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

"I like [Pelle's] style," Williams says. "He is all heart, all passion. I wanted to work with the band on something that was good and timeless. I think we achieved it."

One of Williams' tracks, "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.," boasts a low-slung rhythm that requires Almqvist to deliver his vocal in a Prince-like helium squeak; like much of the rest of the album, it's hyperactively catchy. While you could argue that the Hives still remain redolent of every garage act in history, they also sound quite unlike anyone else. The Black and White Album is vivid, frenetic, and determinedly larger-thanlife, and at least two of the songs -- "You Dress Up for Armageddon" and "It Won't Be Long" -- are effectively 21st-century equivalents of "Rock Lobster," which should assure the group its place as a good-time party band without peer. Whether this will all translate into mainstream success, however, remains to be seen.

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

"Do we feel pressure?" Almqvist repeats wearily. "I don't know. Maybe some, yes. We are aware that there are certain expectations of our band now but..." He trails off, sighs again, then reengages. "I'm not even sure we should be talking about this, but, okay, I'll entertain it for a bit and will say this: [Interscope] signed this band, and this band is what they got. What comes first is us doing the kind of records we want to do and following our inner voice. Anything else that happens -- success, profile, whatever -- is extracurricular, it has little to do with us. But, sure, if you ask me directly whether I want us to be more successful, then yes, of course. Why not?"

To this end, the Hives are now making aggressive inroads into becoming as marketable a commodity as possible. Interscope has made them a fall priority, they've got new high-profile management, their recent single "Tick Tick Boom" graces NFL games and sneaker commercials, and they are currently in the middle of a 28-date tour with some very unlikely bedfellows: Maroon 5.

"We have a saying in Sweden," Almqvist says, yawning. It is now close to midnight, and he is ready for bed. "Don't knock the Finns until you've been to Finland." Which means? "Give everything a go because, frankly, what's to lose?"

At the beginning of 2006, when it became clear that sales of Tyrannosaurus Hives were never going to clear the million mark, the band finally decided to stop touring and return to Sweden.

"We were playing shows something like 365 days a year," says Dr. Matt Destruction the morning after, over a breakfast of bacon and eggs. Destruction is the most softly spoken Hive, a balding man who suits his moustache and likes to suck on tobacco, with a fat lump tucked between gum and lip, giving him the appearance of someone recently punched. "We were exhausted and just wanted to pick up on our real lives again."

Almqvist darkens at the very mention of those days: "I don't really want to go into it too much, but by the end of that tour, we were in trouble. It was a bad situation." How so? "Well, let's just say if we didn't stop touring then, we probably wouldn't be a band today."

He goes on, haltingly, to suggest that the main problems were the "personal situations" of certain members, perhaps referring to the fact that he had split up with his girlfriend. While three of the Hives are married with children, Almqvist is single.