🎧 Joe Goddard (HOT CHIP) (HOWA)

Yes, I have seen him out there on the road and had the good fortune of interacting with the Hotchip fellas from time to time over my years in the business as we are all english and of similar age upon this green earth.

How are they these Hotchips?  I can say that they are some of the nicest fellows you could meet

Joe’s exceptionally sincere and has an enviable discipline when it comes to making music. He has the patience that requires to finish work in abundance and he takes pride in the process which really shows in the wide body of work that he’s produced both as a solo artist collaborator and of course with his excellent contributions to Hotchip’s output

He knows his stuff but with such a humble delivery he never flexes it in any kind of vulgar manner. A true gent of the electronic music scene. Get ready to hang to a very nice man

Hope you enjoy this catchup with the wonderful Joe Goddard

hanging out with audiophiles: HOWA EP 150 – JOE GODDARD (HOT CHIP)

In Episode 150 of Jamie Lidell’s podcast, Hanging Out With Audiophiles, Lidell sits down with Joe Goddard, one of the founding members of Hot Chip and a prolific solo producer. The episode is a deep dive into the technical nuances of electronic music and the messy reality of the creative process. What makes Lidell’s interviews so compelling, is his propensity to ramble. While a guest might need a bit of patience, Jamie’s conversational tangents invariably lead to fascinating, uncharted territory. This episode weaved through topics like parenting, drugs, growing up, and Lidell’s inevitable touchstones, Prince and Can.^[1]

The core of the conversation centres on Goddard’s disciplined studio routine. Rather than waiting for a lightning bolt of inspiration, Goddard seemingly treats creativity like muscle memory, entering either the studio at home or the larger studio in London on a daily basis to sketch ideas. With this, he and Lidell explore the “ugly stage” of creation, that gruelling phase of whittling away at an initial idea and getting stuck programming MIDI. Goddard emphasises the importance of remaining result-focused, striking a delicate balance between getting lost in sound design and actually finishing a song.

This evolution of craft is mirrored in Hot Chip’s history. They trace the band’s sonic journey from DIY roots, scouring charity shops and car boot sales for cheap equipment, such as a Casiotone keyboards that they used a lot early on, to high-end studio productions. Yet, both express a nostalgia for that early unpredictability, noting that modern electronic music often lacks an element of risk because everything is seemingly programmed to the nth degree. Interestingly, Goddard admits he does not chase every new technical development. He often falls back on software like Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere before turning to hardware to push boundaries, proving that learning in the studio comes in many different shapes and sizes.

In a particularly candid moment, Goddard shares that he does not consider himself a master of any single instrument; instead, his strength lies in creating digital scores. Paradoxically, this lack of traditional technique births a unique “strangeness.” By accidentally using chords that technically should not work, he creates something that beautifully does.^[2]

Toward the end, Lidell asks Goddard for advice on how he might get back into playing the drums, to which Goddard suggests using effects to inject that exact type of strangeness and risk back into the rhythm. This leads into a philosophical finale: Why do we make music? Lidell brings up the producer Tiga’s view that we do it simply to impress our friends, contrasted against composer Arvo Pärt and the thought that music brings us closer to God. Ultimately, Goddard and Lidell land on the human connection of playing music with others. It is a conclusion that evokes the work of Brené Brown on vulnerability. It highlights the power, importance, and pure joy of engaging in creative acts without an outcome in mind.

Coming at the question of art from a different perspective, Brené Brown talks about the importance of play and creativity as being essential to embracing a full and rich life. For Brown, play is doing things with no goal other than enjoyment.

Opposite of play is not work, it is depression.

Source: Dr. Stuart Brown

She argues that there is no such thing as “creative” and “non-creative” people. Instead, there are those who use their creativity and those who do not. The problem is that unused creativity is not benign, instead it metastasises into shame, grief, judgment, and resentment.[1] When we play, we loosen our grip on perfectionism. When we create, we practice being vulnerable. Together, they form a “rebound” effect – the more you play and create, the more resilient you become to the shame triggers of the outside world.

To create is to make something that has never existed before. There is nothing more vulnerable than that.

Source: Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

The Creative Condition – On Music and Being a Musician – Read Write Respond