HOTTUB: A MUSICAL ROBOT DUO'S FIGHT AGAINST AI
HotTub is a new animated robot-pop duo on the rise. With a common theme of combating generative AI’s use in music and art, members Bram and K8000 craft electronic music with animations to go along.
Their debut single, “Maximum Ram,” has already garnered attention from loads of music lovers, cementing them as a hot new duo in the electronic/dance world. HotTub is all about gaining new subjects: fans who will support their music and continue their fight against AI. Crave Music Magazine was able to catch up with them about their message and what is coming next for the duo.
INTERVIEW
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INTERVIEW ☆
[CRAVE] Where does the name Hot Tub come from? And more specifically, how did you decide on K8000 and Bram as your character names
[K8000] Me and Bram just love hot tubs. We were house sitting somewhere, and we spent probably like 36 hours in a hot tub consecutively basically. We just really liked it, so that's kind of where the name HotTub came from. It was just a joke and then we were like, “Oh, we might as well just call it that.”
[Bram] Yeah, we started this project as a way of making songs for fun. I'm the producer and the artist behind the drawings for the project. We were coming up with themes and what we wanted our vibe to be, and we came up with these robot personas and thought of stupid names. K8000 is obviously a play on the name Kate. We haven’t revealed this yet, but Bram stands for: bisexual robot and musician. We were coming up with funny acronyms and Bram just stuck with us.
[CRAVE] Obviously, HotTub is hand animated and self-produced. What does each of your backgrounds in animation and music look like?
[Bram] We are both huge music lovers. I make a lot of solo music under another name, and Kate has always been my muse. We grew up together, and we've just always loved pop music and everything house and electronic, so the chance to do it together is really fun. I love producing. It is my life to produce music, so we get a lot of inspiration from pop music. Animation wise, I was an artist long before I started producing music. Having the chance to draw for music is really inspiring because obviously I love to draw, but I am a project person. Having a project to create characters for and develop storylines for is really, really fun.
A lot of the visual inspiration comes from things that I liked as a kid. The original Teen Titans series has been a big one for this first era. A lot of the big glowing background colors or the silhouettes and things like that are very Teen Titans-esque to me. Obviously, a lot of comments in our posts have been about Daft Punk and Gorillaz. We love all of the animated projects that have come before us.
[K8000] I kind of don't do anything. I'm more of an ideas person and Bram does the producing and the illustrations. I can't draw. He’s the creative. I'm very good at coming up with content and ideas for us, and a lot of stuff comes from that, but he's the one who puts it all together. He's my little mastermind.
[Bram] Even in my solo music, Kate's always been someone I like to bounce ideas off of or have approval from because her taste and her aura is so good. She has a lot of great ideas, and a lot of the ideas for this project have been hers. Also, the characters, Bram and K8000 are really based off of us. They don't necessarily like look like us, but some of the elements of them are very, very us.
[CRAVE] How did you come up with the character designs and concepts for Hot Tub?
[K8000] I think that we knew this was going to be a faceless project, so I was like, “Let’s just be robots.” When we started it, it wasn’t really a thing, and then I just decided I was going to be a robot. So, I think it just started with that. For character design, I brought some ideas of what I wanted my robot to look like, but it just kind of came to life.
[Bram] Yeah, we kind of settled on K8000 being a robot first, and then we came up with Bram after. He's also part robot. We created some other background characters, and then the whole robot theme just kind of came together. We love it. We think it fits the music, especially our first song, because it is so robot themed. A lot of our other music isn’t as robot themed, but it works its way into all of the songs, which is fun.
[CRAVE] I know you have released a few short form videos of your characters interacting without music. Do you already have, or do you plan to work on a full storyline for Bram and K8000, whether that be through each musical release or through a separate art form?
[Bram] Absolutely, oh my God. I have been coming up with storylines since day one, but I think for this “debut” or “rollout,” it's more important to get the music across. We want people to stream our music and like listening to our music, and the animation is just another part of it. But I think as we keep releasing stuff more and more, the lore will come out, and some of the visuals will make more sense, and there will be callbacks to the animations and things happening now. We’re trying to drop some cryptic storylines to let people know what the setting in the world is, but it's been fun to be mysterious about it for now.
[CRAVE] Obviously, one of the central themes of HotTub as a group is combating AI music and art. How do you think we the people can grow this message further and work to shut down generative AI's use in art?
[Bram] It's something that I'm personally really passionate about. I cannot even talk about it. It makes me so frustrated. I think it's a ridiculous time for artists, even before AI was this big, just to be an indie artist was hard. I have a little bit of foot in the game already as a solo artist, but I think it's hard because the indie game is so hard already as it is. With all these advancements with AI, you're seeing music that has fake backstories on Spotify that isn't even made by real people, and it’s getting crazy numbers. People fall for AI marketing and things like that, and it's like, “Okay, what is happening?” It's so frustrating, but I think it's a perfect time as well. The way politics are right now, and I don’t want to sound “TikTokky,” but the rise of conservatism too. I think it’s really a good time to have something that is so self-made and freaky and weird be brought back into pop culture and music. Especially because we don’t have the support of a label, and we don’t have a budget. It’s fun to show people what you can do just for fun.
[K8000] I think we the people need to start putting the focus on human-made art. Human-made art and human-made music. We’re obviously taking our stand against it, and if anyone listening wants to take their stand against it, just keep finding small artists who are actually passionate about what they do.
[Bram] It's also really nice to see when we post a video or a picture of one of our sketches, people in the comments will be like, “I'm going to wake up and go draw tomorrow,” or “This makes me want to draw so bad,” or “I just worked on my comic because of this.” Things like that are really fun to see. So, I hope there is a little bit of inspiration there.
[CRAVE] Was the rise in AI the driving force for creating HotTub? Or was this something you both had in the works already?
[Bram] We are friends in real life, so we spend a lot of time together, and I play her my music a lot and also work on music with her sometimes. It is something we did just start for fun. AI was not on the forefront of our minds when we started this project. We were just making a song for fun, and then we were like, “Let's make more songs for fun.” Once the animation came into it, we posted a couple things early on and people were like, “Is this AI?” When they saw it wasn’t AI we had a lot of comments saying, “I’m so glad this isn’t AI.” It's like, “Wow! People actually agree this is important.”
[CRAVE] You describe your music as robot pop, and it is very clearly influenced by dance and electronic music. Who are some of the bands and artists you guys pull from or listen to when you're creating music?
[K8000] When we first started it, it wasn't like anything. Our first song ever, which will be coming out soon, we were just having fun and making music. Once I started to really get into it is where I was like, “I want to do this.” Both of us were really inspired by the recent Pink Pantheress album. It’s been on repeat. There’s this one guy name Only Fire, who is big on my list for sure. We listen to so much music, and everything we consume just enters us. There really isn’t one specific artist. A lot of people comment about Daft Punk, but if I’m being completely honest, I obviously knew about them, but I didn’t start listening to them as much until we got comments. They’re great, but we are kind of just doing our own thing. There are obviously artists we pull from, like Chase Icon is another big one, but it’s-
[Bram] Yeah, I will say I've liked Daft Punk for a long time, but they were never on my mind when we were making this project. It's funny to see that comparison a lot, but I do love it because Daft Punk is really cool. We've been friends for a million years, so as the producer behind this, I think back to moments where we were listening to a song together in K8000’s car, or things we enjoyed together in the past. One of our all-time songs is called “Take It Off” by Fisher, and I think about us listening to that in her car in like 2023. I'm just trying to recreate that feeling. A lot of our demos have been demos I've produced for myself or things I've made for fun that I then flipped for HotTub. Not to be weird, but I feel like a lot of our inspiration are things I've created that we can make our vision instead of just my vision, which is fun. Our first song, “Maximum Ram,” I had the beginning of that beat as a demo in my files, and I had no vision of what it would become. We hopped on it, and it grew. I produced the rest, and then it was suddenly like, “This is our song now.” It’s fun to see the evolution of my demos turn into HotTub songs. Not as much musically, but Gorillaz animation style is very much an inspiration to me as well.
[CRAVE] What does the songwriting process look like for you both? And then how does animation work into that process as well?
[Bram] Me and Kate link up, and then we come up with ideas or a theme for the song. Then we just have such a hoot writing the lyrics because they're obviously not senseless, but they're so much fun. It's just a party to write together. We just laugh and have fun, and then we try to record things. We'll be like, “My God, that's so bad,” and then I play with it for five minutes, and then we're like, “My God, this is the best song ever.” It’s fun to take these ridiculous ideas and then suddenly a day later, it's the most fun song I've ever heard. In “Maximum Ram,” we're just laughing our asses off, and then I'm like, “I'm a gay fucking robot,” and suddenly, it's one of the most viral parts of the song.
[K8000] The songwriting stuff is kind of the only thing I do. The lyrics are a part of it, and Bram finds the melody and everything else. We could sit there for hours and write the most heinous stuff, but it eventually comes out good. It’s a very fun process between us.
[Bram] It's fun because I've known Kate for years and she's just incredible. I think she has the perfect cadence to be K8000. I've known her from the start. I've seen it in her for years, just kidding. But coming up with these lines and being like, “Kate - I know you can say it like this. I've heard you use this voice before,” and then we get it right. I love it.
It’s very fun to be HotTub because I love making music on my own and I’m a big singer, but not having to focus on only my singing is fun. I don’t have to be such a perfectionist. In my solo music I am a huge perfectionist, and everything has to be right. I have to hit all the notes. To have a project like this where Kate can just come spit and I can do a couple of background vocals or a verse and not be so particular about it is so much fun.
[CRAVE] In addition to fighting against AI, to me, it almost seems you guys are kind of sparking a sexual revolution as well. “Maximum Ram,” as well as the teased music that you've posted, it's full of sexually suggestive and erotic lyricism. Is this a purposeful reflection on kind of like this generation's aversion to sex?
[Bram] Yeah, I think it’s fun because in real life we’re not crazy robot sex freaks. We’re just normal people, well I’ll speak for myself ha-ha, but no we’re just normal people. Obviously, it’s something that is taboo a lot of the time, and a lot of people don’t want to talk or sing about it. But, when you listen to those kinds of songs, especially with electronic music and dance music, it’s so much fun. It feels so good to hear people talk and sing about this stuff so normally and nonchalantly. I think it makes the music so much fun. Especially with the animation side, I just love drawing. I love drawing freaky art. I just think it’s a good time, and again, we’re just normal people, so to be able to express this – I’m not going to say side of us, but to be able to make content like this is so much fun to me.
[K8000] I think with the sex thing, I feel like it was just kind of natural. It's just one of those things in dance and electric music where, I mean, is it even dance or electric music if you're not talking about sex half the time? So, I think when we first started it and we were doing it, it just made the most sense to us.
[Bram] I feel like when we started this project, we just immediately hopped into this persona. There was not really a conversation about it. I feel like we were both just like, “Obviously, this is our vibe.” I don't know. It just made so much sense when we started working on this project, and then obviously it snowballed into more songs. It just works well for us. We have the most fun doing it, and this project is about fun.
[CRAVE] I guess piggybacking off that too, we've also kind of seen this generation, and obviously I'm saying this generation, I don't know how old you guys are exactly.
[K8000] We are 21. We want to clear up this rumor. We are 21. Some people think that we are underage for some reason, and they think my voice sounds childlike when I sing.
[CRAVE] I don’t think your voice sounds child-like at all. We’re clearing the air right now.
[K8000] Thank you for that.
[Bram] HotTub is 21. Feel free to ask us any of that controversy stuff because we would love to clear the air.
[CRAVE] Okay so, piggybacking off that, we've also seen this generation shy away from nightlife and socialization. Obviously, the economy plays into that as well, but it almost feels purposeful that you guys are openly combating AI while creating this sexually liberating music that's meant for dancing and socializing. Was this something that you planned or did it kind of just work out that way?
[K8000] I think it worked out that way.
[Bram] Obviously, we love dance music, and we want this music to be like us and our weird lyrics, but also have it be danceable and fun. I think a huge part of it is the socialization. This is stuff that people can talk about and listen to and recognize together. But also, I think this is music that you can put your headphones in and zone out to. You can escape into the world, which is fun, and I think a big part of that is the animation. When you’re listening to our songs, we hope you see the animation and think about the world and who K8000 and Bram are, because that is a big part of it. I love the story building aspect, which makes it not as social, but people thinking, commenting, and tweeting about is fun and online. Hopefully with our growth, we make our way into some club scenes. Then maybe more people would recognize our music, which would be really cool. We’ll just see where it goes, I guess.
[CRAVE] Become one of our subjects is a phrase you guys use a lot. You've also made mock-up Uncle Sam posters with K8000. What does becoming a subject of HotTub look like and mean for you guys?
[Bram] Part of our incoming storyline and some of our talking bits/teasers are a university of sorts. We're calling it Freak University, and a subject is something we kind of just came up with as a funny fan base name. As the storyline progresses, we have come up with more and more student concepts. So, it's not like a high school. It's not like a middle school, again with the allegations, but it's a university. Everyone who wants to join us are our subjects, and we are the headmasters. I think it was just a fun little play on a fan base name. Obviously, K8000 is known for being really cunty and dominating, and she’s like, “You’re going to join me.”
[K8000] If you want to become a subject it’s not hard. You just have to stream our music and not actively participate in the use of AI. That’s how you become a subject. That’s it.
[Bram] I think people think it’s really funny. We get a lot of comments like, “I’m ready to bow down. Throw us the new music. Throw it into our enclosure. Just give it to us.” The more we make the jokes and talking animations, the more people understand the world and theme. Even though it is very sassy, I think people see the heart behind it and understand it is a big passion project for us. It’s fun to make people feel like they’re a part of something.
[CRAVE] Your debut single, “Maximum Ram,” was just released a few weeks ago and it's already gained so much traction. First of all, congratulations, and then what is next for HotTub in terms of musical releases that you could share?
[Bram] Our debut EP will be released on August 1st.
[K8000] It is called HOTTUB VOL. 1. Simple name, but I think that we really want to expand later down the line, and I think the “VOL. 1” just kind of fits right for us.
[Bram] It’s just an EP. People are like “Album, album, album!” I love albums, and I'd love to do that, but I think we're going to save that for another step. Our EP is really fun. It's a good time, and people love the snippets so far. We're really excited to share it.
[CRAVE] Since HotTub is an animated band and you both are remaining anonymous for now, is live performance something that you both are considering working towards at some point? Even if that's just like a DJ set or a live performance where you're in costume.
[K8000] We've definitely talked about it for sure. I do think that later down the line, anonymity won’t be the forefront of HotTub. I do think we could do the Daft Punk thing with masks. We have a dream of our first face reveal being at Coachella. That’s what we’ve been telling each other.
[Bram] I think our first live performance would have to be a big deal for us. We're not going to take the first festival offer because we really want to wait and see where this goes. If it becomes as successful as we hope, I think there's going to be a big moment where we would face reveal. I think it's really fun to have it faceless for now. We don’t have to worry about what anyone is thinking about our music. It’s not controversial, but it’s racy and we cannot worry about that aspect and just focus on the art and music. So, definitely not something we’re considering in the near future, but it will happen one day.
Their newest single, “Freaky,” comes out today Friday, July 25, and their debut EP, HOTTUB VOL. 1, follows a week later on August 1st. This is only the beginning for the animated robot-pop duo; stay tuned to follow what’s to come.
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