Editorial

Hateflesh – Fresh Act July 2011

Old School Death Metal mixed with classic metal elements – that sounds interesting, and this is exactly what Finnish Hateflesh can offer. And it´s clear that the mixture does the trick, the sound is pretty good already, too, but still the band is keen to improve and dreams of touring in Europe. Guitarist and shouter Henkka tells us what has happened since 2009, when the band was founded in Savonlinna.

Hey Henkka, how are you doing?
Hi, we´re actually doing quite good. To the surface it looks like a little silenced but to be honest, we have so many new songs going on to rehearse and we just signed a booking contract with the Firebox Agency. Before soon, HF will be more promoted, seen more in shows etc. We´re really excited about all this!

Could you please introduce the Band. Who are you? Where are you from? And what kind of music do you play?
I´m Henkka, the guitarist and vocalist of this great bunch and we are Hateflesh from Savonlinna, Finland! Miikka is the (one and the only) man behind the drums and what the hell, let´s introduce our new bass player, Tommi! There´s one motherfucking bassist there, I´ll give you that. We´re nasty trio of seasoned players who wanted to do honest pure rocking metal without the frills and all that shit the present metal/rock scene is full of. If you want to see where Entombed meets Motörhead, come see us goddammit! I think that pretty much slams the gavel down for what HF is all about.

Why did you choose the name Hateflesh?
It´s just came up when we were figuring the name out. Some say it´s totally shit but we wanted some old school-like name and oh, there was so many options listed in our papers. Hateflesh wasn´t exactly one of them but there were Hate- and Flesh- words in many others names. We had like 50 different names and everyone liked words Hate and Flesh etc. In the end I recall it was me who said the Hateflesh word and bam! For 1-2 seconds, it was totally quiet and then everyone just agreed that´s the name. No need for any epic story behind it or anything like that, haha.

Hateflesh was founded by the former members of Antarktis Utopia (STALKER Fresh Act February 2009), why did you decide to found a new Band and put AU to rest?
Back then, first we thought that we should change the name for AU but the more we thought this matter, the more we felt like we´re done for the whole AU´s technical DM stuff. To me personally it was almost a year before we even sat down to discuss about the name change that I had enough for that kind of music and wanted to evolve something that was more…umhh, well, me. I still like all sorts of DM, but it was time to turn the page in my personal time line of playing.

You had lately another lineup change, Jyrki left the band out of personal reasons, so who is the new man on the Bass?
As we introduced this new guy earlier, it´s still Tommi. It´s really a bugger that we couldn´t find the golden way between Jyrki´s job and the band. Things became almost unbearable ´cause Jyrki didn´t have any time besides his job. Luckily we knew Tommi from our earlier connections and when we asked him to join us, he just said yeah, why not. Actually we have played together for awhile in our other band, Suicide Legacy so the decision to ask him came up really quickly.

You started the band with four people but now you are only the three of you, so is it harder to play your songs nowadays?
We actually had 5 members, too, in between the 3 and 4, heh! No, when we decided to go on as a trio, Hateflesh´s music turned yet bit more to the rocking side and little by little we had loads of totally new songs in our hands composed our new look in mind. We just cut out everything older out as they didn´t fit the band anymore. Others straight away ´cause some of the songs were impossible to perform with three members. This doesn´t mean that HF isn´t playing never again older ones, just that most of them are cut out. Permanently. Nowadays it´s actually very great to play our songs and even perform them live! They contain more energy and emotion and less the technical trying with all that shit.

What kind of topics do you choose for your songs? Where do you get the inspiration from?
Me and Miikka is writing the lyrics. I´m pissed of to a lots of things in the world lately and as my fiance says, I´m preaching, hahaha! We are just so oppressed and screwed everyday without noticing this and that is a great source for me personally. But not all the songs can be about some criticism (against whatsoever) so some of them are more rocking style with attitude etc. I´ve noticed that the best way is to write about the things that are some way important to you and that is what I do with the HF twist in them.

Who do you want to reach, or what do you want to achieve with your music?
With all the “try to be most technical and hard to play”- stuff going all around, Hateflesh is here to bring the pure rocking metal to the people. We just enjoy what we do and there is actually emotion and the “feel” behind HF. We try not to be anything but what we play, and if it reaches other people than just us, that´s damn great! Hope to see you on our shows!

Create a slogan for your band!
Hellful of ROCK! Can you say that? Heh! We´re from Finland, I guess we can say all kinds of things regardless if it´s correct in English, touché!

If the band members were comic characters – who would be who and why?
What!? I would be the Punisher! I´ve been a big fan of Punisher/ Frank Castle character since I was a kiddo and have wrote songs about this great character from early Marvel comics. Actually, Bloodred stained from our new Deathrenaline EP is about Frank too. The song name says it all and that was taken from one scene where Frank was going to get some even (if not beyond) with the perps and he said something like: “ My flag is not blue-white-red (meaning the flag of USA), it IS blood red stained and it´s personal.” Hell yeah! Me likes! Who couldn´t?

Right now you´re looking for a label, how would you promote yourselves to appear more interesting?
Gigs, gigs, gigs! The net is good too but let´s have a look what comes out from the table with the booking agency first. Let the music do the talking, you just boost it in the middle of all that in every way, ha!

What would you like to be asked in an interview you´ve never been asked before?
“When is your European tour taking place?” hahahaa! At least if we got one coming. And the size of my muscles, because I´m all ego here baby! Isn´t that the thing in the rock´n roll, bwahahaha!

Thanks a lot for your time and all the best to you guys!
Thank you and cheers!

http://hateflesh.net/
http://www.myspace.com/hatefleshmetal

Sandy Mahrer

Fresh Act editor, reports, reviews, photos - - - Favorite genres? - Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Pop-Rock etc. Less Death, Black, Grind Core