When you get compared, in the same breath, to everything from Daniel Johnson to the Talking Heads, you know you have a sound that’s hard to pin down. Since their formation during the particularly chilly winter of 2006, the members of Hot Panda (Maghan Campbell, Keith Olsen, Chris Connelly, and Heath Parsons) have yet to sit down and have the discussion that goes: “So, what should we sound like?”. The result is a swath of tunes that sound like anything and everything.
Brit pop, gypsy swing, opera solos, Robert Pollard style lo-fi jangles, glammy Roxy Music keyboards, and “melodies that will be impossible to dislodge from your temporal cortex” (ChartAttack), all find their home in the music of Hot Panda…sometimes all in the same song!
After the recording of their 2007 EP “Whale Headed Girl,” Hot Panda took to the road, and I guess you could say the road took to them! The band hasn’t looked back since, ever wheeling over Canada in a questionable 1977 ambulance, taking their rambunctiously theatrical live show to “kids who like to dance” all over North America (including stints at festivals such as SXSW, CMJ, and Pop Montreal!), and now Europe too, having just completed a big ol’ European tour with Detroit’s the Von Bondies! In February 2008, Hot Panda took the time to travel to Winnipeg and record their first full length record, Volcano…Bloody Volcano!, which came out on Mint Records one year later, on February 10, 2009, and debuted at #1 on Earshot! (Canadian College Charts), and #21 on CMJ College charts in the US.
Hailing from the northside of town the pranks blend a multitude of influences into a big pot of slowcooked rock n’ roll and push it out through a unique sound of high end reverb driven tele’s. With a solid rhythm section holding down there bottom end the pranks sound is verry familiar yet verry distinct and original.You’ll be bob’n yer head and tap’n yer toes!!
