Sweden's rock'n'roll heroes The Hives will soon be on tour to accompany the release of The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons, the first unreleased album in ten years, to be released on 11 August 2023 via ESCAPE. The tour will also touch down in Italy in a unique opportunity: Monday 2 October 2023 at the Magazzini Generali in Milan. I tickets will be available for fans of the band from 10 a.m. on Thursday 11 May and then to the whole audience starting from 10 a.m. on Friday 12 May at Ticketone e Ticketmaster.
The album and tour announcement comes a few days after the release of Bogus Operandi, the opening track of the new work, whose insistent and incendiary yet suave sound fizzes with the wild energy that has become the legendary band's calling card and sets the tone for the project as a whole. The accompanying music video, gory but decidedly stylish, is directed by Aube Perrie (Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion) and produced by Pulse Films.
As the album's macabre title suggests, the band's prolonged absence from the studio was not a break, but almost a horror story. The Hives now admit that they neither saw nor spoke to their mysterious founder, mentor and author, Randy Fitzsimmons - always escaping the limelight - since the release of Lex Hives in 2012. Following the recent discovery of a hidden obituary and a cryptic poem in the local newspaper of the northern Vastmanland town from which they hail, the band members were led to Fitzsimmons' gravestone. After digging up the freshly unearthed soil, the band found not a body but several tapes, suits and a piece of paper with the words The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons typed as if it were a title. Whether this is a hoax or Fitzsimmons' strategic move remains to be seen. The discovered tapes included the demos that would become the twelve new songs of The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons.
Referring to the new album, the frontman Howlin' Leather Almqvist declares: 'There is no maturity or anything like that, because who the fuck wants a rock'n'roll ripe? That's always where people go wrong, I think. 'It's like rock'n'roll but more adultNobody wants something like that, you take all the fun out of it! Rock'n'roll can't grow up, it's a perpetual adolescent and this album is exactly like that, it's all about our excitement - and you can't simulate that."
The bass player The Johan And Only joined Chris Dangerous, Vigilante Carlstroem, Nicholaus Arson e Howlin' Pelle as a full member of the Hives after the departure of Dr. Matt Destruction. The producer Patrik Bergercaptures the band's punk energy and attitude to churn out hits thanks to its roots firmly planted in the Swedish punk scene and prestigious pop collaborations that include Lana Del Rey, Robyn e Charli XCX.
In their 25-year career, the Hives sold out stadiums and shared stages with everyone from the AC/DC ai Rolling Stones and have sold millions of albums worldwide, winning numerous gold records. In the period following Lex Hives, the band released the singles I'm Alive e Good Samaritan and a live album via Third Man Recordsas well as embarking on a series of global tours. The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons marks a real renaissance for the band.
