Interview - Heavy Hand
This week I have interviewed a few of the members from Cardiff's newest up-and-coming Hardcore band; Heavy Hand. As they are a very new band they have asked to remain anonymous for the time being, and there wasn't an awful lot I was able to ask them as they aren't fully established yet, but let's see what they had to say...
Hey! So let's start off easy...tell me a bit about yourselves!
We're Heavy Hand, mostly from Cardiff with a few further afield but most definitely all 'Welshy boys'! We just like having a laugh really, getting into the practise rooms and having a good ol' jam, seeing what we can play around with and if anything comes from it really.
Okay, so what do you do?
Well, most of us just work in the local hospital, but we're all big Hardcore fans. We would like to say that our music is a mix of everything though; mostly Hardcore and Beatdown with some Punk elements thrown in there occasionally, plus some funky riffs that people can groove to.
Sounds like fun...is that your biggest priority?
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. We're all about having a good giggle, as much as we're serious about getting projects going and getting our music out there, we believe that there's no point unless you're having fun in the process. That's what our music is all about. We want people to be able to come along to our shows and just lose themselves, have a good mosh and let loose!
So who would you say are your biggest influences?
That's a tough one, all of us have very different backgrounds in music and different bands that got us into the Hardcore scene. We have found that the majority of the Hardcore scene, particularly in the UK, is underground, and that's definitely the way we like it. We're all going to a festival this weekend in Newport called 'Crush Hate' which is a two-day Hardcore and Punk festival, and it's run by a good mate of ours. Some of our biggest influences and favourite bands are on the line up this year, like Vision Quest, Street Soldier, Strikeback and Sickones. There are also quite a few bigger bands that have influenced us though, like Malevolence, Expire and Desolated.
Is something like Crush Hate Fest where you would like to see yourselves then - rather than somewhere like Motorpoint?
Big time. The Hardcore scene is definitely not meant for the spotlight, it's designed to be underground, and a lot smaller so it keeps the intimacy. There's no chance you'd see a Hardcore band somewhere as big as Motorpoint because people in general just aren't that invested in it. We're very niche!! But yeah, we'd like to see ourselves on a lineup like Crush Hate and with any luck this time next year we could well be, so watch this space!
Do you guys like being part of the music industry? What's good about it?
Music is great. Not one person in today's day and age will go 24 hours without listening to music. Even if it's not intentional (which it usually is) then music's always there. It's on the Radio when you start up your car first thing in the morning, it's even on adverts now so we're listening to music without even realising it, but I know I speak for most people in the music industry when I say having headphones with you at all times is as important as having your phone. I never go anywhere without listening to music, my mood and what I'm doing affects what I listen to. The beauty of it is that no matter what the world does and how it changes over the years, music will always be there. It's always going to change but it's always going to be there.
The best part about being in music for me is knowing that everyone in it is like-minded in some way; they're trying to express themselves and allow others to relate to them. Being in a band is wicked because we can all listen to whatever we want and we all relate to so many different bands for different reasons, but actually being able to do that for other people is the best thing. Knowing we can put our feelings about stuff out there and actually having it heard, and people coming back to us saying 'yeah man I really get that'. Music makes us feel like we aren't alone.
