Hawxx: Crafting A Magical Debut
Music has been the avenue for many to express their feelings through poetic lyrics and heavy music to emphasise their intent. Throughout popular music’s history, many have contributed pieces of anger and protest to the world so others can listen and be inspired to fight for the rights of those who have been wronged by the world. For alternative rock band, HAWXX, the band speak a lot about mental health, beauty standards, violence against women, and more, important topics that need to be discussed, and all themes included in their debut album, Earth, Spit, Blood And Bones. Before the release, we spoke with vocalist Anna Papadimitriou and guitarist Hannah Staphnill and discussed their hopes for the album’s release and their performance at Download Festival this year.
“Download was amazing,” Anna begins when asked about the festival. “It is super emotional, a pinnacle of our career. It was quite a lot of pressure as well, but the crowds were amazing. Having played it was such a dream come true. I’ve been to Download about nine times before that as a fan, it was emotional to go. We went there for the whole festival because because why wouldn’t you? But it’s a four-day festival this year. So we arrived on the Thursday and weren’t playing till Sunday, so we had kind of sleep deprivation. It was super hot so it kicked up all the dust, we were also trying to not get sunstroke, trying to not break anything in mosh pits, you know, like just general kind of self-preservation before playing. The mission was to stay intact before Sunday, as far as possible, which was thankfully successful!”
“I had brought a spare guitar just for Soulbreaking Machines because the seventh string is in B flat and the sixth string is in D,” Anna continues. “I was like, ‘oh yeah, it’s gonna be fine’. We had 25 minutes it was super time-pressured, you’ve got people at the sides telling you to wrap it up, and unfortunately my guitar didn’t work on stage. It just gave up, so the tension was so great.” Hannah nods in agreement, adding, “it was crazy for me because we had it all planned out, so when all this was happening, I was looking around right to the front of the stage, it was such a weird part of it and made no sense for it to go on as long as it did. I was hoping people didn’t think I’d lost my mind whilst Anna was having a break at the front of the stage!”
Earth, Spit, Blood And Bones is the band’s debut album, after the release of their 2022 EP, You’re Only As Loud As You Shout Right Now. Continuing the themes that the band laid out in the EP of empowerment and support for women, trans, and non-binary people, the album looks to explore further into important issues that the members hold close.
Anna shares their desire with the record that fans would feel less alone in the world, stating, “I hope that it invigorates people and can be a lovely companion to them. There’s so much in the album, there’s a lot of rage and despair but also a lot of love went into the album, and a lot of truth and vulnerability. We want it to be part of the wider picture of what we’re doing as a band, trying to make metal music means something new and make our shows mean something new. So we hope this speaks for women and queer people that have felt sidelined or felt they don’t belong in that world. Just people that want a positive outlet for their rage and emotions. We’re all still trying to make sense of things and hopefully that can be a way that other people can make sense of things too.”
Nodding in agreement, Hannah adds, “I think it’s definitely a cathartic experience for us to have this channel that we can release tensions that we’re feeling or anxiety that we’re feeling in terms of what might be going on in the world or what might be going on in ourselves. When we play certain songs, we do have people coming up to us and saying like, ‘oh, I really, really needed that and relate to this’. That can be an emotional experience for people to come up and for us to know that they’ve connected to with our songs and connected with our performance in that way. It’s really touching and it makes our day, it’s very humbling as well to know that you’ve affected even just one person in that kind of struggle way.”
The title of the album, Earth, Spit, Blood And Bones, comes from the opening track, Death Makes Sisters Of Us All, a track that discusses femicide, as Anna describes. “I had a specific friend in mind when writing that song, so it’s about the feeling of loss that you can go through from someone that loses themselves, so a spiritual death in a way. The verses are looking at ritual and sisterhood, a collective witchy energy so Earth, Spit, Blood And Bones are like the ingredients in the cauldron. I feel that we’ve been more experimental with this album, we’ve been honing in our sounds, more harmonies and weirder riffs. Being able to lean into that and have the space to lean into that and explore that side of us, it’s quite unique and we love having fun with it.”
“We’ll definitely want to play the album live as much as possible,” Hannah concludes with, describing the next plans for the band after the album’s release. “Everything makes sense when we play live. We’ve played a couple of shows recently, we’ll be going on a on a European tour in November go into crazy places like Vienna and Prague and Milan, that will be exciting. Then in 2024 we’ll be looking to do a UK tour, some of which is organised so we will just watch this. I’m really looking forward to make some more noise everywhere to be honest.”
Earth, Spit, Blood And Bones is out now via self-release.
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