Bad case of the hives?

THERE’S ALWAYS BEEN an air of mystery surrounding Randy Fitzsimmons, the elusive songwriter reportedly behind the Hives’ sizeable catalog of garage rock sizzlers. According to the Swedish quintet, the enigmatic figure gave them their sound, not to mention their famously sartorial finesse. Trouble is, no one’s ever seen the guy, outside of the Hives.

Over the years, sleuths sniffed out that Fitzsimmons may actually be a registered nom de plume for founding guitarist Nicholaus Arson (a.k.a. Niklas Almqvist); the six-stringer has long maintained, however, that Fitzsimmons isn’t a character, but rather a ringleader who prefers to stand outside of the limelight. Nevertheless, if the group had been under the tutelage of the incognito impresario for the past 30 years, there now seems to be an imposing finality baked into the title of the Hives’ latest album, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons.

While Arson, co-guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem, vocalist Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, drummer Chris Dangerous and bassist The Johan and Only have remained a force to be reckoned with on global stages, at a certain point the group realized they hadn’t released a full-length since 2012’s Lex Hives. In turn, they once again sought out their favorite songwriter for a few new tunes. As lore has it, they hadn’t been in touch with Fitzsimmons for quite some time and had a hard time tracking him down in the flesh. The specifics are as fuzzy as Arson and Carlstroem’s stompbox-assisted riff play, but eventually they came across a coffin. But instead of finding their friend inside, they unearthed the blueprints for their next album.

“We don’t know how he died, and we don’t necessarily know if he’s dead, either,” a non-committal Arson offers to Guitar World of Fitzsimmons’ ultimate fate. “The wicked treasure hunt that he sent us on led us to something that he’d created, more so than a dead body. That’s what made up the foundation of the record — demos, notebooks, suits. The working title in the notebooks was The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons. Whether he’s dead or not, that’s hard to say.”

Less cryptic are the Hives’ vital-as-ever tunes. The band first caught fire internationally d