Sydney hardcore / punk outfit Hostile Objects this week release and launch their ‘Young God‘ 7″ through Inner City Uprising. You can order a copy now [Here], or grab one at the launch this Friday night at The Gladstone Feeling in Sydney. Joining them next Friday will be Throwdown, Deadly Visions and The Fuck Outs. $10 gets you in. This week Rod and Grant from the band took the time to answer our On The Record questions to tell us more about the release. Expand this post to take a read.
Tell us about the release title.
‘Young God’ is the title of one of the EP’s five tracks. It’s a song about a fictitious hardcore punk kid, based loosely on some people I know or have known, who thinks he’s bulletproof. It’s also a Poison Idea reference – they have a song called Young Lord, which was written about Darby Crash from the Germs, who died at a young age.
Tell us about the artwork.
The artwork is Jimmy Fatal’s interpretation of the title. Jimmy is also our guitarist. He took the title and ran with it and as soon as we saw what he’d done, we all said, yeah, that’s perfect!
What format/s will it be released on and how will it be packaged?
7” vinyl limited to 300 copies. The first 100 copies are on green wax with a grey on black cover and include a limited cloth patch and download. The other 200 copies have a yellow on black cover and are on black vinyl with a download but no patch.
Who will it be released through, and when?
On a new label based in Sydney called Inner City Uprising, on November 25, 2013.
Tell us about the studio and why you chose to record there?
The drums and bass were recorded in a rehearsal studio using a portable set up. Mo Mayhem from Hell City Glamours, Mucho Sonar and One Take…Earthquake! engineered it. We then recorded the guitars and vocals in his home studio. And he mixed it there as well. It was then sent to West West Side Music in New York to be mastered by Alan Douches.
Tell us about the producer / engineer and why you chose to record with them?
Mo Mayhem is a friend of ours so we knew that we would feel comfortable working with him. We also liked what we’d heard of some other recordings he’d already done. He‘s also a great musician and has a good ear for our kind of music. He was keen to do it partly just to gain more experience recording bands and it worked out well. Alan Douches has a reputation for doing great vinyl mastering work for hardcore, punk and metal bands like Baroness, Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, Kvelertak, Mastodon, Hatebreed, Madball and countless more. We sent him the files and after a little bit of back and forth (we wanted a few minor changes) we got the final master, which we’re really happy with.
Did you go into the writing process with a clear direction in mind?
Not really. We already had the five songs written, so it was more a matter of deciding which songs from our set would work best on a 7 inch, when you only have four minutes a side to play with. So we went with 3 songs that worked well together on one side and two songs that worked well together on the other side.
Were you listening to anything in particular during the writing / recording process that influenced the songs at all?
We’re influenced by all the different music we’ve absorbed over the years. Though with this band we tend to channel our favourite hardcore punk bands, from the early ‘80s onwards.
Were there any albums you were referencing to aim for a certain type of sound production wise?
Not really, it wasn’t something we ever discussed. I think we just a similar idea in mind about what kind of sound we wanted, so we didn’t even need to discuss it.
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How long did you spend in the studio recording?
A full day recording drums and bass (and a guide guitar track). Then a number of half day sessions doing the guitars and vocals.
Tell us a little about the recording process the band used?
It was recorded live, but because we had a limited number of channels to work with (the mics were running through an 8 channel mixer) most of that was taken up by drums. So once the drums were down the bass was recorded. Bass and guitar was played live, with the drums, but only the drums were being recorded.
Was this any different to previous processes you have used?
It’s similar to the way we’ve all recorded with other bands before. But different to the only other recording we’d done with Hostile Objects prior to this one. We recorded a demo (released on cassette and as a download) entirely ourselves out of necessity, when the guy we were set to record with in a studio had a motorbike accident. The demo was recorded in a much more primitive way, but in the end still sounded better than we probably expected it to.
Any guests involved? If so, who.. and what did they do?
Nah, we kept it all in house this time round. There is some talk of maybe a special guest being involved on a cover for the next recording.
Any particular equipment outside your usual live gear used in the process?
We kept it nice and simple using all our own equipment we use live, except for an extra Orange guitar head for one of the guitar tracks and using a few different guitars in parts from Mo’s wall of fame!
Any memorable studio moments?
Just the usual shenanigans when good mates are having fun and laughs whilst working together. Tracking the songs, trying different things with sounds and vocals and hearing them eventually come together is always a good rewarding feeling. Oh and finally learning what the correct lyrics to the songs are that the singer has been screaming since writing them is always a laugh after having your own wrong interpretation in your head for ages. Mine are always way off. lol.
Any additional tracks recorded that didn’t make the cut but may see the light of day sometime?
We put down 12 songs, 5 of which made the 7”. A Poison Idea cover of “Cop An Attitude” was recorded and is a bonus download only song included in the pre-order of the 7”. We also have an additional 2 songs coming out on a new Sydney punk rock 12” comp that Scott Mac from Toe To Toe is putting out in early 2014. It will have new songs from Sydney bands such as TTT, Boneless, Disintegrator, Throwdown and Deadly Visions to name a few.
What track/s are you most looking forward to playing live?
The songs on this release are all older faves and are always fun to crank out live. We’ve been busy writing for an album, so getting these finished and slowly adding them into the set is what’s on the cards at the moment.
How would you compare the final product to previous releases?
It’s a major step up from our 1st demo that’s for sure. We all really dig it, Mo was a genius to work with. We’re really looking forward to recording again for the album. Hoping to have something like 14 songs ready to go for it.
Anything else you want to say or about the release?
Really hangin’ to get out there and play to launch it. We hope whoever buys it enjoys it as much as we enjoyed recording it. A massive thanks to Jay @ Inner City Uprising for having faith in us and wanting to put it out. He has some great things in the works at the moment due out shortly. Keep an eye out at innercityuprising.bandcamp.com. Here you can order a copy and stream the 7” in full also. See ya’s at the Sydney launch at the Gladstone Hotel in Chippendale on the 29th November, gonna be a top night.
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HOSTILE OBJECTS – Young God
Available now on Inner City Uprising.
Order 7″ / Digital online [Here].
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