SMILE dives into dark desire with ‘Hot Friend’
SMILE image via Amina Falah
German-American post-punk outfit SMILE returns with ‘Hot Friend,’ a grimy, trip-hop-infused single out now via Siluh Records.
Driven by caustic, percussive guitars and brooding tension, ‘Hot Friend’ unravels themes of desire, obsession, and unease. Lead vocalist Rubee True Fegan draws from personal poetry, crafting lyrics that capture the delirium of long nights on tour—a haze of restless energy, past heartbreak, and the intoxicating pull of new lust.
Explaining the song’s origins, the band shares:
“Hot Friend hails from the long nights on tour, where the hours between gigs blurred into a haze of restless energy. Feeling our live set lacked something to channel both its rage and sensuality, the idea for this track was born. Last summer, it took shape as a messy undertow driven by caustic, percussive guitars and a hypnotic groove. The lyrics sprung from poems passed back and forth between Rubee and dear friend and brilliant writer Olivia Martinez. Engrossed in delirious, hot, dripping days in the desert, poems emerged of past heartbreak and the potential of new lust discharged from the pressure of performance and passivity. In November, we recorded it with Jan Philipp Janzen and Julian Stetter at the ONE artist studio in the Eifel, capturing that late-night tension in a single weekend.”
Recorded in just one weekend at ONE artist studio in the Eifel, ‘Hot Friend’ distills late-night tension into a slow-burning, hypnotic release.
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