Rachel Nicholas, Assistant Spectrum Editor
In a city full of creativity and booming artistry, Richmond rock band HOTPANTS has spent the last few years finding their place in the city’s music scene, pulling inspiration from classic rock, indie and psychedelic music.
Although they gather ideas from a multitude of places, the band agrees that assigning a genre to their sound is not so simple.
“People will ask us, ‘What kind of music do you play?’ I’m just like, ‘I don’t know,’” frontwoman Mackenzie Roark said.
HOTPANTS formed after Roark released her first album in 2022 and wanted to bring the songs to a live audience. The band’s current lineup came together through years of connections between Richmond musicians, eventually becoming what Roark considers the “core of HOTPANTS.”
Roark first met guitarist and bassist Billy Bacci around 2017 at an open mic event she was running. Bacci previously played with drummer Drew Barnocky and bassist Matt Moran through another band they were in together.
“Paint on it was a band that me, Matt and Drew were in,” Bacci said. “We made three albums together and I met Matt through his brother and Drew was playing for Mackenzie at the time.”
When it came time to build the band, the existing relationships made the process easier. The answer later evolved into the group HOTPANTS.
The name, a throwback to the retro term for short shorts popularized in the 1970s, took a bit longer for the band to settle on. Roark wanted something that captured the band’s style while also giving them a name they could incorporate into their stage presence.
“I’ve been drawn to music from the ‘60s and ‘70s since middle and high school,” Roark said. “I think the rock genre is more home for me. It’s what I grew up listening to and the reason I wanted to start making music myself.”
Roark remembers watching “School of Rock” in sixth grade and immediately wanting to start a band. The idea had already existed when she was younger, when she and her friends would talk about becoming musicians.
Bacci also cited the movie as a source of inspiration, even having a hypothetical childhood band titled Space Dudes.
The band members bring different musical influences to the group, something they said has helped shape its sound. Roark draws from older rock and folk music, while other members bring influences from indie, noise and psychedelic rock.
Bacci said his background is more rooted in indie and noise rock, including bands such as Pixies, while Moran brings an interest in improvisational music and the band Phish, along with other modern rock influences.
“We all know how to speak a common musical language, and our influences are so similar,” Bacci said. “I feel like we know pretty quickly if it’s gonna click on a song or if it’s just worth moving on from.”
The differences allow the members to contribute their own styles while still building around Roark’s songwriting.
“When we collaborate, it’s awesome because everyone brings something different,” Bacci said. “Mackenzie writes these songs that have a central thesis and Matt has an amazing ability to just jump in an improv.”
That process has allowed HOTPANTS to move between different sounds without worrying too much about where the music fits.
The band can play alongside country, folk or punk acts because of the range of sounds they incorporate.
Their first show together was as an opening act at the Camel, a local live music venue in Richmond, where they opened for another artist. The space was packed from wall to wall and will go down as a night they will not forget, according to the band.
“I just remember feeling so electrified,” Roark said. “There are so many people and they’re screaming for us. It kind of felt like walking on air afterwards.”
Richmond has given the band space to branch out, helping them gain traction at the local and state level, although they are still working toward building a larger national audience.
For now, HOTPANTS continues to grow within the city’s music community while developing new material and expanding its sound. For more information on their music and upcoming events, check out their website https://www.hotpantsband.com/shows.