We are no strangers to HAWXX here at The Midlands Rocks, having caught their storming set at Download and reviewed their debut album (here). Needless to say, when we had the chance to speak to guitarist Hannah and bassist Julia at this years 2000 Trees festival we jumped at the chance. Here’s what they had to say:

You’re veterans of festivals having played Uprising and Download. How does 2000 Trees fit into the scheme of things?

Hannah: We’ve loved it, it is our first time playing Trees, we arrived yesterday to take in the sights and sounds and it has got such a nice vibe, it’s very relaxed…we love the trees…although we haven’t counted them, but we’ll take their word that there’s 2000!

Julia: After all the mud at Download, my boots have remained clean here! We really like it and we’d love to play here again.

I understand that part of your reason for forming this band was to make the scene more diverse. Do you think you’ve fulfilled that remit?

Julia: We are still working on it, but its not something that can change overnight. I think we are doing our best to get out there and make a positive change with important messages to the people who are willing and open to listening. A lot of metal music is not particularly political or invested in socio-political or environmental issues or beauty standards and we like to incorporate those messages into our music and you can do both; you can play fun, heavy tunes, but you can also have substance to it.

Hannah: And metal is such a good vehicle for that, it can be very cathartic. We can feel deeply at times and metal is a great way to process those emotions and deal with that anger, joy or whatever it is. It’s such a powerful genre.

Are you glad you chose metal as a vehicle as opposed to hardcore or punk?

Hannah: It’s funny you should say that because we describe ourselves as “punk infused metal”.

Julia: Lots of writers describe us as having a punk attitude, we don’t have that perfectionism that you sometimes find in metal where everything has to sound a certain way. We are happy to present a punk attitude, and when I say “imperfection”, I don’t mean bum notes, we want to embrace the roughness in this type of music and bring the anger on stage. We don’t mind how people want to label us, to us punk is fucking awesome! There’s also a political side to it; a lot of punk music is political and you don’t find that in metal so much, so maybe that’s why people make a punk association with us, but I take it as a compliment.

Hannah: I love the kind of raw energy of punk and we definitely take from that.

So in what direction will your sound veer next?

Hannah: I think our last album had a bit of everything really. I think we did cover a lot of ground, and sometimes we can go as heavy as we want because we’ve got the four point vocal harmonies on top of it; even if we go as heavy as we’ve ever been, it can soften it because we’ve got the harmonies. But we are writing at the moment, and today in our set we finished with a new song, which was very chaotic [laughs].

I think you only rehearsed it once?

Hannah: Well, we finished it yesterday…which is very punk.

Now that the album is out in the world, are you happy with the reception it got?

Hannah: We didn’t really do it for that, we wrote it for ourselves, but I really am glad that it resonated and managed to connect the way we wanted it to. It’s so hard because you make it for yourself, but I am so incredibly proud of it and to have positive feedback was like the cherry on the cake.

It must be hard to put it out into the world, because once it is out there, there’s nothing you can change.

Hannah: It is hard, but if you wait until everything is perfect then nothing gets released. A phrase I’ve adopted is: “It’s so good I use it everyday”, but you either release it or you don’t; it is never going to be perfect. You could do endless edits and then undo a lot of the good work that you liked about it in the first place.

Julia: There’s always a fear that it won’t be received correctly, or what if my artists voice doesn’t come across the right way; you could decide to work on it for six more months and then nothing ever happens. It’s professionalism, but also fear, that’s why we’re in a band because it really helps us strive forward; you can bounce ideas off each other and get that strength that comes from being in a group.

Hannah: And you get the feedback, too, someone presents an idea and if we all grab it and run with it, then you know you are onto something special.

Because the album got such great reviews, do you feel the pressure is on for the next release?

Hannah: No, I think we are all happy with the way the writing is going, we are digging into what we love and exploring that a bit more.

Julia: I think it’ll be an authentic album; I think that if you make music with a certain remit, if you try to manufacture it, that’s when the pressure is on. I don’t think there’ll be any pressure because we will just carry on being ourselves.

Hannah: We’ll just write one song at a time and enjoy the whole process of it.

Your artwork and merchandise has a definite look. How involved are you with that side?

Julia: Well, the “Death Makes Sisters Of Us All” t-shirt comes straight from the video. It was an incredible experience when we filmed the music video, of queer people, women, everyone who was there to make a huge banner…

Hannah: …we stitched and safety pinned together different bits of fabric that everybody brought and then we wrote the message “Death Makes Sisters Of Us All” on it; we all held it and it was so powerful, it was an amazing day, spiritual almost, getting together and feeling the fear of walking alone down a dark street. Everyone experienced that so everyone got it.

Julia: It was a communal effort and a true sense of community ultimately makes us stronger, and we really feel like that. There is a community for all, it feels like a big family, people come to see us all the time and with that piece of artwork we tried to convey that.