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Backstage With HEALTH At KNOTFEST BRISBANE 2025 · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, good morning everyone. Jimmy here from Heavy mag.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: We've got Edge here as well, and we have Jake
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: from Health. Hey you going, Jake, I'm doing good. That's good.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hamie.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: How's Australia you been You've been here before.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: We've been here a lot, Yeah, and especially in the
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: last we were here eight months ago. Yeah, and then
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: we were here the year before that, so we kind
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: of had a little bit of a drought between. COVID
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: obviously fucked everything up.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah for everyone. Yeah, yeah, you can say whatever you want.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Done hold back. Yeah, So so we missed. Uh, there
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: was one album cycle where we just missed it. You know,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: it's kind of long gap intween and then now we've
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: just been kind of coming back. We love it here.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: How did not first Melbourne treat you? The first first
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: one on the round?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize there'd be so many were played pretty early.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Everybody's there. Yeah. A lot of festivals in the US,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: people are like, oh, it's gonna be hot, I'm not
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: gonna go that early. Yeah.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all came in. They tend to line up about
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: two hours early, which is not fun at all, but
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: they're coming forward.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: They can't any music fans are real fans. Yeah, seriously.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So yeah, no, the fact the fest was impeccably run.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Everything was good, the bands are great.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: We're just store so that's good. And uh, you did
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a DJ set pre not fest show. My bandmate did
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you're in bed?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: We got him that morning. I was like, dude, you're
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: crazy because we we got him that morning. He wasn't
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: paying attention to the schedule. Yeah, so I think he
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: thought it was an after party of the fest, not
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a free party.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he found it out like a day before. And
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: then we had lobby call at so he was wrecked,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: and then we had to play in the sun. He
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: was just think a piece of cheese pizza sitting out.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: So you guys have been he quite a few times.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Is there a particular memory for you that stands out
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: on the top you've been to Australia, trying to think
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: of one that leaps out. We've always had a really
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: good time here. I got stung by a blue bottle
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of jellyfish swimming. Did you pay on it? That's what
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: you meant to do? Uh? No, it was on my arm.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I would have had to Oh yeah, I actually had
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to get someone else on it and I was with
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: my band, I'd rather doubt, so that was pretty memorable. Yeah.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: The strangest thing for us with with Australia is it's
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: actually the first place, say, the only place that we
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: always had good shows. Usually you kind of build our
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: band is in the kind of band where we put
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: out a record and it was a debut and it
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: fucking exploded and like everywhere you go you have some
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: it throng your fans waiting. Yeah, we make pretty teek music,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: but for some reason, in just different eras of our band,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: coming here has always been good. Yeah, something about our
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: music seems to resonate with Australias. Yeah, definitely, I think
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: so we like it. Yeah awesome And can you polly
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: explain to us what health is and the type of
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: music that you guys make. Well, we're definitely not a
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: genre band, so it's a little bit complicated. Yeah, we
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: sort of had different eras of the band. So when
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: we started, i'd say we were part of a very obscure,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: underground noise scene that was centered around downtown Los Angeles.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: So it was like post punk, no wave, noise rock. Yeah,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: it was a very niche and we were just kind
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: of having fun being young and playing shows and warehouses
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and apartments and art galleries and stuff like that. It
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: was very transgressive, non melodic, but we've always kind of
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: had an industrial ed to it, and I grew up
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: loving industrial music, and industrial music actually is an outgrowth
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: of the post punk scene. Like the progenitors of it
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: are bands like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. Yeah, you
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: know that inspired bands like Nina Nails and alje Organs
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: and everything. So I would say the easiest way to
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: explain it now is that we are a modern industrial
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: band industrial.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: So one one genre that came up was let's talk
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: So that's more John's invention, but it actually we our
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: online presence is like the music is deadly serious, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the way we present everything is very much has an
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: aesthetic sort of bleakness and honesty to it. But we
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: think that like the way most people live modern wife
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: is pretty juxtaposed in that way. You know, we're all
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: even you're sad. You might be listening to sad music
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: when you're looking at ridiculous memes on your phone, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: that's how people kind of experience things now. So that's
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: We've really kind of tapped into that in our fans.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: We've done a lot of video game composition work, and
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: so the Venn diagram of our fan base is very
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: It's like people who like extreme music but are extremely
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Internet literate and love nerd culture and anime and video
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: games such and all this shit. You know. So the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: come metal thing was kind of a joke for us
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: to encapsulate like being a non genre band, but the
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: main part of it came out of you know, you
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: guys know like sleep Token or bad Omens get called baddycore.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It's like it's it's metalcore, but it's for the ladies, sensual.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: The lyrics are about relationships. They like, they get people
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: engaged it in a way that's non traditional from it's like,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: you know, the way def Leppard was a hair metal band,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: but it was like their fans were eight percent women.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: So it was sort of John's answer as a joke,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, it's not baddy chour, it's come metal.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: And so it kind of became a joke that we
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: riff on a grant of my mother in law.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Yes conversations, Yeah, you brought up a couple of bands
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and then you brought up non inch now sleep tyching,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that. So there's been some call this
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: being some tours.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we started doing a lot of collaborative stuff right
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: before the pandemic. We had a history of doing remix albums,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: which we we came out of really liking the electronic
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: music scene, like the underground electronic music scene, and the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: symmetry of how we released records was we'd always do
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: an LP and then there'd be a remix album. But
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: we didn't want that to become formulaic, like if it's
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: not creatively valid, you don't want to just do it
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: because that's what you always do. So we hit upon
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: the idea of well, because remixes are collaborative, they're just
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: not directly communicative. Someone's interpreting your own music and so
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: it gets a new life. So we kind of thought
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: be more interesting to just make songs with bands that
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: we like. So we started doing that and I think
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: it just happened to coincide with a moment where bands
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: are very precious about their creative process and a lot
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: of times they're much more insular, you know, like you
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: could ask a band to do a collabint I'm like,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know, dude, the drummers like lives in a
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: double state. He's gonna freak out if we fucking do
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: anything without them, you know, And so that has made
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: it harder or you know, they don't want to. The
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: pop world or the hip hop world has been very
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: very open to features and guests, and you kind of
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: just takes a village sort of mentality. And I think
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: that especially the newer wave of heavy music, like bands
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: like sleep Token or bad Omens that are very computer
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: literate and have their feet in the like they love
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: the weekend as well as bringing the horizon, and I
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: think people just become much more open minded about collaborating
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: together on songs. Yep. And it just happened to be
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the same moment where we started doing it and the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: fans became world and minded about it too. So we
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: got to do tracks that I never would have thought
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: would have worked, Like we did a song with Lamb
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: of God, We did a song with Ninish Nails, song
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: full of Hell, like all these bands that have a
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: sound palette that you wouldn't think would lend itself to collaborating.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: But once people are open mind about it, you can
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: kind of make almost anything worse. And the cool thing
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: is there's no structure or pressure to it. You're not
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: trying to write a single. You're just trying to write
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: a song. So there's no vibe and it doesn't work,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: you just don't do it.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Try and have some fun with some friends.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, exactly, you can't. There's not a preconceived notion
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: of like, Okay, this song needs to be like this
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: and work. My god doesn't work luckily, you guys. And
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the thing is is that what we've learned is the
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: best way to start, too is to start really skeletarly,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: because otherwise you'll get a feature, you won't get both
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: bands actually making a piece of music together. Yeah, because
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: in anything in life, you're only going to do what
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: you're going to do, even if it's something that you
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: are trying to get out of your comfort zone or
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: do something outside of the box of how you would think.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: But if I start making music with another band, invariably
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: they're going to have some alot of sensibility. Yeah that's different. Yeah, definitely.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So how did that process work you talked about before
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: that we're kind of all coming about before COVID. How
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: did that work through COVID.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, dude, it was a it's time to
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: do it, because I don't think we get a nine
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: inch nails collab if anybody can leave their houses. Like
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I've fucking timed it out, like I know Trent well
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: enough to send him an email, and like if he's
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: too busy, he won't respond, and if he isn't busy,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: he'll respond. And it was right at timers, like Okay,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: there's no more movie production. They're not scoring any movies,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: no one can play any shows. It's like I'll just
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: send an email. Yeah, you know. And that was in
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the aggregate. It was dog shit for the world, But
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: there was a couple of little Easter eggs for us,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and one of them people were stuck at home and
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: wanted to create.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Things, wanted something.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Then so in that instance you have a thing where
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: it's like phone calls and all of us are in
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: la and nobody meets. But the ideal way is to
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: at one point, if you can't get in the room
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: together at least to start, you know, so that you
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: can't feel each other out and have fun, and then
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: you could take it and finish it.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Spagan having fun what's the plan for the shot today? Welcome,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: we expect.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I'm really struggling with how to properly yell at the
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: fan base, like everybody else is like, and what we got?
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I sing like like an Andrognes school child. So and
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: then all day every band is like, what's up, mother,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and everyone just kind of sees it. It's like, oh cool,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: like you're one of us, and I'm like, I don't
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: know how to do it. So I'm really struggling. Guys. Yeah,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I want to be like, if I did that, it
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: would be really dis changed. It's like a dog or
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: a beat. It could smell fear. So I don't know
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: how to quite do that yet. But I'm gonna try
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: to figure it out. And we're in front of yea,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: I know I should, and we're gonna try to try
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to bring a different flavor and hang out and watch
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the bands.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, well we'll be over there to watch the shows.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: We've got to wrap it up now, we're just running
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: out of time. You've got another when we go to others.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, lovely to thank you guys. It