"The Hottest Band on Earth Should Get Everything They Want, No?"

Almqvist is tall and thin, and has the rather studious air of Peter Parker about him. The 29-year-old looks preppy with his neat side part, while his clothes -- strictly in band colors, naturally -- make him resemble an extra from Happy Days: checked, button-down shirt; trim cardigan (with an embossed H on the breast); and a pair of skinny black trousers that finish far above his lonely ankles. His shoes are long and white and tightly laced.

"Before we speak," he says in an unexpectedly deep voice that runs contrary to his lupine yelp on record, "I must eat." He makes it clear that I am not invited to join him by promptly walking away and toward the hotel restaurant alone, head down, hands in pockets. He won't return again for two and a half hours, and when he finally does show up in the cigar-choked bar, arranging himself on a plump armchair while an aloof waiter brings beer nuts, his enduring hangover seems all the more evident, his words lugubrious and punctuated by heavy sighs.

"Until this record, Hives always existed in a sort of bubble," he begins. "We've been entirely self-sufficient, producing our albums at home in Sweden and never inviting anyone else into our comfort zone. We liked it this way. Back when we were 17, we all took a blood oath to record three albums of 30-minute punk rock, and nobody would get to leave until we'd done just that. Well, we've done it now, and so we don't owe anything else to our 17-year-old selves. It was time to do something different."

In NYC, Pelle and company talk with SPIN.com's William Goodman further about working with Pharrell and touring with Maroon 5. WATCH THE VIDEOS:
>> "A little out of context"
>> "Black and white"
>> The new album
>> Sweden's music scene
>> Working in a posh studio

Much of The Black and White Album, consequently, was recorded in the U.S. Dennis Herring, the Mississippi-based producer behind Modest Mouse's recent success, handled 12 of the tracks, while Pharrell Williams presided over the remaining two. The band had actually worked on eight others with Williams, but as with subsequent sessions with Timbaland (with whom they had previously collaborated on the producer's Timbaland Presents Shock Value album), these weren't finished in time. Tardiness, Almqvist says, was a recurring theme of the album's studio genesis. And it drove him to distraction.

"Professional producers have a different way of working than we do," he says. "We didn't have creative arguments with any of them, but all of them had timekeeping issues. Dennis, for example, didn't ever show up on time. I think perhaps Mississippi time may be like Jamaica time: Nothing happens when it's supposed to. We found it very frustrating."

Initially, Herring himself had to be persuaded to work with the band, previously having considered them a spent force. "I'd loved Veni Vidi Vicious," he says from his home in Oxford, "though I never really got into Tyrannosaurus Hives. But when the record company sent over their new demos, I have to say, I thought they were terrific. They had me jumping around the room with enthusiasm."

Chris Dangerous, Dr. Matt Destruction, Pelle Amqvist, Vigilante Carlstroem, and Nicholaus Arson, photographed for Spin in Paris, September 9, 2007 / Photo by Thierry Le Goués / Suits, shirts, and ties by Tiger of Sweden

But recording the band, he admits, was not easy. "They've definitely got some Viking blood in there somewhere. You know, they were very masculine, not real communicative, and pretty standoffish. They'd talk in Swedish a lot. I don't think I ever managed to fully break them down, but that's not to say we didn't get on well, because we did. In fact, they made it easy for me, because they are unusually efficient for a rock band -- very functional, very good at making decisions, and entirely focused."

Pharrell Williams was a different story. Almqvist describes him as Herring's polar opposite -- occasionally late too, yes, but a kinetic studio presence. "He works very quickly and needs to be kept excited all the time, which was easy because he is still new to rock music," Almqvist says. "We've been doing this for 15 years now, and after a while, hitting a chord on an electric guitar over and over again does get boring. But Pharrell's excitement was infectious."

The star producer came on board after meeting with Interscope honcho Jimmy Iovine, the man who had signed the band with such initial hope, but who was later very disappointed with Tyrannosaurus Hives. "They just didn't come up with the songs," Iovine told the L.A. Times last year. "They thought people were just responding to the attitude in their shows, and it was never just that. But I'm not giving up. I've already spoken to them, and they know what they need to do."

Williams needed little convincing. Like Timbaland -- and, for that matter, like OutKast's André 3000, who has suggested that "Hey Ya!" was largely inspired by the Hives' whole attitude -- he was a big fan.