HotWax: 2024

For the Hastings and Brighton trio HotWax, 2023 was as electrifying as the band's own live performances. Lead singer and guitarist Tallulah Sim-Savage, bassist Lola Sam, and drummer Alfie Sayers are pretty young — at the time of our UKNY/FUV Live session in late November, Sim-Savage and Sam were both just 19 and Sayers had recently turned 21 — but they know exactly where their center of power lies, with boundless confidence and a neat balance of wit and savagery in their songs.

Following the release of their two 2023 EPs, A Thousand Times and Invite me, kindly, and as word spread of their grungy, thrilling sets, HotWax became one of the must-see rock bands in Britain, setting alight Brighton's Great Escape Festival, opening for their beloved Yeah Yeah Yeahs at London's All Points East, and making a North American debut last year opening for Royal Blood's fall tour (as well as their debut headlining sets here, including New York's Mercury Lounge." After discovering HotWax's first EP last winter, I finally caught up to one of HotWax's sets in July, as the band played a jam-packed Moth Club on a rainy Saturday as part of London's 2023 Visions Festival — and I was bowled over by their fierce charisma and chops.

In this UKNY/FUV Live session with HotWax, who are SXSW-bound this March, I also learned more about Tallulah and Lola's best-friends-forever saga, which began when they were just 12, and the dream that became reality with hard work, focus, and determination.

[Recorded on 11/30/23; Engineered by Jim O'Hara; produced by Kara Manning with additional mixing by Meghan Offtermatt]