Co-produced by future No Doubt and Black Crowes producer Jack Joseph Puig, and recorded at Hodgson's 48-track home studio in Nevada City, California, the album is a merger of Supertramp-styled progressive pop-rock and extensive use of Los Angeles session musicians and late-1980s synthesizer technology.

Hai Hai features ten songs, all of which were written by Hodgson, with the exception of "Land Ho", an old Supertramp song (at the time never released on an album but only as a single), which Hodgson co-wrote in 1974 with his long-time partner Rick Davies.

Hodgson had previously recorded the song in 1983 for his solo album In the Eye of the Storm, but it was never released.

They also commented that the lyrics "are at times juvenile and embarrassing... he may have been trying to say something, but the poetry reads like a bored high school student wrote them."

They added that the album's over-reliance on electronics and technology made the already uninspired songs sound cold and soulless.