“I Love Hate You” is the third studio album from one man ‘swampy rock stompin blues’ explosion Claude Hay. The follow-up to his acclaimed 2010 long player, “Deep Fried Satisfied”, from which the title track won an award for Best Song of 2011 at the Australian Blues Music (chain) Awards, “I Love Hate You” is a harder edged and more variable outing than any of Hay’s previous efforts. “I Love Hate You” is now officially available for sale. Go to the Store to purchase the hard copy or digitally.
Work on the long-player began at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis (origin of the likes of Elvis and Johnny Cash) before Hay returned home to complete it in his ‘self-built’ Blue Mountains home studio “Vader Studios”. Says Hay: “I had a horrible experience traveling from LA to Kansas via a greyhound bus (36 hours) so as you do, you write about these experiences and whilst passing through Memphis I thought I would throw it down. Absolutely loved that studio, it was like a time machine, it still has all the old recording gear from when Elvis and Johnny Cash laid stuff down there. Pure awesomness.”
Indeed, as is the way with such things, a lot of the material on “I Love Hate You” stems from “experiences on the road and in life. I do over one hundred thousand km per year for about 11 months of the year, a lot of it in a tour van I’ve personally customized to be my home away from home, so you get to see a lot of things. The last 12 months has seen me cover France, US, and so much of Oz, I never found I had not much to write about. There was always something somewhere that I loved or hated”.
Out September 21st through Only Blues Music, “I Love Hate You” the album was mixed and recorded at “Vader Studios” (Hay has a huge back-lit Darth Vader on the wall overseeing his production). The album sees Hay move slightly askew of his traditional blues roots and towards his passion for rock & funk, and yet still incorporates the signature slide, four-on-the-floor rhythms and gut-bucket sensibilities that he’s known and loved for. Featuring plenty of major guitar riffage (“When you write about things that give you the shits you tend to plug the guitar in and crank the gain” muses Hay), overall, the album also bears a more refined approach to songwriting and production than Hay’s previous outings. Breaking new ground for the renowned one man band, Hay looked to take his cues from acts like The Black Keys and The White Stripes and even invited a few other musicians to feature on a couple of tracks (most notably the rhythm section of Sydney band, Chase The Sun who appear on both Turn It Up and Good Times).
Lyrically, the concept album highlights the juxtaposition of Love & Hate, things Hay loves, hates and loves to hate. In his own words: “I Love Hate You the album title track is literally about my love/hate relationship with my motorhome. It’s broken down so many times in the last 2 years, the damn thing has almost sent me bankrupt. But I’m kind of stuck with it cause I’ve fitted it out inside to be this awesome, pimped out, funky arse home away from home. Stone Face is about my hatred of today’s world of going into a retail shop and getting no service whatsoever. People don’t know anything about their products anymore and seem to just hate their job. Hence the title Stone Face. It drives me nuts. Where Have You Gone is about life in general and how I constantly seem to run out of time.”
But as the album title reflects, there’s equal parts love, again in Hay’s own words: Good Times and Blues Train are literally about 2 awesome venues I love to play in Australia. The Blues Train (Queenscliff, VIC) is something special. It’s four carriages decked to four stages that always has music loving crowds that go off. Good Times is about a wicked little pub in Maitland NSW, fondly known as the Junkyard to locals. Great pub and great people. Both places have been supporting live original music for a long time.”
A big believer and practitioner of the D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) lifestyle, Hay built himself a new guitar for the new album. In his usual style, it’s not a straight forward piece of work. As he explains: “she’s a resonator type guitar I guess made from a $7 baking tray, scrap bits of metal off broken washing machines, left over timber from my deck and bits of guitars I have in my ‘guitar graveyard’ the place where bad experiments go. She’s got a unique sound, somewhere in the sound of a resonator crossed with a banjo of course with a bass string with separate outs, sounds weird but I love her”. A ‘Cigar Box’ style guitar, Hay has outfitted ‘Stella’ (as he fondly refers to her), with a bass string and three pick up’s; Peterman bug, Bill Lawrence single coil and an EMG bass pick up.
Claude Hay is an artist that ensures that his music dictates his lifestyle and not the other way around. Mid-October will see a film clip released for lead single I Love Hate You, inspired by the western wiles of HBO’s Deadwood combined with excess frivolities in the confinements of Hay’s touring van. A sneak peek of film production stills from the coming clip can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/9tqzpwe.
Currently on tour in the UK as we go to press and the album hits shelves in Australia, Claude Hay will be hitting the road across Australia to launch “I Love Hate You” September through December
See all tour dates here
