Hotsui

Rock / Indie / Experimental
Honolulu, HI
CRISTY CLARK //
MATTY SUMIDA//
OLIVER BOE //

Story by Nick Krismunando and Amit Kalra

In Aiea, there were five potential band members just floating around creating music on their own accord before starting the band Hotsui.

So Matty Sumida used to be in a band called Ex-Superheroes. There was this other guy, Landon Tom, who played guitar while Matty played drums. Matty was also in Vax with three girls who were well known for their antics in China Town and the accompanying alleys. One of those girls was a bassist named Cristy Clark who happened to be a fan of a young man named Zac Carper, the brother of Alice Carper who sang for a band called Persophone Myth (a frequent play on KTUH). But back to Matty. Matty and Cristy went to school with a fellow named Oliver Boe, who, according to Cristy, plays ethnic music with his father on the weekends.

This is the story of Hotsui.

The music is arid; the melody stretches wide open for graceful bouts with lyrics. It’s obvious that this is a showing of instrumental talent with tiny gaps for messages interjected through the song.

Drums are tactfully interjected through the songs, accompanying guitar instead of setting pace. The members of the band are not competing for time on the track, they’re melding.

Hotsui is 1/2 of Ex-Superheroes with 1/2 of Vax plus some random soloist from Haleiwa and a boy from Aiea high school with a penchant for getting high with bassists and going to art class.

That was all before they had even decided on a name.

Hotsui’s name came about from a colloquialism amongst the members’ grandmothers’ generation, according Cristy Clark. “In Japanese ‘atsui’ means hot, but when my grandma said it I heard hotsui,” said Clark.

“I wanted it to be Whoriental, but they wouldn’t go for it. I also wanted Faghot, but they rejected all of my ideas until Hotsui,” Clark said in the sort of monotonous tone that could only mean she was actually being entirely serious.

Clark and Carper are in another band together called Simply Beauty. It’s rare that you catch a part of Hotsui’s music sounding like those two members. On their track, “Slow Creeper,” you get a bit of an idea of the cloud-coated world they live in. It seems to set itself apart from the other songs, dancing through a patch of flowers or Japanese cartoon characters.

“Oliver and I rock out to the rolling stones all the time,” said Landon Tom, the lead singer and guitarist for the band. The boy’s a rock star. He’s probably the shortest member of the band, but there’s no disputing his stance amongst them. He is singing his baby to sleep, the arrangement built on the simple accompaniment of daily truths with a heavy guitar entrance.

It’s not unlikely that an encore will consist of some random adlibbing on a blues riff. Members of the crowd at Hotsui’s show at Detox last month were caught off guard with a mildly Scottish melody for their song, Music Box of Soul.

Clark would like everyone to believe that they were trained by Tegan and Sara, but at least one other member of the band disagrees. “Put the Ka’au Crater Boys,” was the last thing she told me to add before revealing the truth.

Tom says the members of the band are making music to the tune of Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, The White Stripes, and the Strokes.

Clark says this is a pretty intense lineup.

“We’re really random,” said Tom. “I think it’s just ‘cause we’re a new band; our songs are all very different from each other. It’s debatable as to whether that’s good or not.”

You can hear Hotsui’s music at Detox on August 5 or on Myspace athttp://www.myspace.com/hotsuimusic.