ive know chris for a while now, hes one of the nicest guys and in one of tbe best hardcore / metal bands in the scene, ive wanted to interview him for a while,. i hassled him but he got round to it haha..
Afternoon Chris. for anyone who doesn't know you can you please introduce yourself?
Yo! I'm Chris and i sing in a band called Hang The Bastard
Can you tell us the story how HTB got started and how you got involved?
It was pretty much me and Sam being sick of not doing anything musically that we enjoyed. We both love stuff like Black Sabbath and older rock and we both dig hardcore bands like Integrity so we just decided to get something going. Sam's cousin Lloyd played guitar as well at the time, then Simon joined by me sending a bulletin out on my space looking for someone. He also had no idea who Integrity or hardcore was but he like heavy music and was really up for doing something. So we just started off by covering Integrity, I think we did a Minor Threat cover at one point and just jammed out riffs. The first song we wrote was pillage your village which is on Raw Sorcery.
You play allot of hardcore shows and seem to be influenced hardcore bands, would you call yourself a hardcore band?
I would probably call us a hardcore band over anything else, I suppose we're just allot more metallic than other hardcore bands and with doomy/southern influences. Other members of the band would probably argue against that and say we're this genre or another but it doesn't really matter what you label us.
Just by listing to your Cd's, and splits you can tell you love heavy riffs, when writing a HTB song do you have any rules?
No we just jam out and see what happens, I think the new record will show that we're down for trying new things and experimenting a bit.
The band seems to have dark and heavy tones and ideas in lyric writing and artwork etc...
is this something the band has been into for a long time?
I think its just something that happened naturally just by gaining influences from the other bands we listen to or certain films and books. You wont find me singing about unity and sticking by your friends, I actually live in the real world.
Is there other things apart from music that motivates the band, .i.e film, art?
Yeah of course, mainly movies I suppose, horror movies played a big part of the bands growth I think. Last House on the Left was a favourite to have on in the background when songwriting. The Wicker Man of course! I'm not sure if these films are direct influences to us but I would recommend Rosemary's Baby, Witch finder General, Antichrist, any John Carpenter movie.
You've had a few member changes since the start of the band, do you feel knocked back when you need to change a member or is it a positive covered in a negative for you?
Well the last two bassists that we're removed from the band for various and yet some what similar reasons was definitely a positive thing and we've gone from strength to strength without them. We pretty much just have problems with bassists and I think we've come to terms with the fact that we are a four piece with hired hands to play bass.
What have some of highs and lows been of HTB run so far?
Well having Raw Sorcery come out and generally be liked by allot of people was pretty cool! We've been over to the mainland on 2 tours now. We've played in countries as far away as Romania. Being taken on by Holy Roar. Playing some crazy shows that we would never have thought we could when we started the band.
Haven't really been many low points to be honest, we've kicked a couple people out but I personally don't consider them to be low points. No its been pretty good so far.
Has the been a show you've been stoked to play yet?
Yeah loads! We played Pressure Fest last year, we've got Ieper Fest coming up in a couple weeks. Played with some of mine/our favourite bands, like Ringworm, Trash Talk, Madball, Pulling Teeth, the list goes on, we've been really lucky with some of the shows we've landed on.
On your spilt with brutality will prevail you have some great samples inc a Rosemary's baby clip.
are you a big film fan, and does this translate into your lyrics?
Yeah we all are, love Rosemary's Baby and loads of other horrors like I mentioned earlier. Sometimes my lyrics can be influenced by films but not directly. If anything I'll watch a film, then take the theme of it and translate it to something that affects me in the real world.
What would you like to do with HTB in the future?
Just write more songs and go on tour. Just play new places all the time really. Nothing that grand but it would make us all happy!
What in in the works for HTB over the next few months?
We have an album coming out on Holy Roar in the next few months and we're talking about what to do next.
And what do you hope people will take away from HTB?
Misery
