We’re still working our way through our backlog of older, buried interviews from Hollywood Undead’s past – today’s comes via Issue No. 376 of Spanish music magazine Metal Hammer España from 2019 (man doesn’t that feel forever/three studio albums ago now?).
We’ve gone through and done our own manual translation of the interview – which does not actually state who from HU participated in the interview, but this is a rare conversation with the band promoting the band’s post-Five Psalms EP, check it out (translation quirks and all) below-
HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD
Hollywood Undead presented us at the end of 2018 with a surprise EP entitled “Psalms”; a release that serves as a prelude to its new full-length album. We talked to the band about this and more in this interview:
You released an EP by surprise last November, “Psalms”. What can you tell me about it?
“PSALMS” worked as something to give fans between one album and another. We had those songs finished before we went to work on the new album, a couple of them had never even seen the light of day and we felt that they were good enough to constitute an EP.
I must say that the EP sounds really compact, with an initial song that is a great ball (“Blood Nose”), very addictive. Can you give me an internal view of the songs on this EP?
Thank you for your words! I think that “Gotta Let Go” is the song that best reflects the essence of the songs on this EP… leave the hardness behind or at least focus on the good parts of life and move forward as happy as you can. That’s living life to the fullest.
Speaking of the lyrics, you wanted to talk about topics such as death, suicide or life itself. Where do you get inspiration from? Are there personal experiences behind these lyrics?
Most of our lyrics come from personal experiences, yes. We always want to write with our hearts in hand, it’s the only way to stay young and do interesting things for both us and our fans.
It is always difficult to define the sound of HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD, since you have a huge amount of different influences. How do you manage to combine so many different backgrounds into a single sound?
It’s just like that, we love all kinds of music, we grew up with heavy and rock as well as with the rappers of the nineties… it’s what we are, and we love to mix things because we don’t fit into any specific label, so our fans come from all kinds of backgrounds.
After “Psalms”, are you working on a new album? What can you tell me about it?
I can tell you that it’s finished! We recorded it at the beginning of January and now it is in the mixing process. It’s going to be good, a natural continuation of the previous “Five”.
When it comes to playing live, how would you describe a Hollywood Undead concert?
A fucking party, from start to finish. Everyone has a good time, jumping and singing with us.
Will we be lucky enough to see you in Spain soon?
We will be in Europe in April, but unfortunately we will not play in Spain on this occasion… I hope that before the end of the year we will have the opportunity, I would love to visit Spain and Portugal to play.
You have been active since the time of MySpace (which, by the way, was a great platform for musical artists) but social networks have evolved a lot in recent years. How do you think that good management of them can affect the impact of a band on the scene?
It’s necessary – the bands make sure that their fans stay interested every day through social networks. Everything has changed, which is why we do things like the “Psalms” EP, which was only digital, because there is so much material out there that you need to be constantly present or at least make sure that people are still watching you.
Nowadays you can record an album that sounds more than decent in your living room.
To launch and promote it online, put it on platforms such as Spotify and others to get everywhere… What is the real need for a record label and what support can it offer to a band?
It is true that a record label today is not indispensable… We started modeling and working in our homes ourselves and everything blooms from there. With that in mind, a label still has very useful resources for a band, from distribution to press contacts, etc.
Finally, here is a space to address your fans:
Thank you for your support and I hope to see you very soon!
TEXT: DAVID RODRIGO
