| Hell Is For Heroes |
| I caught up with Joe (drums) and Tom (guitar) of HIFH before their gig at Reading University. |
| What were your first inspirations when first starting out? TOM: What inspired us to start the band? ME: Yeah JOE: What you were saying about dropping out of college going to work was just not much fun, getting up in the morning it was just terrible. Just having the possibility of playing music everyday and just doing that was a big inspiration. I suppose to me really if it meant I didn�t have to be part of that rat race. I absolutely love playing the drums and playing in the band and being around like minded people and not sort of having that conventional sort of things to do, so yeah lifestyle and then music as well. I�ve always loved bands and alternative music since I was a young kid so I�ve always wanted to make a racket, and hopefully do it full time. ME: Do you do it full time now? TOM: Yeah we do it full time. Joe, you�ve had experience with Symposium, do you want to forget your past or are you still proud of the music you made all those years ago? JOE: A bit of both coz I don�t really look back at it with rose tainted spectacles at all really. I think some of the shows we played I still look back on and think they were phat and stuff, I don�t think Symposium made any great records. I prefer the album we made to anything (symposium) done. But I�m not going to moan, there was a time when it was good then it went bad and these things happen and I don�t want to sound like a moaning bitch. So it�s nice being able to take away lessons from that, good and bad and carry on with this new thing and try not let what happened in the past bias my opinion of anything else really. What has been you�re favorite video to make so far? TOM: I suppose it would have to be �Nightvision� really, we got the opportunity to shot it in LA, need I go on? (Laughs) What�s the weirdest thing that�s every happened on tour? JOE: One of the weirdest things, we weren�t really on tour but when we were making the record in America me Tom, Justin and a mate of ours Tom, went to Mexico and that�s probably got to rank as one of the weirdest experiences this year. We just went for like a weekend, well it wasn�t really a weekend was it? TOM: It was a night. JOE: We drove down from LA to Staplestones in San Diego for a bit. And just driving over the boarder from San Diego, which is a good middle class American town, to Mexico. You literally get through the gates and there just be millions of shanty towners, just like a line, literally, and there was first world and as soon as you cross it there was the third world. I�ve never seen anything like it, it was probably the rarest thing I�ve ever seen. Just pure poverty just everywhere and run down places, kids running around about, animals all over the place, slums for living. TOM: Yeah, I�ve never seen anything like it. It was like as Joe was saying it was so surreal coming from white washed houses and the perfect lawns and just 10 meters down the street it was just pure shit. ME: It�s pretty bad there. JOE: Yeah it was great fun going there but it just seemed to cater for the college kids who can�t get served in America who drive over the boarder, and it�s pretty bad. Do you prefer playing larger venues or the smaller intimate ones? TOM: Both have their pluses and minuses, it just defiantly varies from gig to gig. That�s a tough one. JOE: We just spent a month touring with Papa Roach playing in massive venues. That was the most relaxing tour we�ve ever been on coz we didn�t have to do a great deal, and there was so many people around that all we had to do is was strap on the instruments and walk on. That was great going on to a few thousand people a night who are there for Papa Roach but really got in to our stuff. That was great, it was a really enjoyable thing, but having said that in this tour we�ve been playing random places which we�ve never been to, and where the audience is there looking you in the eye, asking you questions in the gig that was great as well. It�s always more tense when the crowd is up there, it often makes a more hardcore show. TOM: Well I defiantly think it�s the crowd that determines if it�s good show or not wherever the venue, however big or small it is, that�s the key to it all, just making Billy happy. If aliens came to earth and asked you if you wanted to see the universe but you were not allowed to return to earth, would you go? TOM: I personally wouldn�t, I�ve kinda made a reasonable good start and I want to see what I can do down here first. JOE: It depends what state of mind� TOM: (Laughs) yeah JOE: If it was like 2.20 in the morning and I was in the back of the tour bus (does impression of alien) TOM: It would be interesting but I would like to come back as well. What advise would you give to a new band starting out? TOM: Don�t�I would just say just practice and gig as much as possible and as long as you all like what your doing and your not trying to be anything but yourself. That�s a good way to start off. We�ve been playing live for 2 years and we still get it going as a band but it�s a continual thing you can always try and better the last thing you did, your last demo, your last record. What album would you say is absolutely blinding to this very date? JOE: 1978 The Commodores released �Machine Gun� and that�s a good funk record. Yeah lots of stuff from the 60�s, 70�s still sound really good today, like all the Hendrix stuff I always listen to. TOM: I think all the Beach Boys albums still sound really good, early 90�s stuff like hardcore records, punk records, Bad Religion records, Smashing Pumpkins. JOE: Bit of Zep. TOM: For sure, Black Sabbath. What do you think about the whole Napster thing, and downloading music from the net? TOM: Personally I don�t mind it, I think there�s quite a few positives to it so I don�t think it�s too bad. JOE: I think bands like us really there is a community that wants to learn about new music and a lot of people wouldn�t hear about it if it wasn�t for the net. So if they want to download it then fine, maybe they will come and see a show it doesn�t really bother me if they copy the album. A lot of the albums and stuff which I copied when I was 12 or 13 I didn�t have �10 to go out and buy CD�s so my record collection was just 50 blank tapes with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, NOFX. I bought the originals 5 years later but if it wasn�t for people passing round copies there wouldn�t be a music scene. |