Planet Paul

Not every song is written in ten minutes, as some groups may tell you. The best songs are often created in the studio over several days or grow organically over months and sometimes years. Some start off as lyrics in search of a riff. Some meander slowly towards their inevitable conclusion. This then is the backstory to The Heat Inc.‘s new single Mind Control.

What started off as fragments from an unreleased song called Belacqua penned and forgotten about by frontman John Dodd and bassist Nico Rigot back in 2014, eventually found its home in Marco Simoncelli’s melody and chorus. Two separate pieces dovetailed together to form Mind Control.

“Marco had this Chorus melody, I think and I had the lyric for the chorus for years,” vocalist Jon Dodd
explains. “We struggled to make it into a whole song, then suddenly I noticed that it fit with the main verse riff and maybe the coda of an old track Nico and I had played in our previous band but never recorded. One day everything just locked into place.”

The result is an intense, powerful and compelling song about memory, reckoning and regret.

The Heat Inc. first came to my attention sometime around 2024 after their debut album Asleep in the Ejector Seat became a cult record and the band were garnering rave reviews for their live performances. The Heat Inc. are Jon Dodd, vocals – a singer who sounds like he comes from the lineage of Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave with a soupçon of David Bowie. Then there is Marco Simoncelli on guitar, who has a dedicated talent to find riffs and rhythms which mark him out as like a young Keith Richards. Then add to this Nicolas Rigot on bass and Maurizio Vitale on drums are like the V8 engine at the heart of the band. 

The Heat Inc. have been variously described as “Pure rock and roll” (Louder Than War); “Proper good” (Paul Simonon); and “one of the best and most blisteringly talented bands to emerge on the music scene in the past few years” (Dangerous Minds). This year they signed-up to Republic of Music and have recorded a new album which is due out later this year.

The new single Mind Control shows how The Heat Inc. have developed as a band, mixing their trademark rhythmic power with a haunting melody.

“Any number of bands can go heavy and there are a lot of bands out there that do easier numbers as a
habit,” Dodd says. “But very few can do both in one evening and not seem like two totally different bands. There is a very succinct blend of heaviness with melody that we try to maintain at all times without thinking too hard about it.”

“We definitely understand one another better now. Stuff comes together faster and we have a pretty keen sense for what’s going to work before getting stuck in the weeds. We’ve always been okay with going for the gentle, melodic number, but now we can do that while still maintaining an intensity that doesn’t overthrow an otherwise beautiful song.”

Jon Dodd – Vocals
Marco Simoncelli – Guitar
Nico Rigot – Bass
Maurizio Vitale – Drums

Mind Control by The Heat Inc. released by Tri-Tone and distributed by Republic of Music