Project Description
Interview with
HEMINA
Interviewer – Vicky Hebbs
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Hemina are a 4 piece Progressive Metal band from Sydney, Australia. The band’s sound has been described as a unique combination of hard hitting syncopated grooves, lush synth backwashes, multi-part vocal harmonies, blistering memorable leads with a focus on songwriting and emotion.
The band have supported international bands Uriah Heep, Kamelot, Apocalyptica, Queensryche and soon-to-be Haken. They have shared the stage with Aussie legends, Caligula’s Horse, Chaos Divine, Voyager, Twelve Foot Ninja, Divine Ascension, Breaking Orbit among many others and simply live for the stage.
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How did it all begin? Where did you develop this interest in performing music to an audience together?
I remember being in uni back in 2008 and being just disenfranchised with the fact that I couldn’t really see any Progressive Metal bands in Sydney and I had been a big fan of bands like Transcending Mortality at the end of high school and the beginning of time at university. There really wasn’t a whole lot going on, especially with the moody keyboard stuff too so I set off trying to make very varied progressive music. Back in those days the mission was a bit different from my end, I wanted to kind of make a metal version of mid 70s Genesis. Nowadays with more live experience under your belt, you want a bit more groove so you can share that live ritual with the audience more. I think back to playing some of the material from Synthetic live with changing measures from 7/8 to 13/8 etc. and it gives me a headache. This current lineup has been together since the end of 2014 and I can say definitively that we are the happiest we have been. We are indeed a little family of 4.
What kind of music did you all grow up on? Which artists inspired you?
We all have a different background with some common threads. Jess and I grew up on Pop Punk, Grunge and that late 90s/00s Radio Rock. Basically huge Blink, Green Day, Offspring and Nirvana fans. We branched into metal later, particularly power metal for me for a number or years. That’s kind of where the high vocal chops came from and also how Mitch and I bonded over all things cheesy and powery. I think that part of our sounds is pretty distant now but maybe the tastier stuff and triumphant side of things stayed. When we met Nath later on, we had a lot of shared interest in loud and hard early 90s metal, atmospheric stuff like Floyd and the Aussie alternative scene of Karnivool and Cog etc. I suppose it would be unfair to not mention those bigger bands like Metallica and Pantera that surely influenced our love of metal in the beginning!
With your new single and video “We Will”, can you describe its origins and evolution? I know how challenging the creative and producing process can be. How good did it feel to complete?
It’s funny how fast and how slow some parts of a song can come together. It’s truly and example of the pareto principle, in that 80% of it you do in 20% of the time. That happened with We Will. Jess and I were jamming out some riffs and trying to come up with something that had a Mixolydian flavour (my music nerd rubbing of on her), as well as something that would have a semi-power metal/pop punky simple chorus. We had all the riffs for the song in about 30 minutes. The arrangement including the harmonies and lyrics took a hell of a lot longer than that and as with all our songs, they are shaping up in small ways all the way up to the point we are finished with mixing. In the end tracing back this finished product with all the synths and big choral harmonies to that moment of jamming of the lounge is actually truly satisfying.
How long did it take to decide to go with that retro look for the video? Took me back to my computer login days from the past.
It wasn’t really a long planned out decision. We have been deep diving on Synthwave and 80s worship over the last few years and we just wanted to play with that in a fun way. I just really wanted to have a video that was homely and cozy where people could get a little insight into our rehearsal space and that authentic vibe of us and some of our tastes, without any real bells and whistles. I definitely gravitate to that nostalgic feeling as I have gotten older – the DOS vibes, 4:3 aspect ratio and grain are heavy handed but they really transport you back.
I believe this is your 4th studio Album? Is it getting easier? Are the payoffs changing over time?
You are indeed correct. It’s our 4th album and I’d say it’s a mixed bag of easier and more difficult. There’s definitely no shortage of material, there never has been. I would say the business side of things and reaching out to our current fans and making new ones is on the steady incline even though I think album sales as a whole in the industry have dropped. We definitely got a really good boost with a few songs from Spotify playlists. Especially our songs ‘The Collective Unconscious’ and ‘I’ really got in front of a lot of ears. Those payoffs would have been pretty much unheard of when we started in 2009. I definitely do feel that the whole lock out laws thing we have going here in Sydney has put a dampener on live music and the joy of it, which you can certainly feel. I’m sure it’s not the one cause but it’s certainly substantial.
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How do you find the Songwriting process? Is there a big appetite to write all the time, or is it more “right time, right place”?
I write pretty frequently but it is usually in blocks and when I know that we have to get stuck into pulling together an album, my writing certainly slows down. That applies for my writing in Hemina, for my other band Anubis or any of my other random ideas. There are only so many hours in the day and music sure as hell doesn’t pay like the day job :( I have a pretty huge appetite to write all the time and given the option to I’d love to churn out far more material per year, it’s just not that feasible with all of us holding down jobs and lives. I think for the others, there is probably a bigger element of “right place, right time” and that’s completely fine – quality over quantity for us.
I would suspect that you play gigs regularly. What shows and tours are on the immediate calendar?
Well in the last year, we have had to divert a lot of attention to writing and finishing up the album and also trying to do a good job of launching the album as prepared as we can be. We are hoping to gig more in the near future especially around album release. There are a couple of shows later on in the year like in Katoomba that are locked in and we are in talks regarding our tour but that will firm up in the coming weeks. In the immediate near future, we are playing with Haken on their Sydney leg of their tour and couldn’t be more excited and proud. I love those guys!
If you could pick absolutely anyone to bring on tour with you, whom would you pick and why?
If we’re talking dream tours, I’d really love to play with Pain of Salvation and Frost*. That would be a sick 3 band lineup! If I could bring back anyone beyond the grave though, it’d have to be Dimebag Darrell. He was a humongous influence on me as a musician and most of what he plays I feel is unparalleled even to this day.
What are your major goals or milestones for the future?
Our goals are pretty humble, we’d love to come back to Europe again and play to some of our fanbase that we have built over the last decade. We’d love to return to Progpower and Euroblast and play some other shows again. It’s also on my bucket list to play Japan. Hopefully people dig the new music as we release it and we can bring the music to the fans over the world.
Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVORITE:
Album – Remedy Lane
Artist – Pain of Salvation
Movie – Interstellar
Place to visit – It’s gotta be London. I love visiting there every time. Feels like a home away from home.
Venue to play – I may be biased by the amazing fans, but I’ve never had a better time on stage with Hemina than at the JC Sjiwa in Baarlo, The Netherlands.
Food – Indian, preferably vegetarian and spicy AF.
Drink – Belgian Beer (St Bernardus Abt 12 is the nectar of the gods)
Person in History – Elon Musk, he’s a guy of a time that I am alive in and I respect intellectual people with drive to succeed and take us past the mundane. Close runners up Carl Sagan and Nikola Tesla.
Tattoo – I’m a cleanskin but our drummer Nath is the tattooboi of the band. He has a Koopa Troopa tat and that’s heaps sick ayyyy.
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Check out HEMINA below
Website | Facebook | Bandcamp
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