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Rocking Against Depression With LOKI From HIPPO · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hey, guys going, I'm Loki from Hippo where um, I guess you
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  would say experimental sort of noisy doom punk band of all the things we're doing
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  and there we're playing the rock beat Depression of Mansfield de Tabin, sixteenth of
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  September. That's you Ala, Hey, thanks for joining us today, Bria,
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  Yeah, thanks for having us. I'm pretty keen. Yeah. She's
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  a cracker of a gig too, mate, Like you guys want to what's
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  September sixteenth to the Mansfield Tabin And as as it says rock beat depression,
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  it's it's aimed to raise awareness and funds for definitely. But what made you
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  guys specifically want to be involved? Um? So, like mental health awareness
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  and helping and all that kind of stuff is something that like is pretty close
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  to our heart as well, like the band and outside of it, like
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  so, um the Tattoo studio that I own, thrill House, we do
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  a lot of like mental health awareness stuff and helping people as well. And
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  as soon as I saw the like them advertising for the gig earlier on in
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  the year, I sent them an email and was like, yep, I
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  would love to be a part of that, and then they got back to
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  us like, Yep, definitely keen to do it, are you guys um
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  you know, down to sort of like donat and all all that kind of
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  stuff as well, Like yep, more than more than like happy to help
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  anyway we can. So it's definitely something we're all about struggles in life.
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  Yeah, she's a great lineup too, bro like spearheaded by dream Killers,
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  Black Whiskey, goat Zilla, gut a Fire Strip. Yeah. I made
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  read jets, crave hips more mate. But which bands of the day you're
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  working forward to playing with? My look of it? I mean, I
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  love that there's a band earlier on in the day called Fidela Go Go that
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  we've played some shows with before. They're awesome. Black Whiskey will be great,
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  they always are, the same as goat Zilla always are. Dream Killers
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  will bring a crowd they always do, you know. And the thing that's
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  going to be awesome is that we played the Mansfield Tavern a couple of months
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  ago for the Nowhere Festival, and that was the first time I've played there,
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  and that's probably the best audio at a live show I've heard in a
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  very long time, on stage and off, Like I was blown away by
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  how good it sounded out the front, like watching the earlier bands, And
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  then when we got on stage, I was like, oh, well,
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  there you go. We can hear everything for a change. That's that's pretty
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  good. You know. You know, we've been playing in bands for fifteen
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  twenty years and you go, oh, all of a sudden, I can
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  hear the music coming back at me. That's a novel experience. Yeah,
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  she's a great band, you're in it. But whoever, yeah, whoever's
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  in charge of the tune in the PA there is fantastic at their job and
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  of course, like as we say before, made like as much fun as
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  the day it will be. There's also a more serious side, as a
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  name rock beat depression suggests, mate, So how important events like this when
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  it comes to helping those who shyper depression mentionalness? I think it's massively important.
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  I think even like even if the like the the event made no money
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  and you know, they weren't able to donate any any to like any of
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  the like black Dog Causes and stuff like that. Um, I think just
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  having it out there and being sort of able to raise awareness of it helps
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  a lot, you know, to sort of sort of destigmatize it, you
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  know, like because like people are still ashamed, you know, they're still
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  worried and and they don't know that other people struggle, and you know,
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  it can get very very isolating with mental health stuff if you don't know other
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  people have gone through similar things and come out the other side of it okay.
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  You know. So I think having that it's sort of like the forefront
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  of people's minds is a definite positive thing. I think with COVID when it
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  slowed the world down, so many people I know who were able to get
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  the mental health help that they needed that they weren't able to do beforehand because
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  they were too busy just trying to survive working day in and day out.
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  And that's sort of like slowing down for a few months there meant that they
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  were able to get help and now they're doing fantastic. Yeah. Well,
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  I think one thing that I've come across the lot, like speaking of a
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  lot of bands, like like called National International, is that there's a lot
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  of musicians out there that suffer depression. People sort of look at musics and
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  see them up on stage and they think that everything sweet in their world,
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  but it affects a lot of musicians made, so it doesn't discriminate, does
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  it, Yeah, definitely. I think with music for me anyway, I
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  feel like music is a form of therapy for me. You know, like
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  it's a way to sort of express yourself in a more or less non judgmental
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  situation. Like people aren't going to be surprised if you're raw and emotional um
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  delivering a song and things like that. You know that if it means something
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  to you, you know, you sort of like let that energy out.
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  I think that helps a lot. But I think I don't think I know
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  a single musician who doesn't struggle with with one mental health issue or another.
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  You know, I think creative people, um, I think it hits them
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  a lot harder because they seem to sort of find solicit in their in their
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  art, and that's been their outlet before they were able to sort of like
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  talk to other people or get help. You know. So what message do
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  you hope that people will take out of the day, Broum. I hope
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  that people take away the fact that you know, it can get better,
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  things can things can always get better. You know, you should definitely reach
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  out, talk to your friends and be able to get help and there's no
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  shame in it, you know. Okay, So for those unfamiliar with Hippo,
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  mate, so tell us a bit more about the band and where you
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  guys came from and started. Hippo comes from the fact that I've been playing
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  in bands forever, Like you know, I started playing bass when I was
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  about twelve, and um, musicians are inherently unreliable people, and so I
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  get very frustrated with other bands. You've been in tons of different bands over
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  the years, and I find it hard to count on them to show up
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  or to do exactly what it is that we're trying to do. You know.
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  I can't drag people kicking and stream into the thing that they claimed to
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  want to do all the time. And so I started a side project as
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  a solo thing off the sort of like other bands that I had, and
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  wanted to sort of experiment and learn new instruments that I had no idea how
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  to play. So I got very into sort of like the you know,
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  programming and synthesizers and all of that kind of stuff, and was just sort
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  of like messing around with that. And then a couple of my mates who
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  were keen for that sort of thing, like hey, I want to come
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  and jam with you on that like just one. It was never going to
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  be a band thing. It was like, Okay, we'll just come and
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  do something with you. And they came to the permanent gam room that I
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  have over at Red Star and we're like, just we spent like I don't
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  know, maybe four hours jam and really enjoyed it. And then you know,
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  did a couple of things like that together and ended up playing some gigs
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  together and we're like, oh, maybe we should record these gens that we
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  did, like, you know, maybe we should turn them into actual songs,
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  and we wrote, you know, we went into went into the recording
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  studio for forty eight hours and recorded almost entirely the whole time, and then
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  had to sort of like go in and and cut things apart and stuff and
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  okay, cool, this is a song, and this is a song.
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  And we put out the most recent album called Quiet Pills, and then we
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  got the Whores support when they came from from America. We played with them,
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  and we played with Sasquatch when they came and just before that we had
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  a bit of a lineup change guitarists wanted to go and do some other stuff,
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  so we got a new guitarist called Frank, who's fantastic. He came
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  in and threw all his stuff at it, which is awesome because the band
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  is very much, very organic. I guess you would say in that I'm
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  not married to anything that we do. The way that it sounds on the
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  record is the way that it sounded that day, and then it's problem.
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  We're going to sound different when you come and see us live because we've put
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  other stuff into it. We've gone, oh, maybe I want to do
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  this. Maybe it's going to have a bunch more guitar solos in it this
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  time, or maybe there's going to be extra musicians on stage. Hippo is
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  designed to be anything at any time, Like anybody who wants to come and
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  jam can can hit me up and hey, maybe we're going to write a
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  new album just the two of us are on a weekend one time, or
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  maybe we have a concept for something that we can do six months from now.
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  It was. It's designed so that at the moment we are a three
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  piece, but it's also designed that if nobody else can can make it to
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  a show, I can, you know, so like a shit, the
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  other guys can't make it tonight. All right, Well then it's going to
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  be a way more exterimental set than you expected. But we take you know,
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  massive influence from bands like the Melvin's and Throbbing Gristle, the Locust,
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  you know, Future of the Left, so it changes a lot from Hey,
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  this is something funny too. This was something very serious that we were
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  talking about. Like on Quiet Pills, quite a lot of the songs on
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  there were accidentally mental health related. And then there's also a song on there
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  that ended up being a weird dub rap thing because we'd sort of like got
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  a loop going, and then the Dame from Whiskey and Speed it was like,
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  I want to do a rap over that. We're like, yeah,
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  why not. You know, so it can be anything, which is really
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  good for us, but it is always loud. Ah, that's amazing.
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  Yeah. Yeah, you know, we're big, big fans of bands like
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  Motorhead and stuff like that, so you know, maximum volume yields maximum results
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  from sun and you know, everything louder than everyone else with Motorhead, so
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  much of the sugar around of many a sound guy, I'm sure, Well
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  that's say a problem a minute, they'll get over it. Yeah, yeah,
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  yeah, well that's the way. So like, you know, my
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  my bass ring at the moment has been getting a lot of attention, and
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  it was mainly because it's funny to me to have it, but the fact
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  that it's a double neck bass guitar that I replace the bottom neck for with
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  all of the synth and effects pedals that I wanted on it so that they're
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  they're there at hands reach and I can wear it. You know, a
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  lot of people will see that sort of like leaning up against the side of
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  the stage before we play, and it'll be like, well, now I've
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  got to stay and hang out and see what the fuck's going on there?
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  Why has this got all these wires hanging off? Something's going to happen.
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  I don't know why, but start happening. Yeah yeah, yeah, I
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  don't know what it'll be, but it'll be something you be using that depression,
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  I take it. Yes, indeed, the Ugly Stick will have a
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  couple of new additions to it as well. For that, I'm all about
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  spectacle, I think, you know, I want I want to give people
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  a reason to come to a show, you know, Like I think a
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  lot of bands sort of like, if you guys aren't in the jam room
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  right now, you're on stage. You need to entertain. That's the thing
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  that people are paying to come and see you, you know, so I
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  like it when bands do that. There's a band we played with called Holy
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  Stone recently. They were fantastic, you know, like that kind of like
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  energy on stage and and their look. You're like, yes, that's awesome.
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  And they're very sort of like desert rock stone of doomy stuff. They
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  were awesome, you know. It's it's it's why I love bands like totally
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  Unicorn. Yeah, how you see them, it's always a good time.
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  I like it very much. For your father, I event should be absolute
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  close to speaking with your rock Beast. Depression is on September sixth day that
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  you can get your tickets now through ostis