Hookworms - Masters of transformism

The release of Hookworms' third album was a fitting occasion to speak on the phone with guitarist EO. His answers give a good account of the band's original intentions in making the record, as well as the ups and downs that delayed its completion, revealing the project's vocation for constant metamorphosis.

You only use your initials to identify yourselves, so I'd like to understand whether there were any lineup changes for this album. I know there was a change of drummer between the first and second album, so I'd like to know if you're the same five people from the second album to this one.

Yes, we're the same, but I used to go by the initials SS, which are my real initials, but now I've changed them to EO. I'd always wanted to change them right from the start, I really hated those initials, and I'm glad I've finally managed to change them.

Last time I interviewed JN, the drummer, and he told me the songs usually came together through a lot of work on the rhythm, so I'd like to know if you worked the same way for this record or in a different way.

We worked in a very similar way, even though the two records sound quite different: we started from electronic loops with a strong rhythmic component - for instance "Ullswater" has a very pronounced rhythmic loop - and then we built the songs around that, exactly as we'd done for "The Hum".

At what point in making the album did you decide to sound so different from before?

We'd decided from the very beginning to have much more electronic sounds, and our bassist, MB, has a solo project called XAM Duo and does a lot of work with synths - over the last two years he's built up his gear piece by piece, so we started recording the album two years ago. The song we started with is the one now called "Opener", which is track number 5 on the album, and we immediately started using a lot of synths and going through all sorts of changes - we wanted to move away from psych-rock and be different, absolutely.

I think you can feel that the sound is very different, but you can also feel that it's still always Hookworms. Do you agree? Did you want to make something that people would still connect back to Hookworms anyway?

I don't really know, but I think you can tell from how it sounds that it's still us, so yes, I agree with that, and that was something we wanted.

Making the record took a very long time because of the flood that hit your studio in 2015, but I also know, having friends in the Leeds music scene, that your frontman MJ is also a highly sought-after and respected producer, and that he produces music for a lot of other bands in Leeds.

Exactly, we'd started in the summer, and in December the flood happened at MJ's studio, and it took six months to get back on our feet, and then his priority obviously wasn't recording our record, he needed to make money, so we spent a whole year not working on the album. We then started again in 2017 and recorded most of it from there. For him it was a really hard blow, really, really hard.

You said your bassist has a solo project and that MJ is also a producer. What about the other three members of the band?

The drummer, JN, is in several other bands, there's a band in Leeds called Cowtown and he plays with them, then he does an electronic thing called Game Program, then he's in a guitar-and-drums duo called Nope, they're really good, but I still think Cowtown is his main thing apart from us. I also play in other projects, while JW, who did the artwork for our first two records, works in design, and that's a pretty important thing for him.

I knew the artwork for the previous records had been done by one of you, does what you just said mean that this time you used a different person?

Yes, we used a different person this time, I think JW himself wanted to use someone else, and it's actually one of his students; we were really impressed by his work, he did a really great job.

There's also something different about the album in terms of the structure of some of the tracks, because there aren't the instrumental interludes titled with Roman numerals that were on the previous records, but I still think there's a lot of work put into the tracklist and how each song connects to the next.

Absolutely, that's very deliberate. I think the instrumental tracks were put on "The Hum" specifically to link the songs together, but when we made this album, we decided to make some changes, and that was one of them, so we didn't put in any instrumental tracks, but the sequencing of the songs is still very important. MJ studies this aspect a lot, so the way the songs work together is very intentional, it's always something he really cares about, it's always one of his goals.

I imagine that, once the reviews come out, a lot of different band names will be used as reference points. Do you like that, or would you prefer that writers describe what the sound actually is without name-dropping, to help the reader understand the album's content?

I really don't mind it at all, I realize that, to describe what our music sounds like, you need to use reference points, and I think we've appreciated some of the comparisons that have been made in the past with other bands. Sometimes people miss the mark, for example we've often been compared to Hawkwind and actually none of us has ever listened to them. But I think it's fine to use reference points to describe our music. Let me try to think of bands we had in mind while making this record...

I think you can hear the more rock side of Primal Scream in some songs, and I also thought of Stone Roses at certain points, while some of the harmonies reminded me of Beatles.

MJ listens to quite a lot of Beatles, so you're probably right on that one, but I think most of the music we have in mind is American, I'm sure we're not influenced by anything from britpop at all, we've never listened to Stone Roses, or Oasis, we mostly think about American music.

Talking about your live shows, first of all we hope you'll come to Italy, but in general, with all the changes you've made on this record, what can we expect from your live sets?

They'll sound very similar to our old music - we still play very loud, so even though the music has a pop sound in many ways on this album, we think our shows will still be pretty rough around the edges. We've also got projections now while we play, so we believe it'll be quite an intense experience, and also on our records we like to blend the songs together, so we'll do the same thing when we play live.

(1/4/2018)

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The freedom of do-it-yourself

To mark the release of the second album, "The Hum", we got on the phone with new drummer JN. The line was very noisy and dropped several times, but we still managed to get some interesting answers, which show how the five Englishmen are making the most of the freedom that comes from being lucky enough to do everything themselves in order to feed their own creativity.

I read in the press release for this new album that the change in style compared to the debut is mainly down to the new drummer - that is, you. So tell us how you joined the band and how you felt you had to put your own drumming style at the service of the band.

The original drummer had left the band right after recording the first album. In any case, for the next stage of their career they had in mind a drummer with a punk-rock style, which is mine. I had mutual friends with the group and was asked to join, and at first I honestly wasn't sure I'd be able to keep my own style with them - I was afraid I'd have to change a bit too. Instead, I quickly realized that the energy I bring was exactly what the band needed.

I get the impression that the band's songs come about almost spontaneously the moment you all play together in the rehearsal room, and that there isn't really a classic songwriting process.

We spend a lot of time working on the rhythmic parts, and from there the rest of the songs actually come together through jam sessions. We can afford to spend a lot of time building songs by playing together because we have our own studio. Other bands record there too, like Joanna Gruesome, but since it's ours, spending a lot of time there doesn't mean we have to spend money, so we have the mental freedom to keep looking for new ideas without any rush - and the same goes if we want to change something we've already done, we can freely build and tweak things as much as we like.

In my opinion, the biggest improvement on this album compared to the debut is in the quiet parts. Here there's a much more detailed and dynamic sound, thanks mainly to the keyboard lines, whereas on the first album those moments were, I think, a bit too static, since they relied solely on a sound and the atmosphere it created. If you agree with me, tell me a bit more about these parts.

Yes, I completely agree - I think the interludes, as we call the parts you're talking about, are much more dynamic compared to the debut. I think it happened naturally, we didn't really think about it much, it's just that the band has been playing together for longer now and also has a much broader range of instruments than before, so this improvement came about naturally.

When do the lyrics come into the songs? I imagine they're the last thing added, once the musical part is fully finished.

The vocal part is really a whole second stage in our songwriting and recording process. Our singer gets an idea of the lyrics while the song is being built, but he doesn't bring anything out until everything else is completely ready. In any case, even though he's working on them while the song is being created, that in no way influences the direction the song itself takes while we're building it. Once everything's ready, he comes in and presents us with the lyrics he's written.

In our review of the first album, our colleague, besides speaking about it in positive terms, also drew attention to the artwork, saying he'd almost buy it just for the cover. Do you actually pay a lot of attention to the visual side of things, or do you not really consider it that important?

No, no, for us it's really important. Even while we're creating the songs, we're working on the artwork in parallel. Our guitarist is a very talented graphic designer and works on the artwork for a lot of other records besides our own. We're very lucky to have someone so good at that within the band.

As for your live shows, I was lucky enough to see you at the End Of The Road festival last September. Actually, I only caught half the set because you were playing at the same time as the Horrors, so I decided to split my time between the two, and I thought you both put on great sets. Still, I got the impression that on stage you tend to emphasize the heavier parts more than the interludes. Would you agree?

Yes, I agree, live we want to lean a bit more into the punk-rock side of things compared to the records. We really enjoy doing the interludes in the studio, but we also realize that live we need to shorten them. Unfortunately I have to say that at End Of The Road the crowd was a bit too quiet - usually there's a lot more energy from the audience at our shows.

Maybe because, since it was a festival, it wasn't just your fans watching you but mostly people who were perhaps just curious to hear you, and also because the volume levels can't be too high there, given that the stages aren't very far apart from each other.

Yeah, you're right, but we're still not used to an audience as calm as that one was, we want to give off energy and tension the whole time. That said, even when it comes to live shows we're not afraid to change something if we realize it hasn't really worked.

I saw there's an album launch date in Leeds on November 15th, and I imagine you'll be touring around Britain after that. Do you already know if there are European dates planned too, maybe even Italian ones?

I still don't know, what I do know is that we put so much work into making this record, so now we really want to go out and play as much as possible.

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