There is no subtlety and there are no gray areas. It's all black and white — well, at least according to the Hives.

The Swedish band will undoubtedly wear some uncolorful combination of black and white, pleasing the rock 'n' roll fashion police as well as the basic indie rock fans who will pack the venerable Majestic Ventura Theatre on Monday night.

The Eagles of Death Metal will open the show.

Still very much on the upward spiral, the Hives tour incessantly and have a bunch of upbeat, pop punk albums. Their latest is "The Black and White Album." Previous buzzworthy output includes "Tyrannosauraus Hives" (2004), "Veni Vidi Vicious" (2000) and "Barely Legal" (1997).

Besides all that, the Hives have survived what might have been the greatest ending to a rock concert, when Mother Nature provided the exclamation point.

Drummer Chris Dangerous discussed the latest during a recent phoner from far away — South America.

What's happening in Chile?

We just went over a mountain on one of those things that goes over the mountain on a wire. What do you call it? A cable car. It was raining, so we had to go back down. That's probably the latest thing that's happened. We've never played in Chile.

Why do you guys speak better English than we do?

Oh, I don't know, man.

What's the music scene like in Sweden?

It's probably stronger than it's ever been, actually. There are tons of good bands coming out of Sweden. I mean, they always have, but now, for some reason the world is more ready for them.

When the Hives dress in black and white, does that please the fashion police?

We just thought of it because we wanted to have a certain look. No bands dressed up when we formed the band — I think it was '96 when we decided to go with the black and white.

Did the success of "Veni Vidi Vicious" surprise you?

Not really, because we had toured all along. It was gradual for us because we started touring Europe, I think, in '98, then things just happened for us and we got bigger all the time. We didn't really notice it as much as people who read magazines did.

How do you survive on the road?

It's really hard at times, but for us, even if we get really angry at someone, we know each other so well that we already know the outcome before it even started, so it's better to just take a long walk and clear our heads.

Who goes to your shows? Are Hives fans the same the world over?

Fans are different, but sort of the same. People in one country might jump up and down at the same time, but in other parts of the world, they might get their aggressions out in different ways.

And the band sounds like?

Explosion.

Any extra-weird gigs?

We played a really weird one — well, it wasn't weird until the end — in Holland in 2002. At the exact same note when the show ended, lightning struck and hit the stage and everything went pitch black. The whole festival went black at the exact right moment when we hit on the snare and the chord on the guitar.

Any advice for the next generation?

The only thing — and I could be dead serious about this — is that you love playing music and you're having fun doing it. You have to love spending 38 hours a day, 10 years straight in a rehearsal room. You gotta love it, every second of it, then you might get somewhere.

This is supposed to be fun, right?

Hell, yeah.

All right, man. Have fun in Chile.

We will. We're about to hit the stage here for the first time. It's this old theater, so we'll have fun, and I promise you, you're going to have fun when we hit your town.

— E-mail music writer Bill Locey at blocey@pacbell.net.