Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Taming The Monster With BENNO & STEVE From AWAKEN THE HATE

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Taming The Monster With BENNO & STEVE From AWAKEN THE HATE · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  I get a guys, it's Beno here from Awaken the Hate. I'm here
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  with my good mate Steve on guitars. We are Awaken the Hate and we
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  are getting ready to release the Monster in the move. Yeah well, Ben,
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  Steve, thanks thanks for having us mate, You're a bloody legend.
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  My pleasure. So, as you say, Awaken the Hate premier in your
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  debut single Monsters in the Mirror by Heavy this Friday, January the twelfth,
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  So tell us a bit more about the song from a musical point of view
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  and what you're going for with it. Well, we're all you know of
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  that elk where groove metal, the pan terras, that sort of ninety stuff
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  was, where our bread and butter was. And I think, well,
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  we've really found an essence of in Awaken the Hate. It's trying to modernize
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  that a little bit. The music to me has got groove. It makes
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  you want to move, and I like to think that there's also the maladies
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  in the vox there. I've got a bit of a hook to it and
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  makes you want to sing along. So that was our goal too. I
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  want to play in front of people that want to sing the songs back to
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  us. And bang their heads heard. Yeah, as lyrically it goes into
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  deep and serious territory as well, So I've write a bit more what the
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  song's actually about. Well, for me, particularly these first two, they
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  really tackle things like addiction, depression, anxiety. Steve actually wrote the lyrics
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  for these ones. These are Awaken the Hate has been his baby for the
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  last eight years and we've sort of joined here in the end, and I
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  guess Steve can talk about it a little bit. Yeah, the songs are
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  just from general experience, not personal experience, not myself, but people I've
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  known and people I've dealt with over the years and friends struggles and family struggles
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  and that sort of thing. So I sort of wanted to tell a story,
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  not just write a song about made up bullshit. For me, particularly
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  they where monster in the mirror. It feels like it's a tackling drug addiction.
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  For me, it's a song that attackles addiction in general, whether that
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  be drug, alcohol, gambling, and it really is about that internal battle,
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  and it's about awakening something inside you and go, hey man, you
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  can you can get yourself out of this. And I think one of the
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  things that I brought to this with the chorus in particular is if you have
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  a listen to the last line in every chorus, it's man, you're losing
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  the battle, but the middle of the song you're managing to have a fight,
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  and by the end of the song you're starting to get on top.
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  And I think that's important for everybody out there to go. You know,
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  it's not You're not going to win an addiction in one fight, but if
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  you keep fighting, eventually you'll you'll start turn And I think if we're going
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  to awaken what's inside of us and actually use some of those internal voices for
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  positive positivity rather than negativity, you can start to win the internal fight and
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  eventually win the battle. Now, this is your debut song for Awaken.
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  They hate so whyche is this particular song to introduce the band a new music
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  to the world. I think we recorded this with Peter Muldoon from Peter Muldoon
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  Music. People may remember Peter from Pavilion. He's just recently released the track
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  with December's Deadline that I think Heavy did the release for that as well.
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  We sent all five of the Current Life set to Peter, and Monster in
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  the Mirror was one that he felt he could work with us the best,
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  so we sort of took his guidance on that one. Fortunately with the B
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  side Fight in the Mirror, Fight or Die, that both of those songs
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  are about the eternal fight. So for us, it was for me particularly,
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  I was like, these two songs work well together as an A and
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  a B side, A really strong, hard hitting A side in Monster and
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  then a bit more mellow and that really nice massive guitar lead, break and
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  fight that really compliments each other. So this was this was the first songs
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  were about the internal fight. The next songs that you'll hear over the next
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  six to eight months they are a bit more on a global scale. So
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  Awaken the Hate, for me, is about awakening that internal hate and fighting
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  some of some of those internal demons, or whether they be global demons such
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  as you know, globalization, global warming, war, famine, actually trying
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  to use heavy music to describe some of these world issues that we're fighting against.
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  You take Gojira, for example, The Bad like a brutally heavy band
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  talking about some massive environmental issues. I don't think that every heavy band needs
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  to be talking about goblins and gleamans or doom and gloom and we can actually
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  talk about some things that are important, and I would like to hope over
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  the next twelve months we can present a bit of that to the world.
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  So these two songs that you're released, and would you say that they're a
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  good psidic representation of what do you expect from Awaken? They hate moving forward
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  or they just a taste. Definitely just to taste. The next track is
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  a lot more sludgy gloomy, which we'll be coming out hopefully in the next
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  three to four months. What we're really hoping to do over the next six
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  to eight months is, particularly with Ed our lead guitarists, really explore his
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  abilities on the guitar. You hear them briefly in fintal Die. He really
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  has some skills. So I'm really hoping that we're using this as a bass
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  a groove metal. Traditional heavy metal is definitely what we're trying to present in
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  a modern way, but definitely wanting to move that forward and try and add
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  some more modern guitar elements to that. You get more technical and hopefully heavier.
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  Just not stay stagnant, stay the same ship all the time. Just
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  make everything that we write and stuff that we're right now as well. Progress,
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  I guess and evolve, so it's not the same stuff every time.
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  It definitely needs to be crowd engaging. So but you're a qualified and well
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  known sound engineer on the local music scene. B so you mix all of
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  the band's music as well. No, actually, I prefer to trust someone
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  else, particularly with tracks that I'm doing well. So I'm alive engineer.
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  I like to mix live. I don't like to sit in the studio and
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  some of those studio guys they've got a lot more patience than me to sit
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  there and crag things. I look at stuff and if there's a mistake happens
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  or whatever, it's in the past. You're moving on. As a live
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  sound engineer, you're reading the audience, you're reading the band, and you're
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  playing like mixing to a moment, I also feel that you need that additional
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  outside input for me. I also don't like mixing mixing engineers to master their
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  own work. A lot of guys will mix and master. I will never
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  do that. I think that you lose something when you're start to master your
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  own work, and I feel like you lose someonehen you mix your own work
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  too. Having that external influence it's another voice, it's another opinion. It's
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  also other people will pick up your mistakes quicker than you will sometimes because you've
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  just done it so many times, you end up hearing your own mistakes where
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  other people can go, hey, why don't we go back and have a
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  look at that, or have you considered this? Sometimes, especially when you're
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  playing the songs every where we rehearse weekly. We're rehearsing these songs weekly.
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  We're getting out of the market now gigging, so they getting played a lot.
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  You need that external influence to get someone about to say, hey,
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  consider this. You're probably one of the only people I've asked that question too
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  that's given me an honest and straightforward answer, Like, what you said is
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  exactly what I've always felt like myself when it comes to bands mixing and doing
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  all their own shit. But every band I've asked about it, they're like,
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  nah, we can separate ourselves easy from it. But what you said
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  is pretty much exactly the way I've thought about it the whole time. But
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  dude, I've been in and around this for over twenty five years now,
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  as you know, guys can do it, but the external influence is massive.
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  You're not seeing the biggest acts in the world mix themselves, and there's
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  a reason for that. Yeah, exactly. Now today, you've only played
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  the three live shows, with the most recent being a briefest a couple of
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  weeks ago. So describe a typical Awaken the Hate live show for us,
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  not without comedy at the moment. There's still a lot of teething processes.
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  We've got myself, he's been doing this a long time. We've got Jamie
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  Secold at the moment on the bass, who again has been doing this a
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  long time. So stage performance for the pair of us is pretty pretty solid.
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  I feel our gear, we're rocking, zaying our drummer. This is
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  literally he's done three shows, so every time he's improving, and it's been
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  fantastic to watch the kid evolve. Confidence is a big thing, so we're
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  watching confidence grow. We're still having technical issues which I'm currently trying to sort
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  out. Which has been fun today. Wardrobe issues, no nit slips.
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  Look, it's been fun. I really feel like that most recent brew show
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  at the back Room was a solid performance. I felt comfortable. I think
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  the boys felt comfortable. We definitely felt like we grabbed the crowd by the
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  balls, I noticed that a lot of people left the smoking area and came
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  inside, which felt great and actually felt great to be playing in front of
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  some people. Looking forward to the upcoming shows, We've got three upcoming shows.
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  January ninety the Brizzy Bash, the New Stranded Bar. We've got The
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  Distortion coming up from Melbourne with a lot of other fun bands in Brisbane.
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  Then we're off to Nambore second of February Namcore, which is going to be
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  fun. And then we've got our official single launch show actually at the Ricks
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  backyard, the Old Ricks in the Valley. Everyone that's an old school will
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  remember Ricks, which is going to be a free show and we're actually doing
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  that with Ancient Remains who are having a single release on the same night as
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  well. So yeah, my old grunge band's going to open up. That'll
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  be hilarious. What date's that one. That's the ninth of February, Friday
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  night, free entry. It's going to be a heap of fun that show,
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  seven pm, seventy six thirty Tumbler. It'll be fun. Grave Boys
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  are playing there on the nineteenth as well, which is the same night as
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  our other show. It's good to see that metal is actually making it into
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  ricks. I haven't seen metal at ricks since the Backyard opens, so this
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  is going to be fun. It's really going to be good to see an
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  indie venue get taken over by metal ore it make should be more of it.
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  It will. What's the plans next for a Weake and eighty guys.
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  I'd be pretty much laid out the next couple of months. But have you
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  got a long term plan and long term goal or we're just putting our singles
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  and seen how they game. Well, we've got to We're heading back in
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  this year very shortly to get the next one ready to rock and roll.
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  We've got a few more shows to announce that will be being announced after this
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  run of shows than hopefully the second half of the year. We're trying to
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  leave the country head over to Europe. We're putting that in the place now,
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  not here to muck around anymore. Like I feel like Australia and Australian
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  bands have a lot to offer, so we need to get our bums overseas
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  and show them internationals what we can do. They want to come over here,
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  so why can't we go over there? You know what I mean.
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  Don't have to be an a big band to do it. Just do it,
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  just nike it all right, boys, takes your time. It's been
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  a pleasure. That debut single Monster in the Mirror is premiered and heavy at
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  seven am Queensland time this Friday. So look forward here on that boys,
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  and in the meantime we'll catch your Hubb or Barbary soon. We don't drink
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  mate the ship