| HOODED
MENACE, the name alone sounds spooky enough. Their deadly
doom music sounds like it was recorded in a catacomb at midnight
at the slowest speed possible. With lyrics reading like a script
out of a 1970s Satanic occult horror film. Vincent Price would
be so proud. This Finnish duo has already gained a cult following
since their inception six years ago. Founder, guitarist and vocalist
Lasse Pyykkö opens the crypt of secrets and tells the tales
of their origination, the driving forces behind the music, and
the ominous influences that provide the essence that becomes HOODED
MENACE.
Sioux:
Greetings! HOODED MENACE is an incredible band of doom. Tell us
how you came to be. You formed in 2007 is that correct?
Lasse: Greets! Yeah, the band was formed in the summer of
2007. I wanted to play crushingly heavy, yet catchy death/doom
without any fast parts in the songs and with no modern influences
which was only natural for an 80’s heavy metal kid like
myself. 80’s Candlemass, early Cathedral, Black Sabbath,
Autopsy, old Paradise Lost and Asphyx were and are the biggest
influences.
Sioux:
Let’s talk about your current offering Effigies Of Evil.
How long did it take to write the songs and record? Also are you
satisfied with the outcome of the recording? Not to mention, this
album, like the previous other two, has incredible artwork!
Lasse: I think I wrote the music in six month or so. I didn’t
rush it, but took my time and made sure everything sounded right.
You know, we had Never Cross The Dead under our
belts, which we knew was a strong record, and we didn’t
want to offer anything less. We recorded everything except for
the drums at our very own Horrisound Studios, which is just some
basic recording gear at our practice room. So we were able to
take it easy and work carefully on everything. We started recording
sometime in the fall of 2011 and the mastered album was ready
to be sent to the label in March/April 2012. I think the record
turned out really good. Of course there’s always some things
that you could have done a little bit differently, but, we’re
not Def Leppard. We don’t want to hone it forever. I’m
happy with this album just as it is. The cover art turned out
amazing. This time around Matt "Putrid" Carr wasn’t
available so we hooked up David V. D´Andrea and he did great
job. It’s a little bit different than the previous covers,
but it captures the vibe of the music very well. It was refreshing
to try something different for a change.
Sioux:
There is a video for the song Crumbling Insanity. Honestly,
it’s the song that really hooked me into HOODED MENACE.
Was that something you wanted to do?
Lasse: Actually, we didn’t think about making a video
too much before we got a couple of offers. Canadian director Justin
Oakey at Burial Offerings fitted our budget, needless to say not
the size of Lady Gaga’s and the likes, and he did good job.
Despite the fact that the songs are inspired by "The Fall
of the House Of Usher" movie, the video is not.
Sioux:
Let’s talk about that song. Isn’t the intro from House
Of Usher? “If the house dies, I shall die with it!”
To some those lyrics could apply beyond the movie. However, I
see in the liner notes that you have two people outside of the
band pen the lyrics.
Lasse: Yes, the intro is from House of Usher. Good movie!
Our Canadian horror-obsessed friends Tanya and Kevin have been
contributing lyrics to us since the first album and for Effigies
Of Evil they went crazy penning all the lyrics. Me and
Teemu have written some of the lyrics for the latest songs and
I have a feeling that on the next full album, the lyrics will
be mostly written by us.
Sioux:
You recently signed to Relapse, a major player in metal. Do you
fear they will make you change your style to sell more records,
or do they let you keep all your creative ideas for your music?
Lasse: We would not sign to a label that told us how to write
songs. They signed us because they liked us for what we are. If
there was a change in our sound it would be only because of us
wanting to do something different.
Sioux:
You have released six split singles with various bands over the
years for Doomentia Records. Nearly all of which have sold out,
leaving those that have just discovered you on a quest for these
gems. Will these records be made available again? Did you ever
imagine the records would sell out so quickly?
Lasse: No, I never imagined them selling out this fast. Well,
I assumed the split with Asphyx to move pretty fast, but not all
of them.. It makes me very grateful and a little confused. We
work very hard on every song and every release and it’s
great to see people care. Doomentia Records will be releasing
a compilation cd of all our smaller releases in 2014. A lot of
people have requested this and I think next year will be excellent
time to wrap it up and unleash it.
Sioux:
Two singles have a different vocalist. Catacombs Of The Graceless
off the split with Ilsa and Instruments Of Eternal Damnation
off the split with Horse Latitudes feature vocalist Oula Kerkela.
Why did you choose to step aside as lead vocalist on these two
releases?
Lasse: Because at the time HOODED MENACE was both a
live and studio full time band with Oula on vocals, Jori on drums,
Antti on bass and me on guitar. This line up didn’t last
for a long time though due to other responsibilities and activities
and since then it has completely changed.
Sioux:
Let’s talk about HOODED MENACE’S lyrics. With song
titles like Terror Castle and The House Of Hammer
it is obvious that you are influenced by cult horror movies from
the 1960s and 1970s. Is that correct? How did you decide to make
this your main lyrical focus?
Lasse: Yeah, that’s correct. Being a fan of horror myself
it’s a no brainer that HOODED MENACE as a death/doom
metal band is drawing influences from these kind of movies. It’s
nothing new for sure but it fits like a glove in hand and it is
a natural thing to do. Horror is not only in the lyrics but also
in the music, in the riffs, in the drum beats, in the growls,
in the atmosphere… It’s pretty comprehensive experience.
Countless bands draw from horror movies but often it’s just
an image and name dropping and blah, blah, blah instead of really
being capable of capturing the vibes musically. It takes more
than a horror geek.
Sioux:
So if I may ask what are your favorite Hammer films? Any other
films that have a heavy influence on you?
Lasse: Twins Of Evil, The Devil Rides Out, Blood From The
Mummy’s Tomb etc. Spanish Blind Dead movies from the 70’s
are obvious of course. That’s a big influence on HOODED
MENACE.
Sioux:
Your sound is heavy and evil as fuck! As far as the music goes,
what bands influenced the sound of HOODED MENACE?
Lasse: 80’s Candlemass, early Cathedral, old Paradise
Lost, Autopsy, Asphyx, Black Sabbath, Maiden and Metallica stuff
from the 80´s, early Amorphis, Goblin… As you can
see no modern influences really.
Sioux:
You’ve done quite a few cover songs. Can we expect more
in the future? If so, what bands or songs are you interested in
covering?
Lasse: Yeah, I’m sure we’ll do that in the future
as well. A few days ago I played Autopsy’s "Retribution
for the Dead" on 33 rpm and it sounded so sick that I almost
wanted to make a cover of one of those slowed down songs but maybe
we want to come up with something less predictable than Autopsy,
Asphyx or Candlemass and such.
Sioux:
Lasse, you are currently involved in many bands including Claws,
which sounds like a death metal version of HOODED MENACE. Is there
times when it’s hard to separate the two?
Lasse: Sometimes it can be problematic when I have a doomy
riff written for Claws that I could use for HOODED MENACE
just as well. When I wrote Claws debut album I put all those ideas
into Claws but damn was it tempting to "steal" some
of them for Hooded Menace. I guess Claws with no slow parts would
be the solution, haha! Overall I think the two bands are very
different beasts though.
Sioux:
HOODED MENACE has done live appearances at MDF and other festivals,
can we expect to see a US or European tour anytime soon?
Lasse: No plans for a US tour as we speak but it looks like
we’ll be doing a short tour (3-4 gigs) in central Europe
this summer. More details later. We have a few festivals lined
up like Hellfest (France), Obscene Extreme (Czech Republic) and
Party San Open Air (Germany) and a couple of others are under
negotiation. In April we’ll be heading for a Sweden mini-tour.
Sioux:
What was it like to play at Maryland Death Fest? Was that your
only US appearance?
Lasse: We also played Doom in June (Las Vegas), Chaos in Tejas
(Austin) and did shows with Ilsa and Anhedonists + others in Philly
and NYC. MDF was great! Far from our best performance but the
audience was great and we went down well. I met a lot of people
that I had been in touch via email only like Dopi from Machetazo,
Slasher Dave from Acid Witch, Matt "Putrid" Carr and
so on. That was pretty cool.
Sioux:
Thank you for your time; it was a pleasure to do this interview.
I shall leave you with the final words…
Lasse: Thank you for the interview!! Keep your eyes peeled
for Labyrinth Of Carrion Breeze EP out this year
on Doomentia Records as well as for HOODED MENACE/LOSS
split on the same label. Doom on! |
