Indianapolis indie band Hotfox breaks out in B-town

Oliver Hopkins, Duncan Kissinger, Michael Preuschl and Marcus Tedesco are only four freshmen from Indianapolis, but as Hotfox, they’ve quickly catapulted to the top of the local music hierarchy by being named Best Local Band.

We sat down with the band to talk about its latest album “You, Me and the Monster” and upcoming shows on Dec. 8 at the Bishop and Jan. 14 at the Earth House in Indy along with Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s.

Weekend: Tell us about how the band met and how you all started up.
Oliver Hopkins (vocals/guitar): Duncan and I actually got together around seventh grade, and we started playing music in late grade school. We met Mikey in high school, and Duncan and I were writing songs. It was really only January of this year that Duncan, Mike and I decided we were going to do this together.
Michael Preuschl (drums): Oliver and I played in different bands in high school. We would play shows together, and it wasn’t until senior year when those other bands had run their course that we started.

Weekend: Describe the recording process you had on “You, Me and the Monster” with Tyler Watkins (Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s).
Duncan Kissinger (guitar): The week we got out of high school, we started recording. It was originally only 16 days that we were going to do that, and we ended up being there the whole summer. It was a long process.
Hopkins: We hung out, listened to all the songs and played them acoustically to make sure the structure was something we could work with. We made sure they were still interesting and had some life to them.
Preuschl: A lot of writing occurred in there, especially for me at least drum wise. A lot of the things were really solidified, and we took this ball of clay, if you will, and really made it into something that was good.

Weekend: How did you meet up with Watkins?
Kissinger: Late sophomore year or junior year of high school, Oliver and I came across the MySpace page for Queensize Studios, and we thought it would be really cool if we messaged him, and we could record there. We were just messing around. It was like three in the morning, and we were just writing songs trying to be ambitious (laugh), and Tyler responded. We got in touch with him randomly on MySpace, and he liked our music. He’s been really supportive.
Hopkins: And he wasn’t a pedophile. We met him on MySpace and he was a solid man.
Kissinger: Yeah, it’s pretty cool to have someone as well versed as he is around us because he has been very good to us and very influential. We also met a lot of big names in the Indy music scene through him, such as Crafty, Everything, Now! and Thunders.
Hopkins: It’s nice to have support from those bands, bands that we definitely listen to and dig what they’re doing. It was cool to have that reciprocated by them playing on our record for us and them being interested in our melodies.

Weekend: You said in your NUVO interview that this album would have a deeper, darker sound. Does it, and what can new listeners take away from it?
Hopkins: I was at first thinking it’s a deeper, darker thing, but the record has some balance to it. It has its lights and darks. And a lot of the really darker songs didn’t make the record. That was because we were writing songs in the studio. We would be ready to record, and Tyler would go to the restroom, and he came back one time and we already had a song written. It was just a complete creative period.

Weekend: How would you say you’ve handled the transition between Indy and high school to Bloomington and college?
Hopkins: The body of material has really helped us. In high school we were playing songs that were really in the moment. But as our music grows, we’ve been able to handle a somewhat faster pace, playing shows to keep up with everyone down here. But we’ve also been able to hang back and enjoy the ride. It became more about the music down here. We’re just another set of kids playing music. There are thousands of people playing music down here. We can’t wave our album around like it’s the Holy Bible. We are a humble addition to all the music here in Bloomington.

Weekend: How would you describe the music scene in Bloomington? What’s it like playing shows here?
Preuschl: It’s refreshing. There’s a music scene in Indianapolis, and not a half bad one either.
Hopkins: But they’re all people that came from Bloomington.
Preuschl: Yeah, and I say refreshing because the very first night we were all here together, we saw a show for $4, and it was a great show. You can’t see a show in Indy for $4. It was really exhilarating to see that this is what we’re here for.
Kissinger: And everything is more concentrated. Down here, everyone that plays music is around this campus.
Hopkins: Compared to people in Indy, there were a lot of people who were older than us. They were 23, and we were 15. We had homework and stuff, and down here, you make your own rules. Bloomington is a place with open arms for musicians.

Weekend: How do you feel about your newfound success and also winning Best of Bloomington?
Hopkins: I want to thank the people that put our name in. That’s really kind of them. There are a lot of bands in Bloomington, and I don’t think you could pick one best band. The Broderick really is fantastic. So there is a better band that could be the best of Bloomington, or the best of anything. But it’s really humbling. It’s good to know that people know who we are, that we’re not some invisible thing that came down from Indianapolis and not just another blip of a band.
Kissinger: We haven’t even been here for like a quarter of the year!

To hear Hotfox's album, "You, Me and the Monster," you can listen to it online here: http://www.musicalfamilytree.com/band/hotfox