Emerging from the Leeds punk/hardcore scene way back in 2004, Hawk Eyes have been serving up blistering, life-affirmingly brilliant and genre-straddling music for the best part of a decade now. We caught up with frontman Paul Astick and guitarist Rob Stephens backstage at the woodchip haven of Hard Rock Calling to chat about Japan, Leeds and HRC. Here’s what they had to say:
So, guys, you’ve recently come back from a global tour?
Rob: “Ha, Yeah, the shortest global tour ever!”
Paul: “Yeah, it was pretty insane actually, we went to Japan for what, 3 shows, and then we went straight to Germany and did a couple of festivals, then we went to Sweden. Have we played anywhere else in between?”
Rob: “No but we drove through Netherlands, France, Belgium…”
Paul: “We went on the Euro tunnel twice! That was a highlight!”
So Japan… it’s not Leeds…
Rob: “Yeah, that’s an advert for it!”
Paul: “Come to Japan, it’s not Leeds!”
But how was it?
Rob: “It’s crazy, it was unbelievable to be invited out there, to play those shows, by Ginger (Wildheart) of course and by Vinyl Junkie our record label who were really looking after us over there. The weirdest thing was walking down the street on the day of the first gig and it was about a block from the venue so we’re just walking down there with our mates and this guy’s handing out flyers and I was like ‘no thanks I don’t want one’ then I realised that’s our record! And he was actually asking me for my autograph. Which was really weird! Then I just ran back and apologised profusely for 10 minutes and signed everything, even his clothes! But we just didn’t expect it. It was like a dream really, really weird.”
So Paul, how does it compare playing abroad to playing home crowds like at Hard Rock Calling today?
Paul: “What we experienced in Japan was a different level of respect and politeness. If they’ve come to watch your band no one will play on their mobile phone, no one’s having a chat with their mate… Someone in England is always doing that…”
Rob: “Well they do that in the House of Commons now! They’re gonna do it at gigs!”
Paul: “In Japan as well after they’ve packed away the last bit of your gear off the stage- they clap again! Which was a bit strange.”
Rob: “But generally people are great, they always come out to see us whether it’s at Download or here today…”
Paul: “We ate some strange things, some chicken elbows, some squid tentacles… Brian had sausage and chips- keeping it real!”
Rob: “Keeping it Leeds.”
But you guys started in the Leeds hardcore squat scene, how important was that for forming your sound?
Rob: “No one else would give us a gig! It was important for forming our sound organically. We didn’t go out to be a hardcore band or to play with this particular style but we were schooled in the very early days by playing in those types of venues with those types of bands and to those crowds. We’re really grateful actually to all those guys because no one else cared at all… no one else got it. It was this sort of sludge-doomer-thrash-prog that doesn’t make any sense, but all the crusties liked it, they would always put us on all the time. We’d go and we’d play squats and holes of venues… I remember we played in Bradford Cathedral once didn’t we?”
Paul: “Oh yeah…”
Rob: “Forget about that one! So we’ve done some pretty crazy stuff. Yeah with that scene comes a sort of identity.”
Paul: “I think it gives you a great level of appreciation as well. We played in those sorts of venues for 5, 6 years and I think if we’d just been a band then 2 months later been doing gigs like this we would’ve appreciated it as much. But doing gigs to one man in Stoke with a butterfly painted on his face gives you a certain level of appreciation!”
Your new album ‘Ideas’ it’s got a hell of a lot of different moods packed into it, a hell of a lot of different emotions, a lot of them quite dark. Tell me about the process of creating it.
Rob: “When we did the first album Modern Bodies a lot of it felt quite samey, at least that’s how we feel. Our aim was to do a more varied album, get across different feels and different moods and different emotions. We did take a different approach. The way we write songs is never formulaic… It’s never ‘this person brings the song’. Paul might bring a riff, I might bring a riff. The old drummer Matt might have had a drum part… So I think having different approaches helped to get a more varied album. It was never this is the songwriter everyone does what he says. Which lends itself to the way we write.”
Paul: “About those negative moods you’re talking about, well the bands a bit of a catharsis for us we’re all really happy well adjusted young people who just put all of our negative energy into this positive thing which is this band. And I moan a lot so I tend to do it through my lyrics. It’s an outlet for us. That’s what it’s all about but you know a lot of it was sort of reflective on how we were feeling and how difficult the process of creating that record was. A lot of that came out in the lyrical content and in the sorts of sounds that you’re hearing as well. It’s never easy. Like Rob’s saying, it’s a four-way tug-of-war between these different ideas and then there’s one which is reached by everyone giving up rather than everybody agreeing!”
Rob: “It’s everyone who argues the most over one particular decision gets their way…”
The album’s like a melting pot of Ideas…
Rob: “That’s why the name stuck because that’s exactly what it is. Ideas kept popping up and popping up. Then everyone said yeah we’ll just call it that. Hopefully it sounds cohesive.”
So what tunes are you going to play today?
Paul: “A few old ones… ‘Scorpio’ and ‘I Hate This’, and one off the E.P. We just pick the ones which we like the best and make the best set. We love to come straight out with a fast opener then just play all the songs we like off the last 2 records.”
And is the set again, whoever argues the loudest gets their picks in the set list?
Paul: “Haha yeah! It’s like that for everything- ‘shall we drive there? Let’s argue about it first and see who wins!’”
Interview: George Allonby
(Published on websites like Key103)
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