The Hives Break Out With a Unique Deal

The buzzing around the Hives--the neo-garage punk band from Sweden that has drawn some of the strongest major-label interest of the year--has taken on a new tone with word that the band was joining the Warner Bros. Records family.

It’s not a surprise that Warner Bros. got the band. Chairman and CEO Tom Whalley has established the company as an aggressive force since coming over from Interscope Records last year.

The surprise is the arrangement through which the Hives come to the Burbank firm: a one-time partnership with independent L.A. punk label Epitaph Records, which had licensed rights to the group’s 2000 album, “Vini Vidi Vicious,” from Swedish label Burning Heart Records, and also owns U.S. rights to the next album.

While it’s not uncommon for independent labels to make deals with major labels for bands that outgrow the indie world, it’s unprecedented for Epitaph, the launching pad for the Offspring and the home of Rancid and Bad Religion.

Even when Epitaph was white-hot with the Offspring and Rancid in the mid-’90s, label owner Brett Gurewitz steadfastly turned down offers of all sorts from major labels, and turned his back on millions of dollars in the process--including offers from Whalley at Interscope.

“I first met Brett through dealing with him when he had the Offspring and talked about buying his company,” Whalley says.

But the two became friends and remained in touch over the years. When the Warner executive got wind that Gurewitz might actually entertain offers for the Hives, he jumped. The Hives have become a big hit in England with their witty, biting rock and have recently started to get breakthrough airplay at key U.S. rock radio stations, including L.A.’s KROQ-FM (106.7).

“I had been hearing about the Hives for a while,” Whalley says. “I really wasn’t paying that much attention to them but had heard about them having a lot of success in England. When I heard Brett was looking for a partner, I grabbed their albums and thought they sounded amazing.”

Whalley called Gurewitz, and before he knew it, the two were on a plane to Sweden to explain the new arrangement to the band.

“I was very surprised, because Brett was fiercely independent,” Whalley says. “Over the years he’s always said, ‘No, not interested.’ I was shocked he said yes.”

Gurewitz, who opted to let Whalley speak for him for this story, had not really had a band in such demand since the Offspring and Rancid, and feared a repeat of the episode when the Offspring bolted Epitaph for a deal with Columbia Records.

“I don’t think he wanted to go through that situation again,” Whalley says. “And the Hives had moved into a situation where a major can put up the money and manpower and relationships that we have with radio programmers and retailers that are different than what an indie has. That’s the conclusion he came to.”

Technically, the Hives (who play the Roxy May 27 and 28) will not be on Warner Bros. Records. Instead, the 2000 album and a next album will be stamped with the logo of Sire Records. The company, a part of Warner Bros. in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, was the home of the Ramones, Talking Heads, Madonna and the Smiths, but was deactivated last year following several corporate restructurings.

“We talked to the band about who we were and the history we have here,” Whalley says. “And [Warner executive] Jeff Ayeroff said, ‘See if they’d be interested in the Sire logo.’ They’re big fans of the Ramones, and that label represents that early era of punk. Then there’s Epitaph, which was key in the big ‘90s punk world. And Burning Heart has been the top punk label in Sweden.”

POPPING FRESH: A recent Mitsubishi ad campaign gave a huge sales boost to techno act the Wise Guys’ 3-year-old song “Start the Commotion,” reaffirming the fact that music in commercials sends people to record stores. Now a new Mitsubishi spot featuring a woman in the passenger seat moving her body in the limber, “popping” dance style of the ‘70s is sending people hunting for a song as well. But they’re not finding it.

“Days Go By,” by English dance music trio Dirty Vegas, hasn’t been released in the U.S. and won’t be until sometime in late May, in advance of the group’s debut album on Capitol Records due June 18.

“Some free advertising is great,” says Steve Smith, the group’s vocalist. “We’ve gotten e-mails from friends all across the States going, ‘We can’t believe your track is in the commercial.’”

The song was released as a single in England last year but came to Mitsubishi’s ad agency, Deutsch L.A., by happenstance when a video for the song was included on a reel sent by a director.

“The campaign started as little pieces of pop culture,” says Vincent Picardi, senior vice president and creative director of Deutsch L.A. “We noticed people would be singing in their cars, so we did that one [with the Wise Guys song]. Then we thought about karaoke, but that didn’t work and we went to people dancing in cars. We did some research, found that popping was coming back in England, and a director had a popper in his video--and that’s where we saw the Dirty Vegas clip.”

Smith says the band welcomed the opportunity for exposure and the fee it was paid, but the trio also liked the aesthetic.

“We’d seen the previous campaigns,” he says. “It’s not so much on the car but more on a vibe, the scene itself.”

SMALL FACES: A new OutKast song, “Land of a Million Drums,” will be the first single from the soundtrack to the upcoming live-action “Scooby Doo” movie. Shaggy and MxPx both do versions of the theme song, and the album, due June 4, also includes a new duet, “Thinking About You,” by Solange (sister of Destiny’s Child’s Beyonce Knowles, who co-produced the track) and St. Lunatics’ Murphy Lee....

With Blink-182’s guitarist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker having finished their Boxcar Racer side-project album, Barker has teamed with Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong for another venture, the Transplants. They’re working on an album with plans to release it and tour in the fall.... “L.A. Law” actress Michelle Greene has recorded a debut album of original songs, focusing on her mother’s Mexican and Nicaraguan roots. Titled “Ojo de Tiburon,” the album is June 11 due from Appleseed Records.

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Steve Hochman is a regular contributor to Calendar.