HOT RENO // Here To Renovate Your Playlists

Hot Reno has been making the most out of a challenging few months. Where most of us have found ourselves sunk into our sofas, binge-watching Netflix’s latest trashy offerings, the quartet has been working on new music.

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Their latest track is Pray, a nugget of alternative rock goodness that toys with the idea of karma. We got frontman Harley Jones and guitarist Jack Lalor on the phone and got talking about the single, changes in sound and the band’s plans for the near future.

Hysteria: Tell us about the construction of your new single Pray.

Hot Reno: Pray was recorded in our shed by our good friend Hayden Smit, he plays in a local band Plateau. He does all their songs so he came to us and we recorded in our rooms and spent a few weekends on it, it was all DIY. This was actually an old, original song. It was one of the first songs that Hot Reno wrote and we finally got around to recording it. We wrote new songs and kind of neglected Pray because we wanted to do the others first. We revisited it in the last year and made it a little better, and more worthy of recording.

Tell us a bit more about the decision to put it on the backburner.

At that time, we were in the middle of a lot of other songs and we had a lot of attention and excitement for them. We got a new bass player (Nick Horsnell), and when he joined we wrote a new bassline for it. It gave Pray a whole new feel and we were a lot happier with it and more excited.

We wrote new songs and kind of neglected Pray because we wanted to do the others first. We revisited it in the last year and made it a little better, and more worthy of recording.
[ Hot Reno ]

Did you find you approached it differently than your past releases?

It’s definitely different to our last EP Stab in the Dark, but it’s a lot more similar to our last few singles F I R E and Wicked Pulse. We also recorded those, for the first time, in our shed so it was the same process. Stylistically, it’s a lot different to our EP but it fits a lot more naturally to us.

How has making new music gone since that EP?

It’s been the same process as Pray since we’ve still been recording with Hayden in the shed. I guess F I R E was more of a test run of how this style sounded in a recording environment. We got mixes back for it and just tweaked a couple of little things, we were super happy with how it turned out.

It also hasn’t felt as rushed as it did when we did the EP. We prefer the experience of being in our own rooms, spending as much time as we want on things on our own terms. We’re good friends with Hayden too, so he makes things so much easier. He’s got a similar taste to us so when we try to describe something, he knows exactly what we’re talking about and what we want.

Can we expect to see a new EP this year, or will Pray be a stand-alone single?

Pray is off a new six-track EP, it’ll also feature F I R E and Wicked Pulse. You should see it in the next few months hopefully, to be advised!

This year has been a difficult one for so many in the music industry, have these unprecedented circumstances interfered with the band’s plans?

Definitely. We had one show left on a charity run we were doing for the bushfires. We had a few other shows booked as well and they were all cancelled. We ideally wanted to tour Pray or the single that’s going to follow it, but that’s out of the question now. Having a lot of time at home has forced us to plan our releases a bit better, as well as plan what we’re going to do for the year. We balance the band with work and our other lifestyles, we’ve never really had the time to do that stuff so it’s given us a bit more breathing space and a chance to re-evaluate things. I think we’ve made the most of it.

Any goals you’re really hoping to tackle once things return to normal?

Tour! This is also probably the longest time we’ve ever gone without playing a gig, I think our record before was three weeks. We want to get interstate, with our next two releases we’re hoping to expand and get some new listeners. We’re ready to tour, we really need to get out of our local scene and try to reach some more people. It was our plan for the year before all this happened and we still have that same mentality.