Interview HotWax: Shock To The System

After just two EPs, Hastings-via-Brighton trio HotWax had established themselves as one of the country’s most vibrant new rock acts; now, they’ve taken their fiery next step.

Words: Tilly Foulkes
Photos: Louise Mason
17th March 2025

For the better part of five years now, HotWax have proven that often the best rock music comes from people with something to say. Fast, energetic, sardonic and smart, they’re exactly what the genre embraces most, so it’s not all too surprising the outfit have fast become known as one of the most vibrant acts around. What was a little more unexpected, however, is how their next chapter came to be.

“We’d done both of our EPs, and then we kind of knew we’d have to write an album now,” begins vocalist Tallulah Sim-Savage, explaining how the seed of their debut began to grow. While the trio – completed by Lola Sam on bass and Alfie Sayers on drums – had shared previous frenzied, energetic EPs, ‘Invite me, kindly’ and ‘A Thousand Times’ back in 2023, it was only when producer Catherine Marks became enraptured with the band at a gig they played at Third Man’s Blue Basement in London last summer that the wheels were set in motion.“

It was a really hot, sweaty gig in July and Catherine couldn’t even see us – she was at the back, but when everyone went outside to cool off we just ended up talking to her,” says Tallulah of the band’s first contact with the producer, who immediately saw a vision for their album, focusing in on that energy they provide to a live audience. “It was the first time I’d ever spoken to a producer and been really really excited by what she was saying. She said she wanted the record to sound exactly like that gig – to feel really sweaty, raw, and exciting.”

Inviting Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, Let’s Eat Grandma) and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa along to record (the latter of whom invited the band to her Joshua Tree studio for some of the process), resulting debut LP ‘Hot Shock’ is a blazing ten-track burst of energy that brings a candid lyrical turn akin to that of Courtney Love and pairs it with sonic hints of Wolf Alice, Sonic Youth and Fontaines DC. It’s breathlessly rough and ready, and the band believe it “really does capture” their strengths as a live act.

“Catherine had this idea and she was like, ‘I don’t know if you’re into it, but halfway through the record we could invite all your friends down and recreate that gig, with an open bar and everything’…,” Tallulah explains, referencing one particular set that took place last summer in the legendary RAK Studios. “It was just so exciting. It was good to shake up the recording process as an experience and experiment like that.”

“With this album, I wanted to be 100% truthful and as deep as I could.”

— Tallulah Sim Savage

Their formidable live reputation really does epitomise the band. Having appeared on a slew of heavy-hitting festival bills over the past few years, they’ve also taken on their fair share of support slots, taking in dates alongside Royal Blood and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes to name just two – and they’re still barely scraping their twenties. Lola will even be spending her 21st birthday on tour this month – something she’s unsurprisingly buzzing for, while also noting the surreality of how their lives have changed in the last couple of years. “The best advice we were ever given was ‘ask for a scented candle on your rider – the dressing rooms might smell!’” she laughs. “Going from playing little gigs where you’re walking through the audience to the stage to gigs where you have catering… I’ve never seen anything like it!”

They are aware, however, of the challenges facing live music; namely, the fact that a combination of steep ticket price rises and the wider cost of living crisis are pricing many out. “It’s becoming more unaffordable,” Lola nods. “For young people, if you buy a ticket for £15, that means you probably can’t afford much else.“

It’s also difficult because bands can’t put gigs on for cheaper, either,” she adds. “We always wanted to put cheaper gigs on, but you just can’t – then you can’t afford to pay everyone. So it’s kind of an endless circle; people can’t afford to play and people can’t afford to come. I’m not sure what the answer is. We can only really go to local gigs in Brighton.”

Brighton, as it happens, has become somewhat of a creative haven for the trio, introducing them to a myriad of artists and creatives who have now helped bring their musical world to life.

“Each song really has its own visual look,” explains Tallulah. “‘One More Reason’ was really inspired by this artist we saw around town called Greta [Kahlhamer], who makes these amazing outfits, and then she did a catwalk for one of our gigs instead of us having a support slot. Then we worked with [photographer] Stewart Baxter on the ‘She’s Got a Problem’ video, and he just got us creatively… We definitely found some people this year that we really feel like we’ve clicked with and it’s so nice when you start building your creative world.”

Similarly, their time working with with Marks, Marziano, and Mozgawa recording allowed their confidence to grow; as Tallulah says, they “really got us emotionally. It wasn’t our intention to just work with women, but I’m so glad we did. It was all a dream really. There’s no ego or anything, nothing like that – they get us, and they’re all just the best for the job.”

This also allowed the vocalist to explore vulnerability in her lyrics: she wanted the album “to be like a diary”, which can be heard in more intimate tracks like ‘In Her Bedroom’. “I wanted to be 100% truthful and as deep as I could,” she says. “I really pushed myself. With the first EP, we were only 16 or something, so I think a lot of my writing now is just [down to] getting older and having more life experience. I want to be more honest with myself, and I see lyric writing as a therapeutic thing where I can express myself and be true. It feels freeing to get all of that out of you.”

Surrounded by support, HotWax have landed on a colourful, collage-like approach to their music, expanding their album into an eclectic project built on trust, determination, and fun.

And nothing sums up that – and the ethos of the band overall – better than their album roll-out: each of ‘Hot Shock’’s various vinyl colourways reference a different band member’s aesthetic. “Our hair colour is important to us…” Tallulah jokes, her knowing wink almost audible. “We’re very overly-conscious about our hair, so Lola’s is orange, Alfie’s is gold… and mine is just the regular vinyl, but it has a cool blonde streak,” she laughs, “and that’s important!”

‘Hot Shock’ is out now via Marathon Artists.

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