Rock Sound | Issue #31 (Dec '01)
Great Expectations: 2002
THE DEVIL MADE THEM DO IT
Why do you want to be in a rock band? If it’s for the groupies, the free booze, drugs and foreign travel then forget it. You’ll be better off becoming a politician. Say you became a guitarist: you’ll be subjected to mind-warping levels of boredom 90% of the time, you’ll never have any money, your hearing will be gone by the time you’re 35, and your mum will end up having to tell the neighbours that you’re in jail. Life in a rock band is hell. But, if you’re determined to sign up anyway, you’d better make sure you feel the same way as Will from Hell Is For Heroes. “Riffs make us happy,” he grins and, really, there’s no arguing with that. We’ve heard the singles - ‘Sick/Happy’ and new one ‘You Drove Me To It’ - and for all their clanging fury there’s no disguising the sheer joy of making a big noise in a small room.
“We just want to be in a fuck-off rock band,” confirms vocalist Justin. “We just love big riffs and big drums. Everyone says that we’ve got strong melodies as well, but we never wanted to be the kind of band who carefully crafts songs. The song element is mostly accidental! That probably comes from the vibe we have as a band. It started out with these intense drinking sessions and I think we’ve built on that.”
Hell Is For Heroes were originally known as “that band with the geezers from Symposium in it”, a moniker only slightly less clunky than their real one. Already though, that’s become pretty much irrelevant.
“When I joined the band I’d never even heard anything by Symposium,” Justin admits. “Still haven’t actually! There’s nothing worse than joining a band who are having another try, but it hasn’t been anything like that. From what I’ve heard about Symposium they fell prey to the music industry’s obsession with teenagers - which I find quite disturbing really.”
Even after the death of Symposium, though, Will and drummer Joe carried on making music with new additions second guitarist Tom and bassist Fin. It’s just that no one was listening.
“We’d hook up on a Saturday and play riffs for a few hours, and then go to the pub and talk about world domination,” says Will. “Then we got Justin in and, on the strength of the demo and a few gigs, people got interested. Instead of selling T-shirts at our gigs we were selling CDs.”
Inevitably record labels were soon sniffing around and Justin still worries that they did the wrong thing by signing to a major label. “Definitely,” he nods. “We wanted to sign with an independent, but the cold-hearted reality is that there just aren’t the independents that there used to be. Most of the independents we spoke to are just imitating major labels anyway. So far it’s been really cool. The people have all been really good - but I’m still waiting for it to go horribly wrong!”
That feeling of being out of control is something that the new single ‘You Drove Me To It’ talks about. Well, if you can hear the lyrics above the fantastic Sabba riffage. “It’s all about life in free fall,” says Justin. “Joining this band was a curse and a blessing, because when you’re in a band you are out of control a lot of the time. It’s about that point when you realise your life’s no longer in your own hands. It’s about losing control, whether in a relationship, your career or whatever.”
They’re in a rock band, what do you expect? Inevitably they’re heading straight for hell, but it looks like this time hell is in for a hell of a suprise.
by Trevor Baker
They love big riffs and big drums, and they just want to be in a fuck-off rock band. They built their vibe from intense drinking sessions. Sounds familiar? Not necessarily as Hell Is For Heroes explain to rock sound.
