We met with Jon Dodd, the frontman of The Heat Inc. at Maid Of Stone to discuss the band’s recent successes, including their feature on the ‘Hot Milk’ soundtrack. We talked about their thoughtful approach to releasing music and maximizing their reach, as well as how to write a song in just four days.
One of the things the band has had some success with is being included on the soundtrack for the film ‘Hot Milk’. So, can you tell us a little bit about how that came about?
I have a feeling that Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the director, at some point might have been the next-door neighbour of Nico, our bassist, and they got talking. She somehow got hold of the album and really loved the music. It sat there for a while, and she ended up taking me on this impossible project to direct Deborah Levy’s book, ‘Hot Milk’, and she loved the record. She wanted it to be part of the movie and do something with it. Yeah, so whenever you’re watching that movie, it’s starring Vicky Creeps, Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw, whenever they’re listening to the radio or they’re in a cafe or they’re at home listening to the radio or they’re in the car or whatever, it’s The Heat Inc. with three tracks: two tracks from the record and one track from the original EP. And it’s one of those things that’s just like the longest fucking timeline known to man. So, you say “yes” and do the thing, and then, about two years later, it finally comes up.
Wow, why is it? Why did it take that long?
I think that’s honestly just the movie business, and people think you’re busy because you’ve got stuff happening. The reality is that you started making things happen about two to three years ago, and now you’ve finally caught up with your pipeline.
What was your reaction when Rebecca got in touch with you to say, “I want to include you and your music in the soundtrack” for this film?
I mean, I think it’s a “yes”. I don’t see any situation where it’s a “no”. Unless someone wants you to do something that is gonna be borderline offensive, then maybe you have to think about that. But if it’s, hey, do you want to be a part of this movie that is potentially gonna be one of those? You know, it’s an indie darling, but a film starring Emma Mackey. I don’t see any world in which I would have said “no”.
I know you mentioned that it was that Rebecca was a neighbour – what do you think it was about The Heat Inc.’s music that resonated so much with her that she thought “let’s include this in the film”?
You know, it fizzes. It’s rock ‘n’ roll. It fizzes. I’ve always talked about rock ‘n’ roll, and specifically the music that we try to make, as being the fun machine. That’s what rock ‘n’ roll should be, the fun machine. It’s something that brings people together. It’s something that makes people want to dance. It’s something that kind of swelters. And so, for us as a band, as an ethos, it was just like a kind of perfect match for the book, for the source material. And the way that Rebecca talked about it, it was kind of a match made in heat.
So, equally, good news, you are also featured in ‘The Best Of The Ramones Redux’ tribute album. So how did the opportunity come about to cover ‘You’re Gonna Kill The Girl’?
Marco, I think, brought that to the table. So he was speaking with Marc Urselli, the producer behind the project and they had this Ramones record, and it was a collaborative record, which initially when I first heard about it, I thought, “oh, you know, it’s a collaborative record – we’ll do a track, someone else will do a track, someone else will do a track…”
I really wanted to do “The KKK Took My Baby Away”, but that was already taken. It also turned out that it wasn’t a collaborative record, as in, pick a track. It was a collaborative record, as in: choose a track that you want to work on with another artist, or possibly even two other artists. So, we just submitted: I did a backing vocal for it, we had some percussion, and Marc put down some guitar for it. But it was very much a case of we had no idea what the final thing was going to sound like because we hadn’t done the body of the drum work, the bass, the approach on the lead vocal. But we didn’t know what approach they were going to take in terms of rhythm, and so, how it was going forward, we knew it would be a more traditional take on The Ramones. Yeah, which I was more comfortable with because you know you can’t fuck it up – it’s the Ramones. And so at least if you’re taking a slightly more traditional approach to it, you’ve got less chance of doing that. But again, case in point, it’s one of those things which has a long pipeline. I recorded the vocal for it about two, two-and-a-half years ago, and now it’s out. As of about two months ago. So, I was talking to Polly earlier, and she said, “Are you really busy at the moment?” It’s like, “No, we were really busy then, and now we’re catching up with ourselves”.
So, a lot of work is done down the line, but then it comes to fruition, and on the outside, it appears that a lot is going on. What do you think this says about the band, your growth and going from strength to strength over the years?
I mean, it’s none of our first rodeos, I always say that. But Nico and I’ve been playing together for the last fourteen years, Maurizio has been a drummer his entire professional life, Fabio, the same on guitar. We have, well, Marco specifically has a vision, and we’re in the middle of it now. Yeah, long may it reign. If we can keep playing gigs like we did today and people still seem to have fun while we are doing it, then we will keep doing it.
So, when The Heat Inc. began, were these sorts of things – being featured on a soundtrack and being featured on a Ramones tribute album or something like that – something that you thought might occur?
No, Marco had a vision. I locked into a chance meeting with Marco purely because I was just shooting bands at this rehearsal room at Catfish Studios in East London, and I walked in the room one night and I said, “You know, do you want some shots?” He answered the door, and we ended up coming to an agreement. I knew that he had a good head for the music business, that he had contacts. Two things that I’ve never had or had any interest in having. Whereas I, personally, have always been in love with the creative side. I don’t know what else to do apart from writing and playing. And so, it’s very much kind of, we promised each other that we would give the best of what we could give, yeah.
That’s a nice collaborative effort.
He is the partner that I always need. I don’t know if he’d say the same for me. I can be a nightmare, but yeah, it’s a match made in – I’m not gonna stay in heat again. Yeah, it’s a match made in heaven.
The band is working on a follow-up to your recent “Asleep In The Ejector Seat”. Can you tell us how that process is going?
It’s finished. It’s done. It’s mixed, it’s mastered. It’s ready to go. I’m very happy with it. And I have been for some time. We’re just in the process of shopping around for labels, to be honest, someone who can give it the promotion that it needs, the release that it needs. Marco and I already have a date for the end of August, the August bank holiday, for us to set aside four or five days in the studio to finish writing album three. So, we have, again, that pipeline. We’re not going to stop writing because I think I feel like the second you stop writing, your kind of dead in the water because eventually someone says to you, “Yeah, fine. Here’s everything you asked for, here’s the ticket to your dreams. Where’s the next album?” And you’re left sort of with your finger stuck in the dam. So yeah, we’re gonna keep writing. Album two is done – hopefully have it soon. We still haven’t finished releasing all of album one properly, really. It’s sold out on vinyl now. And it’s available on CD live, but you can only digitally listen to five of the tracks, the five singles, as in 50% of the album digitally on Spotify; there are still five other tracks that are not out there digitally. It’s a long pipeline, but I think we’re committed to trying to find the right team to bring it to everyone who wants to listen to it because it’s the fun machine. You know, we want as many people as possible to listen to it, whether they think it’s bad or not, I don’t really… I’m not gonna say I don’t care, but we can only make the best fucking record that we can make. But then what’s the point in releasing it now? No one is hearing it. It’s as bad as never releasing it, so you might as well sit on it until someone’s going to give you the clout to really make it viable.
So, is that the reason, potentially, behind the first album still having five tracks that haven’t been released online yet, to try and help keep the promotion going and get where you want to be?
We’re almost treating it a bit like a sweetener, like here’s album two. Album two’s ready to go. Do you also want a sweetener deal for the rest of album one? Which isn’t out there digitally. We’ll see who wants to pick up the torch, but we’re ready to go. We’re ready to tour. Album three’s going to be in the bag soon. We might even record it before the end of the year, just as a sheer fucking power move. But I stand by what we do. It’s not that I’m worried about what we’ve done, our creative output, but it’s just that we need to make sure it’s released and gets the attention that it deserves, given the amount of time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears that have been put into it.
Yeah, of course! You need the rewards that your efforts merit. So, I realise this might be a touch “how long is a piece of string”, but when can fans expect to hear album two and album three? Or have you got any rough dates?
After they have heard album one. We’d like to have, I think, album two out in the first quarter, probably next year. Yeah, I don’t really see us hanging on much. The good news is that for anyone who’s still buying into any of our bullshit, there’s more on the way. We are finishing writing album three now. And Marc, he said to me the other day, “You know, we’re gonna be in the studio for four or five days and we’ve probably got enough to start thinking about album four”.
Planning ahead! I wanted to just quickly touch on the writing process. Have you found it any different from one, two, and three, or potentially four? Or has it always been that you have a set process to work through?
So, Marco comes to me with chords, with song archetypes, and then I’ll hopefully either write a lyric or I’ve already got something that kind of matches up with those chords, with that melody, and we might shift the progression around slightly. Maybe the structure, just a touch, and you know we’ll squeeze it into shape. Once we’ve got that set, we’ll take it into the studio with the boys and spend maybe a day, two days at most, just figuring out the arrangement, just making sure everyone’s happy with the parts, and then we’re in the studio. So, you know, if he were to come to me today with “here’s three chords”, we could be in the studio the day after tomorrow, with the band, and then the day after that, we could be into recording. So, it’s fairly spread out because of the fact that we’re working on other stuff and we’re not hyper-fixating on finishing “Song X”. But if we were to hyper-fixate on “Song X”, then we could probably have a song down from concept to recording in about four days. Were we to have a go at doing it on that sort of timeline, but at the same time, you can always squeeze more songs in the handful of days if you wanted to.
I have an additional question regarding 2026, so I’m hoping for new music in the first quarter. What live shows have you got lined up in the future?
At the moment, we’re really kind of hyper-fixated on December. So, we toured with Gun back in the spring, in May, in Scotland, and we’re looking to go back up to Scotland in December. We’re also talking to another band, which I cannot name, about December support shows -we’ll wait and see what happens with that. As of next year, we’re actually already looking forward to festivals for next year, at the moment. I wanna go back to London for a string. It’s been a minute since we played the Dublin Castle. I’d go back there in a heartbeat!
Lastly, is there anything you would like to say to the Devolution readers or your fans?
I could really, really railroad this at the last second, couldn’t I? No, rock ‘n’ roll is the fun machine. It should be enjoyable. Be kind to one another before anything else. I always tell my daughter – she’ll kill me for this, eventually. Be kind, be curious and behave. And if you can’t behave, be clever.
https://www.facebook.com/TheHeatInc
Interview By Lee Carter
Main Image Credit: Louise Phillips