Hot Water Music Bookended 1997 with Two Seminal Albums

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Hot Water Music Bookended 1997 with Two Seminal Albums

The Florida band released a pair of iconic albums, 'Fuel for the Hate Game' and 'Forever and Counting,' and almost burned out in the process.

By 1997, the shine of grunge was wearing off and a new crop of bands was taking music in a more emotionally honest direction. Whether or not their members realized it, they were building the foundation for what would come to be labeled as emo. 1997: The Year Emo Broke explores the albums that drove this burgeoning genre that year.

Most bands are lucky to release even one album worth listening to. Hot Water Music is unlike most bands. The Gainesville, Florida, four-piece not only put out two of their arguably greatest albums back to back (Fuel for the Hate Game and Forever and Counting), they released both within a year of each other around 1997. But it was a year so devastating to the members of the band that it briefly wrecked any desire they had to continue playing together. After releasing both albums, and a relentless touring schedule that culminated in an unpleasant and unfamiliar trek through Europe, Hot Water Music was ready to leave the legacy they had created in just a few short years. And were it not for the change of heart during a farewell show at the Hardback Cafe in 1998, the saga of Hot Water Music would have been completed. They could have dropped the mic and walked away.

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Hot Water Music's debut album, Fuel for the Hate Game, was released in early 1997 according to its label, No Idea Records (though an early version of the band's website cites October, 1996). The album expanded the sound Hot Water Music had developed on their various EPs, splits, and singles. Establishing a solid foundation in driving punk, this full-length permanently embedded the band into emo and post-hardcore royalty. The increasingly complex rhythms and added melodic guitar work cradled Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard's dueling vocals to create cutting harmonies amidst a flurry of skillfully controlled discord. Their personal influences and disagreements over the direction of the band's sound, and their differing preferences, can be felt throughout. Influences like Leatherface, Quicksand, Jawbreaker, and Fuel (not the radio alternative band) are often touted when speaking about Hot Water Music, though they made it all their own.

Album standout "Freightliner" sets the tone as a prototype for what became the "modern" emo song. With many of the same stuttered rhythms and melodic elements as radio hits like Taking Back Sunday's "Cute Without the E," songs like this cement Hot Water Music's influence on future generations of emo bands. Hot Water Music's significance is undeniable on the genre, and continues to this day with artists like The Menzingers.

And though they never achieved the same level of success as some of the bands they begat, Hot Water Music never lacked ambition. They were painfully ambitious, and are often considered one of the hardest-working bands of their time. Yet their aim was to be great, not necessarily popular.

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Hot Water Music toured tirelessly and released their immediate follow-up, Forever and Counting, in October, 1997. If Fuel for the Hate Game brought the raw materials to the work site—the wood, plaster, and sheet rock— Forever and Counting presented the finished home complete with a well-trimmed lawn. And perhaps just as far-reaching as their musicianship is the fierce and blatant delivery by its two singers. If a band like Mineral laid out their feelings for the world to absorb, Hot Water Music bashed the listener in the face and made them swallow it whole. Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard's intertwining growls pleaded not only for attention, but besieged the listener in a melodramatic surround-sound symphony that could exhaust one's best defense.

Forever and Counting refined Hot Water Music's sound in a more polished way, though some critics alleged that the record lacked Fuel for the Hate Game's energy and songwriting. Yet not everyone agreed that Forever and Counting had any sort of evolution. Bassist Jason Black recently told Noisey it's his least favorite Hot Water Music album. "It sounds so bad, I can't deal with it. I think there's some cool songs on it, that's definitely one record we've thought about re-recording a lot but we haven't because people like it so much. It just sounds terrible."

Their jump to Doghouse Records on Forever and Counting helped spread the gospel of Hot Water Music to a larger radius, and gave them the opportunity to tour in Europe behind the album. But the decay in their interpersonal relationships was beginning to show on the songs. On "Translocation," the words "I feel my friends / We do the best we can in this dying world" seemed to foreshadow the disparity they were feeling as a unit.

Most bands would have taken some time off to relax after such a year of nonstop touring, writing, and recording, but Hot Water Music thought the answer was to walk away completely. "Pretty much every show sucked. We were too young to realize that we needed to take some time off, " Black told Eric Grubbs for his book, Post. Ragan recently told Impericon Magazine that their short-lived break-up was a blessing for them. "I think breaking up as a band was maybe the most important thing we've ever done as a band. At the time we were beat up, we didn't wanna be around each other and there was some conflict going on." The break before their intended final show at the Hardback gave them time to miss playing music together, and the reality of working odd jobs and hospitality gigs set in. They came back from their hiatus with a newfound drive and focus.

Hot Water Music was a casual accident formed from the remnants of two Sarasota transplant bands. They practiced, drank themselves silly, and worked shitty jobs as they learned what it took to be a band. Eventually, they got their chance to record, fight with one another, and tour until they were sick enough of each other's shit to plan their own funeral—their farewell show. On that night, not just locals, but devotees from all over the country—and some from as far as Germany and Japan—made the pilgrimage to Gainesville to pay respect and say goodbye to Hot Water Music.

Hot Water Music's gut-punching, claustrophobic, rage-inducing sound rattled the oversold audience that traveled from all over the world to watch the band artfully tell each other to fuck off. The only glitch in that budding myth was the band's own realization that the tumult of Hot Water Music was too intoxicating to walk away from. As they finished their first song of the night, "Us & Chuck," Wollard announced their change of heart. "I'm sure a lot of people here came a long way tonight because they heard this was our last show," he said over a room full of cheers. "I don't know what to tell you guys… we're trying to keep it going," he declared as the elated crowd erupted. Hot Water Music pushed on for another nine wonderful, frustrating, and productive years before taking another break in 2006—a break that only lasted two years before their longing to play together brought them back from the dead yet again. Eddie Cepeda is the founder of Mother of Pearl Vinyl and a writer in New York City. Follow him on Twitter.