Hath
Meet Hath
‘Of Rot and Ruin’ is the name of their most recent release and I thought it would be appropriate to kick off the inro with that. This band churns out beautiful destruction like no other. Hath is my recent New Jersey death/black/progressive metal obsession. Hath flexes seamlessly between motifs of metal subgenres to bring forward something truly unique.
Down in the interview, we get into all kinds of mischief. There is even a self-portrait. Scroll on down and have a look for yourself. Also, be sure to press play and listen to Hath while you read about Hath.
Self Portrait by, Hath
Would You Rather
shrink five times your actual size, or grow one hundred times your actual size? What would you do?
Grow 100x my size and spoof bigfoot tracks to fuck with people.
Some questions with Hath
you could cover the score of any film which would it be? Why?
"Say Anything..." just so I can replace Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" with Napalm Death when Jon Cusack holds up the boombox.
What is a word that does not get used enough?
"Sidebar". We constantly interrupt each other and saying "sidebar" is an easy way of putting a quick pause on a topic and coming back to it.
What would you do if you owned a blimp?
Tour. No traffic and you don't have to worry about parking spots.
What is the metal scene like in New Jersey?
I don't know if its still this way but when I was coming up it was as divided across the state. Growing up in northern NJ there's not much of a music scene at all. We're right outside NYC so most bands end up there. A little further south the Rutgers/New Brunswick area has a really well known punk/hardcore, indie and basement scene. I spent a lot of time in college seeing bands in basements but there wasn't much in terms of a metal scene. From the Trenton area and south is where all the metal bands popped up. It wasn't until I met Frank and AJ that I discovered that scene and it was completely different from northern NJ and the New Brunswick scene.
What was your first live performance like?
With Hath it in a tiny bar in Philly for maybe 15-20 people. We had just announced a 2 week tour and this show was our only chance to test the set before we left. We had only practiced a handful of times prior too. It was probably pretty rough but there were no major mess ups and no one booed so I'd consider it a win.
Have you taken influence from any other artists or genres?
Yea definitely. The buzzsaw guitar tone is a pretty heavy nod to Swedish death metal bands like Bloodbath and Entombed. We're all pretty big fans of tech death and pop punk and I'd say that plays a lot into how we think about writing songs; make it thematic and musically interesting while making sure it stays catchy and gets stuck in your head. My approach to playing is hugely influenced by Jeff Loomis. I can't come anywhere close to his playing but how he composes leads has had a big influence on my playing.
If you could give one animal species (besides people) the ability to fly which would it be. Why?
Sloths, but they can only fly as fast as they move. Do a quick search and you'll find videos of people helping sloths cross roads because they're too slow to avoid traffic. It would be funny to be driving and see a bunch of sloths slowly floating over you.
If you were a spy what would be your code name?
Code Brown
Do you see room for innovation within death black metal? If so, what/how?
Absolutely! There's still plenty of room to experiment with songwriting and not being so constrained to "rules" in both genres. Death metal felt like an arms race for a while to see who could be the most technical or most brutal and black metal was a contest to see who was the truest. Now you see a lot of bands experimenting and focusing more on songwriting than highest BPM or most riffs in a song. Black Crown Initiate is one of the most innovative death metal bands out today. They're mixing death metal, prog, shred and clean singing but it all works seamlessly and never gets tiring or forced. Likewise Abigail Williams' new album was a masterclass in breaking genre stereotypes and Alcest seem to reinvent themselves on each album. 10-15 years ago BCI would have been labeled metalcore pariahs for singing and "Shelter" would have killed all of Alcest's cred.
What are some of your core values as musicians?
Care about what you're doing. Being in a band isn't a contest and you'll get a lot further making friends than trying to "win". Also never sell tickets or pay to play a show.
Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)
Go check out our new album, "Of Rot and Ruin" and we're touring around the east coast and midwest this April and May with Cognitive and Cryptodira. You're gonna look pretty dumb if you like death metal and miss these shows.