Hot Panda Get Saucy

Hot Panda are looking to add some extra zing to their merch table and are selling their own hot sauce along with the usual array of band-related clothing.

The Hot Panda Volcano... Bloody Volcano sauce is named after their moniker and Volcano... Bloody Volcano full-length debut. Guitarist/vocalist Chris Connelly credits their label, Mint Records, with the idea for the tasty condiment.

The hot sauce can be purchased from the Edmonton quartet during their current North American tour. A handful of restaurants — including Vancouver's The Foundation, Edmonton's Blue Plate Diner and Toronto's The Henhouse (which is owned by Katie Sketch and Jenny Smyth, formerly of Mint Records act The Organ) — are stocking Hot Panda Volcano... Bloody Volcano for a limited time, too.

"This guy in B.C. who makes these delicious, award-winning hot sauces sent us a bunch of flavours to choose from, and we picked the pineapple habanero one," Connelly explains. "We named the sauce after the album because it's hot sauce, and volcanoes are hot and, well, you get the idea.

"[Bassist] Keith Olsen makes these delicious vegetarian burritos and, when we got the hot sauce, we had a tasting party and ate it with the burritos and it was amazing. It also goes great with sweet potato hash browns and eggs."

Volcano… Bloody Volcano came out in February. The album follows 2007's Whale Headed Girl EP, which was created six months after Hot Panda formed. Connelly feels the new songs are a natural progression for the still relatively young indie pop act.

"Volcano is us doing Whale Headed Girl, only with a year's worth of time to tighten up as a band and hone our music skills, and save up a lot more money to make a way better recording with more time and attention."

Volcano… Bloody Volcano was written over two years and recorded during three frosty weeks in Winnipeg in February 2008 with producer Ryan McVeigh. If the hot sauce had been around then, a few swigs could have helped keep them warm during the sessions.

"The album will always mean minus-40-degree temperatures, cabin fever and a whole lot of other things to us," Connelly says. "We could have stayed in Edmonton and worked with the same people all Edmonton bands always work with, but we wanted a fresh set of ears.

"We knew it would be cold, and we hoped that it would make us focus and buckle down without too many outside distractions. In the end, it broke our van's engine and gave us cabin fever and actual fevers, but I think all that might have helped the recording, too."

Volcano… Bloody Volcano was completed by the middle of 2008, but the band had to play the waiting game while Mint tried to fit it into its release schedule.

"It could have come out right before Christmas, but that's a really bad time to release a new artist," says Connelly. "We realized that if we wanted our album out on Mint, which we did, it had to be February.

"It was a little frustrating, especially because we almost have a whole new album's worth of songs that we won't be able to play live for a long time. However, we'll be able to record again in the not-too-distant future and we'll look a lot more prolific than we are because of it."

Here are Hot Panda's tour dates:

April 2 Nanaimo, BC @ The Cambie w/United Steel Workers Of Montreal
April 3 Victoria, BC @ Logan's Pub w/United Steel Workers Of Montreal
April 4 Vancouver, BC @ The Media Club
April 6 Kelowna, BC @ Blue Gator
April 7 Canmore, AB @ The Drake Inn
April 8 Regina, SK @ The Exchange
April 9 Saskatoon, SK @ Lydia's Pub
April 10 Winnipeg, MB @ Lo Pub
April 11 Minneapolis, MN @ Uptown
April 12 Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews
April 13 St Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
April 15 Chicago, IL @ The Dark Room Bar
April 19 Washington DC @ Velvet Lounge
April 21 New York, NY @ Pianos
April 22 Philadelphia, PA @ Manhattan Room
April 24 Halifax, NS @ Gus's Pub
April 25 Fredericton, NB @ The Capitol
April 26 Quebec City, QC @ L'Agitee
April 28 Montreal, QC @ Le Divan Orange
April 29 Ottawa, ON @ Zaphod Beeblebrox