The group consists of multi-instrumentalists Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin.

The group primarily produces music in the synth-pop and alternative dance genres, drawing influences from house and disco.

Hot Chip began as a bedroom recording project for Taylor and Goddard, who met while students at Elliott School, Putney; their earliest lineup included Smoughton as their drummer.

After completing two EPs, Mexico (2001) and San Frandisco (2002), the group released their debut album, Coming on Strong (2004) and added Doyle, Clarke, and Martin to their lineup.

Their follow-up, Made in the Dark (2008), included the single "Ready for the Floor", which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

Outside of Hot Chip, the band members, individually and in partnership with each other, are active in other musical acts and occasionally perform DJ sets.

Hot Chip were formed around 2000 by the duo of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard, who met as students at Elliott School, Putney.

The Guardian names Roxy Music, Prince, Royal Trux, Arthur Russell and Madonna as influences on Hot Chip;[6] the band have also paid "homage" to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).

At the end of 2008, "Ready for the Floor" received a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording nomination, but the song later lost out to "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Alive 2007)" by Daft Punk.

Having completed a world tour in February 2009, Hot Chip returned to London and began writing and recording their fourth album, One Life Stand.

Initially, Taylor hinted that the album was going to be "a bit calmer this time" in comparison to Made in the Dark with songs that are "more mid-tempo and disco influenced", although the two tracks released prior to the album, "Take It In" and "One Life Stand", suggest that it will be more upbeat than first suggested, and may be more influenced by early house music.

[16] About the album, Taylor stated, "I think In Our Heads was a bit speedier, and made with less pressure, but more fun – partly due to people in the band not having too many hang ups about how good the material was – we seemed to be happy with the songs we were writing and they came quickly – and partly due to the fact that we had been enjoying ourselves elsewhere, whether at home, or on tour, or recording with our other projects, or DJing.

The announcement coincided with Hot Chip's US, UK and European tour, which began in San Francisco on 19 April 2022.

[22] During live performances, Hot Chip reinvent their studio compositions to form what has been described by Glide magazine as "heavy beat-driven improvisation[s]" that create "an atmosphere of excitement, energy and the unexpected.

Al Doyle played guitar with LCD Soundsystem on tour and was present during their concert at Madison Square Garden in 2011.