Hot Dress Interview

Conducted By: Dana 

Transcribed By: Dana 

Edited By: Ryan Freeze 

Hot Dress is a four-piece indie/alt rock band based in New Jersey. In summer of 2024, they released an EP titled “Room for None” that showcases the band's energetic rock sound. They’re very active within the New Jersey scene, and made their Delaware debut this October. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to talk to them about their history, creative process, and experiences as a band, as well as exciting things coming soon. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm Dana, I'm with the Setlist UD, and I am here with Hot Dress! Go ahead and introduce yourselves.

Jason: Hey, I'm Jason, I do guitar and vocals in the band. 

Caleb: I'm Caleb, I play the drums. 

Andrew: I'm Andrew, I also do guitar and vocals

Max: And I’m Max and I play guitar.

How would you describe your sound to people who aren't familiar?

Andrew: This is always an interesting question, because I want to say indie or alternative, because that's where most of our sound lies, but I feel like that's become a very broad spectrum of sound. So I would say, a harder indie rock. More leaning towards alternative, but still in the world of both indie and alternative.

How did you all meet, and what made you decide you wanted to do music?

Andrew: I think we all have our own different little backgrounds for why we wanted to do music specifically, but, the way we met for the most part, is Max and I were in one band, and Caleb and Jason were in a different band in high school, and we were in two separate rival bands that both kind of broke up. So when they did, I reached out to Jason and asked if he and Caleb wanted to jam and play music with me and Max sometime, and then we fused like a mega band. 

For me, the draw to music was a pipeline that started with playing a lot of Sonic video games, and liking the music in those Sonic video games.

Jason: Mine was kind of similar. I always liked music. I played trombone in high school but I played a lot of Guitar Hero, and I was like, I want to play guitar. 

Caleb: As a young kid, I enjoyed listening to music when it was on the radio, but I never really went out of my way to seek out new music or anything like that. And honestly halfway through elementary school, I just randomly picked up the drums because my uncle had a drumset that he lent me. And then I fell in love with it, and then through the band it really opened my eyes to how much music is out there, and it really broadened my taste.

Max: My parents and my siblings just like music a lot. I have older siblings, so I kind of grew up around music.

What inspired the name Hot Dress? Is there any story behind it?

Andrew: There is, but it's not the most interesting story. I think we are all of the sentiment that there is no such thing as a good band name. No matter what you pick, in a year, two years, three years, you're gonna look back at it and go: ‘what? why did I choose that?’ But we were just running covers when we first started playing, and we had set up a show just at one of our houses just for fun, and we were like: ‘we need a name really fast’. So we started throwing a bunch of names in a group chat, and just seeing what stuck, and we agreed on Hot Dress, because it was a name that no other band had. And we were like we'll stick with it for now.

Max: It's the lyric of a song by The Voidz as well. That's kind of where we pulled it from. QYURRYUS. “Hot track, hot dress”. 

Andrew: And then we were like: ‘we'll just go with Hot Dress for now’. And then it stuck, many years later. But it's got an okay ring to it, you know?

You mentioned your band name was inspired by one of the songs by The Voidz. What are some other big musical influences you have, and how do you incorporate them into your music?

Andrew: I think we all come from a lot of different backgrounds in terms of the kind of stuff we like. I think Max listens to the most diverse range of music, but we also like a lot of the same bands, like The Strokes, Geese is another big one, and I think just keeping an ear out for the things that we both like and don't like together, in terms of songwriting, especially, or production, and saying: ‘oh, that's really cool, let's bookmark that.’

Max: We all pull from very different places, too. One month I'll be listening to a lot of hardcore, or Jason will be listening to a lot of - I don't know - really weird indie, or LCD Soundsystem, or something. We are all pulling from different places at the same time, which makes for a weird little mix of inspiration.

Can you describe more about your songwriting process, and how that works for you guys as a group. What does the typical Hot Dress writing process look like?

Andrew: It's definitely evolved over the years. I think we had an issue at first where one of us would write the whole thing and then show it to everyone else, and that was fine, but it didn't feel the most collaborative. For the past year or so, what we've really been trying to do, and it's been pretty successful so far, is write small chunks of a song. Whether that be just, a chord progression and a verse melody, or a chorus melody, and then bringing that and showing it to each other, and building from there. We've been working in Logic a lot, and just making demos that way, and just kind of putting things together in pieces.

Do you have a favorite song to play live?

Jason: I know recently, at least, we have a new song that we've been ending the set with, and it's a really fun time. It's very energetic, it gets the crowd moving, it gets us moving.

Caleb: I was also gonna say one of the new ones, but not that one. It's a new one, but, let me just say this. A lot of our songs are kind of fast, and I love playing fast, but this one just kind of sits in the groove a little bit, and I really like it.

Andrew: I was also going to say one of the new ones, but of what we have released, I do really like playing "Grave Robin”, which is a song we dropped two summers ago in 2024. I think that song has a really fun dance beat, and it's really fun to watch the crowd get into, especially when we play in our hometown. A lot of people sing along, which feels nice, or is reaffirming, you know?

Max: For me, I was gonna say the same one as Jason. It's currently titled “Tire”. That one's just a lot of fun. It's, like Jason said, very energetic. It's just fun to play at least, so I can get a little more into it, and all of us can.

Can you guys talk more about your creative process while making your most recent EP?

Andrew: I think that was kind of our first attempt at really trying to plan out a recorded project, and planning the rollout, and just being more thoughtful about releasing music, because prior to that, we've done a lot of home-recorded singles. Our first EP was something we recorded in a day, and it was just very quick. We want to get music out, so that was something we took a lot of time with in the writing, and we went out to a lot of different studios to find out where we wanted to record, and just talking with people, and taking the time to give it our all.

Jason: Yeah, I mean, it was a little all over the place. We tried very hard to get a lot of it done beforehand, but then as the time for the studio kept creeping towards, I don't know, we definitely rushed some stuff. By the end of recording, we were like: ‘man, there's so much stuff we wish we could have done differently’. But it was still a really enjoyable time. Those 4 days that we spent recording it at Headroom Studios was a really fun time, getting to try out some new stuff.

Max: At least for those batches of songs was when we were trying to be more collaborative, so it wasn't so much just one of us coming with a full song. So that was different, at least in the writing sense, which maybe threw a wrench in the works a little bit, and made things a little harder to get done as fast, just because we were kind of finding our footing there.

Andrew: But it was a good learning experience, and I think we're still really happy with the way it came out, and have been using it as sort of a template for writing since then, when we've been working on a bunch of new songs.

Do you think the process that you took with your last EP is going to continue with the new songs that you are working on?

Andrew: I think definitely, especially with the way we've been demoing, because the way we used to do things at the very beginning was one of us would have a part, or most of a song, and we would teach it to each other, and then run it full band, in person. with instruments in hand, but that got to be a little bit difficult when, you know, you're trying to listen back to things, or tweak small things, or see how they sound. So just recording things in an electronic space where you can listen back as many times as you want and tweak the small things I think is really helpful, especially when you're trying to collaborate with each other and hear each other out for what other people are pitching.

Hot Dress! From left to right: Max, Andrew, Jason, and Caleb

You guys play a ton throughout New Jersey. You've played at Asbury Lanes, Meatlocker, and The Stone Pony. What is your favorite place that you've ever played?

Max: I'll go first. I guess I have two. Two of the most memorable shows, at least, are the most fun ones for me. One was the Meat Locker, on Halloween, just because we were all dressed as Minions. Which was a lot of fun, and there were a good amount of people there, especially for such a small space, like, it feels cramped there. Besides that, we played Demarest really early on. It was one of our first shows that wasn't just our friend's backyard or something, and it was outside of a dorm hall at Rutgers. And there were a lot of people there, and we had just released our first song, and…I don't know, that was a cool one, too.

Andrew: I think for me, in terms of maybe a larger-ish scale venue, Asbury Lanes is really cool. I like the sound there a lot, and just the setup of the venue with the bowling alley and everything is just really cool. But for a more consistent space that we play, the Mud House in New Brunswick at Rutgers is a really cool spot that has a garage instead of a basement, which is a nice change of pace. There's nothing to crawl into and we'd also hang outside and still hear the music. That's one of our favorites. We're actually playing there tomorrow. We've played there a bunch, they're very nice folks who run it. That's one of my personal favorite spaces.

Caleb: I think they hit the nail on the head with some of our collective favorites. I will throw a shout-out to Prototype in Patterson. That venue space is genuinely sick, and to load in, we had to use an old industrial elevator. I thought we were gonna die, but we didn’t and it was really cool. 

Jason: I was gonna say Lanes. That was probably my favorite out of the big venue shows we've played, Lanes was definitely my favorite space. And of course, Stone Pony the first time is always really cool.

I was wondering if you could give some insight your experiences in the Jersey scene, the community there, and if If it's helped you grow or develop as artists.

Andrew: I think we've definitely found our footing in the New Jersey scene. It was a little tough when we were first starting out. We all were at Rutgers, and Caleb was still in high school. But, I think there's a really active show scene there. There's a lot of venues where any given Friday or Saturday night, there'll be 3 or 4 venues throwing. There's just always somewhere to play, and I think we found our support there to be very welcoming.

Max: I think the New Brunswick basement show community is always super welcoming to especially new bands of kids that are just coming into college, who are getting their friends together and trying to play shows. When we were starting out it felt very welcoming, and like Andrew was saying, it's very active there more so than we've seemed to find kind of outside of our space, so it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of bands that we've just become good friends with from it. 

Andrew: New Brunswick has also sort of become a tour stop for other bands coming through, who are looking to play places that aren't big venues where you need to guarantee ticket sales and stuff, so that's also been cool the past year or so, where we've met other bands who are, coming from Texas, or just somewhere completely on the West Coast, who are just coming through.

What’s next for Hot Dress? 

Andrew: We ask ourselves that a lot.

Caleb: What you can expect next is a Hot Dress cryptocurrency. And when we eventually take the money and run, don't worry about it.

Max: As a real answer, we are working on our first album. We have a lot of songs, but we're trying to take as much time as we need to really get it where we want, because I feel like we want it to be as perfect as possible, because it's kind of a statement. I don't know if it'll be out in 2026, it probably won't be, but maybe we're gonna try to drop  at least a song or two along the way just to not fade into the black.

Andrew: Yeah, we plan to make the decision for what's gonna be on the project, within the next month or so, so I think whatever we don't end up putting on that will probably be coming out at some point in 2026, as a single or two, like he was saying.

My final question is: what advice do you have for anyone who wants to start making music, or get involved in any way?

Andrew: I think we run into that sometimes, where people will come to shows and ask us that question. I think it's a great question, and a very common thing for people starting out to be wondering. I think the best thing to do is just to be active within the scene that you want to be a part of. So that means showing up to shows, or reaching out to people and asking you know, how did you get this, or how did you do this, and having that, web of communication, and just being willing to socialize which tends to be harder than you think at times, especially when you're trying to go to shows that are playing super late and things like that, but I think, showing up for other people is a good way to get into a scene or a crowd.

Max: And don't be afraid to talk to the bands that are playing that night. Especially at basement shows and stuff, because most of the time, it's probably just college kids that just were in your shoes a year prior. There's been loads of kids who have come up to us and we’re friends with now or who we've sent basement show contacts to try to help them out. But yeah, just kind of getting involved in that way.

Where can people find you and do you have anything you want to promote or shout out?

Andrew: You can find us anywhere, on any social @hotdressmusic, or you can check out our website at hotdressmusic.com. I don't know if there's anything specific we want to shout out, just, if you have time, check out our music. It's on any streaming platform, and you can look forward to releases in the future that will be so awesome and mind-blowing and good.