Hot for Crime plays timeless rock ‘n’ roll music – guitar, bass, and drums – in the classic tradition, equally influenced by the ‘60s and ‘70s greats, all the way up to the modern day, with buzzsaw guitars and melodic choruses. Their debut album meant to be played loud, preferably on your car stereo, with the top down, as you speed along L.A.’s fabled Sunset Strip, where they fit right in.
The album was produced by Drew Fulk, who has more than 10 #1 Billboard Rock tracks on his resume, having worked with Disturbed, A Day to Remember, Ice Nine Kills, Yelawolf, Bullet for My Valentine, Illenium, Motionless in White, Highly Suspect and Papa Roach, as well as rappers Lil Peep and Lil Wayne. Fulk also has his own publishing company, In the Cut, through BMG, and recently inked a new deal for his songwriting with Mike Caren’s APG.
Lead singer Mick Patterson describes the first released track, “You Ain’t Mine,” as a raucous New York Dolls-style rocker which celebrates sexuality and desire with a classic background-vocal chorus and a gnarly Miles Buckley guitar solo outro. “Irish Style,” the other initial focus song, name-checks U2’s Larry Mullen and James Joyce in its tribute to a barroom blitz worthy of Thin Lizzy. “Gonna Let You Go” opens with an ominous bass line as its crunchy guitar riffs capture the feeling of “having everything you thought you wanted in front of you, realizing it’s not what you wanted, and being able to walk away,” according to Mick, who declares, in no uncertain terms, “I want what I want… And I am what I am.” “Alive,” which opens with a strummed acoustic intro before careening into a passionate expression of longing (“Day and night/You’re all I wanna do”). “So Good” features the swaggering Patterson boast, “She’s my baby/Yeah, she’s my freak,” while the raucous “Crazy Beautiful” shows off a vintage rock ‘n’ roll stutter at its heart, buttressed with spirited group harmonies, as Schon’s guitar giggles in the background, Patterson pleading, “You gotta give me what you got.”
That’s the attitude pervading Hot for Crime, who have already stockpiled several dozen songs in their quest to create the perfect, filler-free collection, a melting pot of rock ‘n’ roll roots that simultaneously look back but look to pass the baton to younger generations who don’t realize what they’re missing.
The band formed in 2022, echoing classic Los Angeles origin stories like The Doors’ Jim Morrison meeting Ray Manzarek, a fellow UCLA film student, on Venice Beach – which is where Mick reconnected with his childhood friend, bassist Paul O’Malley, to launch what would become Hot for Crime. The group was named by Mick after a 1955 French novel about the feverish passion of a criminal being released from prison, arriving in Paris with $5 and ready to cause havoc. With the addition of rhythm guitarist Chris Purvis, then lead guitarist Miles Buckley (son of Journey’s Neal) and drummer Danny Thompson, who has played with both Scott Weiland, David Foster, Joe Bonamassa and Alan Parsons, the resulting songs’ propulsive choruses’ channel everything from the Stones, AC/DC and Prince to The Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Pretenders, Descendants and Rancid.
“We all have pretty wide musical tastes,” says Patterson, who played in bands in Houston while working on oil rigs. “It’s an eclectic group with varied influences.”
After spending some time in Nashville, Miles Schon moved to LA from the Bay Area four years ago to play, teach, and try to break into the business writing music and scores for film and TV. A blues-rock aficionado, who discovered B.B., Albert and Freddy King through Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and the late Jeff Beck, he also picked up on prog-rock and subsequently post-punk bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Pavement and System of a Down. In Hot for Crime, Buckley’s angular riffs are sharp and attenuated like the best emo-pop-punk… stating their case and getting to the next hook.
Buckley, who didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 14 because he was devoted to sports, has released five albums of his own original music and played with artists such as Doug Pinnick of Kings X. “I try to put my personal stamp on everything I do, no matter the genre.”
Patterson sees a current vacuum for “a definitive L.A. rock ‘n’ roll band” that he hopes Hot for Crime can fill. “We’re not making disposable pop music,” the vocalist/lyricist insists. “We believe in putting out the best songs, with the best words, performed by the best musicians. We won’t release something if it sucks. There will be no filler on this record.”
“This isn’t rocket science, we’re not reinventing the wheel… it just feels good, it sounds right,” laughs Miles, who dubs himself the band’s musical director while Mick is “the brains behind the madness.”
Having already performed several well-attended shows at L.A.’s Viper Room, where last year, their “AP/ART” event celebrated the feeling of being together after the isolation of the past two years, Mick Patterson is looking forward to more Hot for Crime live shows in a city near you.
“Music is the universal language, and the last bit of magic left on the planet,” says Patterson, quoting a tattoo worn by bandmate Miles. “At the end of the day, it’s not about being the biggest band in the world, it’s about making the best songs. If we do that, everything else will fall into place. People will find us.”