girls (Laurie Buchanan on guitar and drummer Josie O’Toole) have not just launched their debut album, they’ve slung it into the stratosphere with such force that it’s landed in the charts (Rock, Indie and Breakers). Listening feels like a million confetti cannons are unleashing their shimmery papery goodness in your ears. There’s a fair old punch in the stomach too, because while the music contains more metaphorical glitter than a primary school reception class making Christmas cards, in places the lyrics stem from some pretty tough times. These girls are made of strong stuff, but it’s the sweetest vocals that tell you so.
Hard to believe then that lead singer Gill not only has no classical vocal training, but she also cringes at the sound of her own voice. ‘When I first started a band nobody wanted to sing because they were too shy, and I was like, ‘Ok! We need to start doing this, so I’ll just sing until we find a singer. And I’m still doing it!’ she smiles.
There is nothing that quite gets the point across like a good ole fashioned vitriolic swear that starts from somewhere deep within and gets spat straight out. Except a Hot Damn! swear, which tends to be elegant, tuneful and dropped into their tracks as light as a feather. Clever. ‘I don’t think it’s a skill,’ says Gill. ‘It’s a bit like Gaelic – like the Scottish language. If you don’t use it it’s going to die. Not that I can speak Gaelic. But I can swear a lot. I love swearing!’ Same!
‘What’s there not to love?’ adds Lzi. ‘It’s verbalising your feelings. Maybe I sound like an English teacher, but to me swearing is onomatopoeic in a way. The word f*** is amazing! It can be like, ‘What the f***?!’ or ‘f*** yeah!’ or ‘f***’s sake!’. I think it’s the most versatile word in the English language!’ Too f***ing right.
‘We did draw the line at the c word,’ Gill clarifies for good measure. Although there’s always the second album…
That leads nicely into our next line of thinking – can you believe this is The Hot Damn’s! debut LP? Because, apart from anything else, the calibre of ‘Dancing On The Milky Way’ is up there with bloody ‘Appetite For Destruction’ as far as first albums are concerned. And the vinyl version looks really really pretty too. ‘I know it’s our vinyl, and maybe I’m biased, but I think it’s f***ing cool,’ says Lzi. ‘We’ve got a splatter one which looks sick, and the yellow one is cool as well.’ Fo’ sho’. The record that you can now hold in your hands (hint hint) is a thing of beauty. Spin yer black circle all you want Eddie Vedder – we’ve got full on technicolour going on here.
And how about the tour? The girls are ready for their November dates, starting in Cardiff on November 1. But is the UK ready for The Hot Damn!? ‘It’s the first time that we’re headlining with our album behind us and we’re finally able to show it off, and show everyone what it is that we’ve been playing for the last four years!’ says Lzi. ‘It’s a really exciting time for us and we’re super stoked. We can’t wait to get out there and do it!’ Then there’s dates in Switzerland and Germany towards the end of the year, and at the start of 2025 The Hot Damn! set sail on Chris Jerico’s Rock N Wrestling Rager at Sea. Oh, and there’s a couple of festival dates next year too. Yay!
Good stuff. And it gets even better. Just look at these stats; ‘I Didn’t Like You Anyway’ will soon hit the 86,000 Spotify streams mark, while ‘DAMN!DAMN!DAMN!DAMN!’ has almost 41,000.
But with great talent comes great responsibilities – these girls have day jobs too. Drummer Josie O’Toole manages These Wicked Rivers, Lzi works in insurance, and Gill and Laurie work in deathcare. Laurie is an undertaker and Gill arranges funerals. How cool is that?! Probably not the sort of thing your careers teacher would have in mind, however. Thinking about school, how do the girls feel about subjects like music and art being shoved aside in favour of the core combo maths/science/English?
‘I think when you relate to something you need to be encouraged to follow it,’ says Gill. ‘Luckily I got to play clarinet in school and I was encouraged to play piano, and sing in the choir – because you got to get out of class if you sang in the choir. I was quite fortunate in that respect – that we had a great arts and music programme at my school. I don’t think I would’ve been where I am now without it.’
Lzi, whose mum actually used to be a teacher, agrees. ‘When I was in primary school instrument lessons were free. You just turned up and were asked, ‘What do you want to play?’ I swear to God I wouldn’t have been playing music if I hadn’t had that starter. My mum always says, as a teacher all her life, that academia is one form of intelligence. It’s not the be all and end all, and actually some of the most academic people I know can’t even tie their own shoe laces! There’s emotional intelligence, there’s creative intelligence; there are so many forms of intelligence. Don’t get me started because I’ll just go down the route of how much I hate the last fourteen years of Tory government, but it’s just gradually stripping away from the creative industries and the arts, and I think the final nail in the coffin was that everyone needs to learn maths and English until they’re eighteen. I, to this day, can’t even really use a calculator. I’m terrible at it. I have to get my boyfriend to add things for me. I can’t even do maths at the gym when I’m trying to figure out how much I need to lift. I would’ve had a nervous breakdown if I had to learn maths until I was eighteen.’
Lzi continues, ‘Music, creativity, art, design, writing, any form of creative output is so important. It’s more important than anything else I think, and if you had more funding for those things we’d see far less crime, for example. I think the world would be a better place. Music therapy is so important as well.’ Lzi explains how people who have Alzheimer’s or Dementia can sometimes listen to the song they had their first dance to at their wedding, which then brings back long-forgotten memories of their wedding day. ‘It’s magic,’ she says. ‘You want to know the closest thing you can get to magic? It’s bloody music.’
Pretty deep. Very accurate. Ah, look who’s back! It’s Henry the black Labrador, Jo’s bestest furry buddy who has been hiding under the bed because it’s been raining heavily and he’s scared. Poor chap. Henry settles on the sofa with his emotional support duck toy in his mouth. Lzi has a Labrador too! He’s called Ash and the poor fella is also terrified of things such as logs crackling on the fire and the toaster going ‘ding’!
Daft dogs aside, what did the girls listen to when they were growing up? Gill was all about the 70s; The Sweet, The Stones, The Beatles, Queen, as well as The Damned, The Ramones, Bikini Kill and Hole. She sums up her influences nicely – ‘Just banging tunes really!’
How about you Lzi? ‘I’m quite a cliché I think! Growing up I was a nu metal era kid. I was all about System Of A Down, Limp Bizkit… I’ve started listening to Limp Bizkit again! Is it weird that I have a crush on Fred Durst?’
Wait! What? Current Fred Durst or 90s Fred Durst? Lzi: ‘Old man Fred Durst!!’ Okaaaaayyy.
‘Nirvana got me into rock music,’ Lzi adds after dropping this bombshell, ‘and I guess bands like Million Dead, Mclusky, lots of metal. I did get big into hair metal at one point…’
When it comes to writing The Hot Damn! songs, what’s the process there Gill? ‘We start with titles and form a vibe, and I write what’s called a ‘wet pancake’ which is like a really wet song! Quickly formed, mumbled melodies over it, and then piece it together, send it to the girls, and we re-record it, flesh it out a bit… I think the lyrics are the last part. With ‘I Didn’t Like You Anyway’ I just wrote that completely out first time – all the way through, in the bath! I just wrote the whole thing, and I think we maybe changed two lines in the whole song. Sometimes it just comes right out and sometimes it takes a while.’
‘Dancing On The Milky Way’ is such a joy. Like talking to Gill and Lzi, come to think of it. The album radiates fun, feelings and intelligence. Good times and bad. And it’s guaranteed to make you smile. An absolute belter of an album? F*** yeah!!!!!!
Interview by Jo Wright
Photo by Rob Blackham