Across the spectrum of punk-rock, few bands have had a longstanding effect on the genre quite like Hot Water Music . Celebrating 30 years of producing some of the most consistently rousing anthems and spreading the gospel of unity worldwide has been a journey for Chuck Ragan and friends. Much of that sentiment has found its way into the cracks of their latest collection of rippers, ‘VOWS’.
Taking all of the lessons they have learned over the many years and smashing them together with the sort of positivity and invigoration that some bands fail to ever reach, it’s a heart-thumping, smile-inducing example of what it means to love what you do with everything you have. To go over how it feels to be celebrating such a milestone with such a record, Rock Sound sat down with Chuck to dive into how he is feeling at this extraordinary time..
. ROCK SOUND: How does it feel to be 30 years in and still finding the capabilities to write music that expands on what Hot Water Music can be? CHUCK RAGAN: “We’ve always been a band where we never cared to write the same record twice. I feel like the goal of any band or artist, whether in music, photography or painting, is to outdo yourself.
It’s to do something that raises the bar in your own catalogue or artistic experiences and expressions. So, for that, anytime we are writing or recording, it’s never been about putting any limitations on ourselves. That’s in the sense of, ‘Oh no, we can’t really play that, that’s too much .
