dot hacker

Red Hot Chili Pepper Josh Klinghoffer and former Gnarls Barkley guitarist Clint Walsh talk about their chance meeting and the toys/tools used to create the gaze-prog fever dreams on their two new Dot Hacker albums, How’s Your Process (Work) and How’s Your Process (Play).

What do you do in your downtime when you play guitar in one of the most popular and influential bands of the last 30 years—a band that fills stadiums and plays the friggin’ Super Bowl? If you’re Josh Klinghoffer—pal of the Red Hot Chili Peppers since the late ’90s, touring member since 2007, and full-timer since 2009—you form another band so you can exorcise your prog-y shoegaze demons, of course.

Only in his Dot Hacker quartet, Klinghoffer doesn’t have to worry about comparisons to Strat-master John Frusciante. On 2012’s Inhibition and this year’s two Hacker LPs, How’s Your Process (Work) and How’s Your Process (Play), he’s not just the guitar guy: He takes center stage as bandleader, singer, guitarist, and synth player.

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The new single from the side project of Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has more in common with moody glam icons like Suede than SoCal punk-funk.

With the Red Hot Chili Peppers being an exceptionally busy band, you have to wonder where guitarist Josh Klinghoffer finds the time to work on his Dot Hacker side project. The band is comprised of co-guitarist Clint Walsh and drummer Eric Gardner (both from Gnarls Barkley’s touring band) as well as Klinghoffer’s friend Jonathan Hischke on bass. Dot Hacker are about to release their sophomore long-player in the form of an epic album released in two parts—How’s Your Process? (Work) and How’s Your Process? (Play).

The lead single from the first chapter is inspired by the band’s up-and-down existence and is aptly entitled “Elevator.” Because of the Chili Peppers’ demanding schedule, Dot Hacker can only exist during Klinghoffer’s sporadic downtime. Subsequently, the band doesn’t really get to tour their albums in a timely fashion.

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