INTERVIEW: Hypophora

Having spent the best part of a decade honing their craft as an alt rock/post hardcore band on the rise, Cornwall’s HYPOPHORA have finally unleashed their debut album Douse. With a European tour with TOSKA kicking off today, Distorted Sound had a chat with the band to find out their creative processes on Douse and the exciting things ahead.

Your debut album Douse is finally out! How does it feel to have your first full length finally unleashed on the world?

HYPOPHORA: Incredible and really refreshing! We’ve been sitting on the album for a while now – it’s been really hard to make sure I don’t break and show everyone early! It’s so nice to have it out in the open and to have something solid there for people to check out. It’s been hard to describe our sound to people who are interested in hearing us as the sound can somewhat vary from track to track; showing them slightly ‘outdated’ old singles wasn’t always the best solution. With the album now fully released we are able to show off what the overall ‘HYPOPHORA sound’ is across a variety of tracks that we believe all fall under the HYPOPHORA sound umbrella, whilst still being distinct and individual songs. In addition to that, the reception has been really fantastic and we are continually being surprised and amazed at the support and different interpretations and meanings people are taking from Douse!

What is the story behind the title Douse?

HYPOPHORA: We wanted something short and sweet, straight to the point. I think we were somewhat inspired by the artwork (crafted by the wonderfully talented Bonnie Churcher-Owen), and also by the production of the album itself. Douse always makes me think of NIRVANA’s Come As You Are (“doused in mud, soaked in bleach”) which is a nice nod to our heroes. Somewhere along the way we all collectively became quite fond of the concept of being ‘Doused in colours’, which metaphorically could represent anything from literal colours to emotions, genres or moods – it’s open to your own interpretation! I personally take it to represent that diversity and variety in general keeps things interesting and leads to new creativity, but no doubt each member of the band has their own unique interpretation of it, which makes it all the more special to us!

It’s been more than half a decade since you first started as a band. Why did it take so long to release an album?

HYPOPHORA: We didn’t really start taking our band seriously until we were at college. This was a couple of years after Karum [Cooper] and I went to school and formed the first version of HYPOPHORA. At college we met both Lewis [Pilcher] and James [Farmer] – although James wasn’t asked to join the band until later on. I think really we needed to wait until we had enough content we’re proud of, enough gigs and festivals behind us and the perfect line up for the music we want to make. I think we’re there!

How has not rushing into a full-length helped you find yourselves creatively?

HYPOPHORA: It’s allowed us to refine our sound before anyone has even heard some of our early regrets! We’ve gone through some growing pains in terms of music we wrote back in the day – especially in terms of what genre/style we wanted to present ourselves as. Holding out until we’ve developed our own expansive music tastes and honing our craft as musicians has meant that our debut album can be one we’re proud of.

How did your approach to writing this record differ from your previous EPs?

HYPOPHORA: There was a time pressure with this album that we’ve never experienced before. 12 days to record 11 tracks is a bigger ask than we thought! Before this album we had only previously released singles/double A-sides, so thinking of the album songs as part of a collective group of songs as opposed to a song being its own individual entity was interesting and a lot of thought went into the song ordering on the album. In terms of writing the material itself though there wasn’t a radical change in thought to the writing process as it’s a collection of material written over the space of five years or so rather than all being written together in half a year or a couple of months. A reasonable amount of these songs were written before the idea of creating an album was even a thought! Because of this some of the older songs had to be modified slightly or changed in sections to better fit with the overall feel and also just as our interests and tastes developed and changed over the years we wanted to change up and try out new parts in songs here or there anyway!

There’s a huge funk and blues groove segment on Headlines, the theme of which seems to reappear in Katie McConnell’s vocals and in the piano melody of Smiling (Numb). What inspired you to draw on other genres?

HYPOPHORA: It’s a subconscious thing that happens – we all listen to such a variety of genres that sometimes it seeps out and creates this beautiful juxtaposition from the bulk of the track. It’s not something we try to shoehorn into a song, we’d never add something in just to be able to say there’s another interesting element if it doesn’t add anything to the song.

What do you want people to take from the lyrical themes on the record?

HYPOPHORA: We want people to be able to take what they want to from the lyrics… the lyrics are left quite open as Katie didn’t want anything to be too specific. We explored everything from mental health, generational age gaps, break-ups, feelings of isolation, growing up and loads more. Hopefully there’s enough relatable content in there for people to apply our lyrics to their own life situations. We’ve all been in the same situations and questioned all elements of life I’m sure.

How are feeling about you’re upcoming tour with TOSKA in November?

HYPOPHORA: Absolutely over the moon and super excited. It’s our first euro tour and our longest tour to date so we’re no doubt a bit green to it all. We’re extremely eager to get out there, interact with the European crowds and make some memories. TOSKA are absolutely kick-ass and some of the places we’re visiting are beautiful too. We’ve had surprisingly good sales and interaction with the album in parts of Europe despite never having played there so it’s feels really great to be able to give some of the fans over there a chance to see us.

What’s next for HYPOPHORA?

HYPOPHORA: After this TOSKA stint, we’re doing a little weekender with PHOXJAW in Plymouth and Cornwall as well as an awesome alt/math/post-rock two dayer in Bristol and some one-off Christmas gigs. The new year for us is all about writing album number two, releasing a few other nice little video bits and bobs and hitting festival season hard.

Douse is out now via Easy Action Recordings: Zen Ten 

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