WHEN Louis XIV was working on its new album – the follow-up to its much-buzzed-about 2005 disc “The Best Little Secrets Are Kept” – the band known for its sex-laden lyrics spent some quality time with underage chicks.
“We started with these girls that were in high school, just down the block from our studio,” says vocalist Jason Hill.
Before you start clutching at your pearls with outrage, the girls were there to perform strings on the San Diego rock quartet’s new record, “Slick Dogs and Ponies” (out Jan. 29).
“A friend of ours was the band teacher at the school, and we asked him if he knew any players. He brought these girls down,” says Hill. “We didn’t specify: ‘Bring high school girls.'”
He adds that a cellist from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and composer David Campbell – aka Beck’s dad – also contributed to the string sections on the disc’s tracks.
Having exhausted stripped-down guitar rock on its last album, Louis XIV decided it was time to revamp the band’s sound.
“We got off the road from touring and wanted to put down our guitars for a little while, write for instruments that we didn’t play: cellos, violins and flutes,” says Hill.
While he notes that there’s “only one tiny little flute part – it’s not like we’re Jethro Tull or anything,” Hill admits to being influenced by another prog-rock act, Electric Light Orchestra.
“I always did like the way ELO used strings as part of the group.”
To capture this sound at shows like its upcoming Thursday night gig at Terminal 5, Louis XIV added a violist and violinist to its entourage.
The band also changed its approach to song content. If you were a fan of raunchy lyrics from its past repertoire, you might be disappointed by the newer songs, which (mostly) steer clear of lip-biting innuendo.
Take the new album’s lead single, the neo-glam “Guilt by Association” (download it now at nypost.com), for example.
“I’m talking about politics in the song,” says Hill.
“It’s written from the standpoint of a person who takes advantage of a situation and destroys everything. If you look at what’s happened in the world in the last eight years, you can probably figure out what I’m referring to.
“I’ve always been into things like politics and watching the world. On the last record, it was almost like, ‘I don’t like what’s going on in the world, let’s avoid it.’ With this one, what’s going on was too ingrained in me, and it came out in the music. “A lot of people, I’m sure, will listen to this record and go, ‘Man, that was your thing! You brought sexy back before Justin Timberlake,'” Hill says with a laugh.
“But it would’ve felt very forced [for us]. You can’t please all the people all the time, and if you are, then you know you’re doing something wrong.”