Recently signed to Candlelight Records, Montreal’s HOPELESS YOUTH are about to release their debut full length album! “Disgust” is scheduled to come out on February 25th and at the moment Lambgoat.com has exclusivity on their new thrashy rock / noisy post hardcore song titled “Ghost”. I caught up with the band to reveal a bit more, discuss the signing deal, their approach to making music, writing lyrics, and of course, touring!
Check out their hard-rockish fusion of punk rock and hardcore, liten to their debut EP below and scroll down to learn more.
Hey guys! What’s up? How’s winter in your corner?
Winter’s been on and off this year. It’s like someone’s been hitting the light switch. Feels like spring one week and the next it’s -30 degrees celsius. How’s it where you are?
It’s getting started actually. Warsaw’s been a pretty warm place until the beginning of 2014. It’s getting later starts, year by year, you know? Anyway, my wife gave birth to our beautiful daughter on December 17th, so it’s all new territory for us.
Ok, but we’re not here to talk about the weather and infants, right? Haha. Guys, you’ll be launching a full length record titled ‘Disgust” via Candlelight Records on February 25th! Nice! Tell me about how you started this cooperation with Candlelight.
Congrats on the kid! When we had finished the EP, we decided to shop it to a bunch of labels. I believe we sent over a hundred emails. Candlelight was the first one to hit us back. We started talking and decided it was a good idea to join their roster. We’re still excited about it, being on the same label with bands that we grew up listening to is unbelievable. It’s also given us that little push we needed to be more serious, even if the band was originally intended to be a party band.
Really? So what are you now obliged to? Sounds like a deal with the devil
We’re not really obliged to anything but we’ve all agreed that John sold his soul to the devil. John had said that he’d sell his soul in a joking, but serious manner. Looks like he’s lost it, now we’re trying to figure out how long he has left. Every time he’s jokingly asked something, like getting on a label, touring, a video, etc.. it’s all come true.
Wow! So what is he wishing for the band this year?
He wants to tour Europe and see a Pantera reunion with Zakk Wylde. There’s a bunch more, but he said he’s got to take it slow and not get too carried away.
Haha, fair enough! Alright guys, but with “Disgust”, it’s not impossible to make that first dream come true, is it? When can we expect to see you touring Europe?
We hope not! We’d like to get there as soon as possible, but we’d need to get a booking agent first. Surprisingly it’s pretty hard to get one. Maybe now with the album coming out, we’ll be able to make it happen. Hopefully, by the end of the year.
Go DIY! What the hell, right?
Speaking of gigs, how was 2013 in this department? Any stand out parties you’d like to recall?
There was a couple of good parties we had put on last year, especially the ones at our buddies basement that became known as Thrill Haus. It’s a shame that it doesn’t exist anymore. We had put on this one party and couldn’t even play because of the amount of mishaps that happened throughout the night. We had meant to put on another show to make up for it, but he moved out. That and we once played in a skate bowl at a bar. We had played so loud that someone called the cops. Funny thing is, the street the place is on, only has bars and pubs, yet somehow, the place got a noise complaint.
Haha, nice. So how else are you guys involved in your local music scene?
We like to put on our own shows and we like to bring bands into our city, who’ve never been. Doesn’t matter what style the band is, as long as they’re cool and we get along fine. If they have trouble getting a promoter to book them and they’re cool, we’ll help them out.
And what are YOUR touring plans for 2014? Give us some details.
We’re currently working out details for a cross Canada tour with some of our friends for early summer. We’re also in talks with our buddies from the Maritimes about a two week, east coast Canada tour. Nothing so far for outside the Country, but we hope that’ll change soon. We would definitely like to tour the rest of the world.
Alright, let’s go back to “Disgust” for a while. In terms of writing and production, how is this album different from your self-titled EP?
When we wrote Disgust we wanted to showcase more of our live sound. For the EP we came in with a bunch of riffs and pieced them together. For Disgust we came in with full songs and improved and polished them as a team. It also helped that Ian Blurton came down and pushed us in every aspect. He really cracked down on us and forced us to write better and be a hell of a lot tighter. Thank you Ian!
What’s the story behind the sign on the cover art for the album?
The sign on the cover of our EP and full length is a made up rune that we use as our logo. It’s basically the letter H and the letter Y in the Scandinavian medieval rune alphabet, put into one rune. Julien had a book of different extinct languages and codes as a child and he took what was called the “viking alphabet” as an influence when coming up with this design.
Lyrics-wise, what do you deal with this time? Is there a continuing theme between the tracks?
The lyrics behind the EP are mostly Julien putting himself into other peoples situations and trying to see it in his own perspective. Acting as if he were those people, mostly extended family members. It wasn’t anything that he was going through himself. With the full length, Julien was going through a lot of changes in his life and used whatever was going on as an influence for his lyrics. Mostly feeling angry, depressed and disgusted towards his situation and the world around him, he tried to write lyrics that could be interpreted in the readers own ways and still be personal to him.
When it comes to storytelling and fairy tales, do you have any favorite authors or influences?
We all have different tastes when it comes to books, music, movies and anything in general. John really loves Boyd Rice’s books and Denis is a big George Orwell and Charles Bukowski fan. Everyone is all over the place. I don’t think there’s one person we could pick out as a band. We’re all into the occult I guess.
Share what you’ve learned about running a band and the music business from having some music released and toured a bit with this band? Does your vision of being musicians somehow evolve?
It’s definitely a lot different from what we thought. A lot more goes on than writing cool songs and playing them. A lot of our spare time goes into making the band work. Unless you want to just play weekend gigs a couple times a year, you have to treat music as if it’s your girlfriend and treat her right. Especially when you want to play shows.
Guys, what do you want your listeners to take away from listening to your music?
We just want people to enjoy it as much as we do. If it’s not their cup of tea then its still alright. If one person out there digs it enough to head bang on the way to school or work, we’ll be happy.
So what are you most looking forward to this year?
Playing places that we wouldn’t be able to see without being in this band. Just looking forward on playing shows and touring.
Good luck then! Thanks a lot for your time! Take care, buds!
Thank you for your time, and for doing this with us! Much appreciated!
