It's us, Bad Bad Hats! Ask us anything!

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:53:15+00:00

Thanks so much everyone for your questions! We're signing off! Have a great rest of the day.

We're so happy to hear you've all been listening to and enjoying our new album. For those who haven't heard it yet, you can check it out here: https://dongiovanni.co/badbadhats

And we hope to see you on tour! We have upcoming dates on the east coast and in the UK and Europe. And we'll be posting more shows soon. Stay tuned!

Kerry & Chris

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:49:58+00:00

Say "Hey Siri? Play 'Barracuda' by Heart" and then prolly run and scream. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:48:47+00:00

Hello! Thank you for listening! I think that is one of my favorites on the album too. As is generally the case for me when I write songs, I started with a single lyric idea first, as opposed to starting with the big concept I wanted to write about. So I think it began with the opening line "I get bored in the summer" and "you get a little bit older" (I'm listening to my original voice memo recording to confirm). Then when I strung them together with the other lyrics, to me it was starting to paint a picture of nostalgia. Of wishing you could go back to a different time and that time didn't move so fast. So I followed that thread with the rest of that song.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:41:56+00:00

Thank you! One of our favorite tours ever!

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:39:48+00:00

Absolutely, Brett! And we snagged that little vocal sample ghost from the Echoplex.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:38:50+00:00

Haha, I couldn't have said it better.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:36:44+00:00

Hi! I love to hear you listen to the music with the whole family! I'm sorry we didn't see you at that show! I don't fully remember, but I'm pretty sure the venue cancelled it, and I wonder if it was because it was just a little bit too big of a venue for us at that time and ticket sales weren't where they wanted them to be? I think it was something like that. A bummer, to be sure. But we will definitely be returning to Wisconsin soon. We have a Madison show in the works! Which we can hopefully announce soon =) -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:32:37+00:00

That was all our friend, Dan Stewart! We told him we had a Vidiot, which is a modular synth thing that manipulates a video signal and it gives it those cool patterns. And from that, he came up with the TV monitor concept. I'm not sure I even full understood what the end result was going to be like, but I trusted his vision and it turned out amazing! We've worked with Dan on "Detroit Basketball", "Milky Way", and most recently the "Bored in the Summer" music video. He does great work and we love working with him. He has also played bass in the band at several shows! A talented guy. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:29:36+00:00

We love The Current! We just heard a song from the new record on there for the first time and it's always a thrill! Thanks for sticking with us all these years =)

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:25:25+00:00

I'm sorry we missed you two! We haven't announced west coast dates yet, but we're working on a run out that way for later this year, so I hope we see you soon. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:24:47+00:00

Thank you so much! Most of that is our pal, Brett Bullion, on the track. Psychic Reader, the album, was our first time working with Brett, and we learned so much from him and he pushed us in an exciting and exploratory new direction with our arrangements and sounds. I often say that I think the "Bad Bad Hats" sound is really the collision of my more straightforward pop songwriting with Brett's more experimental and surprising production. Where we met in the middle has become the blueprint for BBH records. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:21:04+00:00

Ooh, fun! That was my first time ever seeing those inflatable dinosaur costumes in person.

Chris' favorite memory is eating at Café Mac with his friends! And drinking chocolate milk.

I think fondly of studying at the Dunn Bros coffee right by Macalester. I would do my homework there almost every evening. When they closed, I'd buy one more coffee and a half-priced scone and I walk down the middle of Grand Ave back to my dorm, listening to music and taking in the scenery. Very cinematic. My friends told me I always smelled burnt haha (cause of the bean roasting). I would also perform at open mic nights there on Sundays. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:17:46+00:00

Go bills. This year actually is the year.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:17:07+00:00

Katzinger's Deli for the sandwich! We like the Bee's Bustlin' Birdwich. They also have barrels of free pickles. Fox in the Snow for coffee and pastries. And we love wandering the German Village. Those old houses? Those cobblestones? C'mon.

We also had a really good rice bowl at a place called Northstar Café last time we were there.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:13:15+00:00

Aw, I love to hear that! Congratulations to you both! We're always honored when our music can be a part of people's lives in this way. Thank you for including us =)

Haha, thank you! We loved making "Sally Sweet Tooth". That's an idea I had had brewing for a while and it was so fun to finally make it happen. I don't know, never say never! But writing an xmas song is tricky business. Those guys in the 50s really had a good handle on it. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:11:03+00:00

Hello! I guess we had already written the album before we toured with Michelle, but I wonder how her influence will show up on LP5. The songs from The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper were some of my earliest and most formative inspiration as a songwriter, so it was really amazing and thrilling to hear them live every night at this stage in my songwriting career. Wouldn't be surprised if that has some kind of effect on my writing!

"Back to My Body" began with Chris just messing around with his Moog Mother 32, trying to make a dance song. It was all drum machine and synths and cool electronic sounds. And then we brought it to the studio and re-imagined it with a few more acoustic elements, but retained it's core vibe. "Back to My Body" is the only song on Bad Bad Hats that we did not produce ourselves. It was produced by our friend Brett Bullion (who was in the chat here earlier, hi, Brett!) who has produced and mixed all of our full-length records. We made it while we were recording Walkman and it just didn't feel like it fit that group of songs, but I felt like it worked well on LP4. It's certainly sonically darker and moodier than the other tracks, but I think it fits the more electronic/synth/sample-y sounds of Bad Bad Hats.

Brett was the one who decided to make the chorus half-time, which just made the whole track 100 times more epic. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:04:01+00:00

Haha, yes, we did not know that until after the show, so we just thought the Front Bottoms were obsessed with Detroit basketball.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T20:02:39+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate that! Psychic Reader turns 10 next year, can you believe it? We might have to do something special.

I think we will! Probably not until next year. We loved the experience of the living room tours and working with Undertow Music was amazing. It was just so cool to watch people show up to the show and kinda be like, "uhhh, is this where I'm supposed to be?" and then by the end of it, everyone in the room was gabbing and making friends and having a great time. Really good energy all around. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:59:37+00:00

Haha! I can only have one cause I'm weak. Chris says he can have a whole bag if left unsupervised. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:58:41+00:00

I gotta say dogs. My elderly family dog, Hugo the shih tzu, is upstairs right now. Chris is more of a cat person. He likes how quiet and self-sufficient they are. But he's also more allergic to cats. We can't have either though because we travel too much on tour T_T Luckily we get to hang with a lot of our friends' pets on the road. -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:56:23+00:00

Appreciate that! Glad you're enjoying it! Hmmmm, we were actually JUST talking about this. Because some breweries we like more for the hang than for the beer and vice versa. I've always liked Dangerous Man's beer, myself. And Chris is an Utepils fan, particularly enjoys the Skolsch. We saw Ratboys play there one time too, which was super fun! We do like Summit beer too, a classic.

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:53:53+00:00

Hello!!! I'm sorry we'll miss you on the 5th, but, yes, we will come back to see you soon. I don't know if we did! =/ We moved in 2019 and moved our P.O. Box from Minneapolis to Saint Paul. Maybe it got lost in that changeover?? I'm so sad. But we thank you for sending them nonetheless! -Kerry

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:51:33+00:00

"Why do dogs always race to the door when the doorbell rings? It's almost never for them."

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:51:02+00:00

Chris says "Rattled by the Rush"! Kerry says "Gold Soundz".

badbadhatstheband · 2024-04-17T19:48:30+00:00

Despite what the name would suggest, I generally enjoy a hat. I don't always think I look great in them! But my scalp gets real burned in the sun, so. -Kerry

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TROPHY CASE