Interview: Hidden Mothers
"It was terrifying but also exhilarating and also humbling, that so many people would come to see us at ELEVEN O'CLOCK in the morning! Even the people who were at the Silent disco the night before."
After an exhilarating first ArcTanGent show, Liam and Ari from Hidden Mothers sit down with Jody Dunstan to talk about humble beginnings, their upcoming album, and blowing away hangovers with blastbeats.
E&D: So, for those who do not know yet, tell us who you are and a bit of a backstory
Liam: We’re Hidden Mothers and I am Liam (bass),
Ari: And I am Ari; if we are talking history then we started in a pub beer garden in 2018,
Liam: Late 2018, and we sat down and said we all love Deaf Heaven and Oathbreaker and Amenra and stuff like that, so, let’s start a band and maybe one day we can play ArcTanGent.
E&D: Are you just saying that?
Liam: No, genuninley! it was one of the things we said in that first-ever conversation, we were like Holy Shit, that would be the most unbelievable thing in the world if that happened; and now we are here, four years later and we are doing it.
Ari: Liam and I have been to every single one.
Liam, No, you have but I have been to quite a few.
E&D: And you had a tent full, at 11 o’clock!
Ari: Yeah, insane!
Liam: We sound checked and there were 17 or 18 people watching the sound check; I thought if there were a couple of hundred – our normal shows we’ll play to a couple of hundred people if we are lucky and we’d consider that a really good show; and we came off the stage and when we came back on, I don’t know how many people were there but it’s a 1500 capacity tent and it was not far off full!
Airi: I came out first and was like, wow, that’s a lot of people!
E&D: Couple of deep breaths?
Ari: I was ready, I was so up for it!
Liam: It was terrifying but also exhilarating and also humbling, that so many people would come to see us at ELEVEN O’CLOCK in the morning!
E&D: I think it’s an ArcTanGent thing, they are here because they are music nerds and here for music
Liam: And also, no one likes camping, so everyone has been up since 7 o’clock.
Ari: Even the people who were at the Silent disco the night before.
Liam: Everyone has been up since the sun came and is like “God, I need some music soon”, and we’re the first thing on the menu.
Ari: Blastbeats for breakfast?
E&D: That sounds like the name of a podcast
Liam: Note to self, start a podcast called Blastbeats for Breakfast.
E&D: So you have picked up a few high-profile support slots, how have the crowds reacted to you?
Liam: People have reacted to us really well as a support band, despite the fact that we keep getting booked with bands that you might think would not be a good fit to play with. For our second show, we were booked to play with Inter Arma, just after they did Damnation Festival; and from there the doom/stonery scene has reacted really well to us and we ended up playing with Yob and Weigedood; but then we played shows with Plans Mistaken for Stars, down the emo end of the spectrum
Ari (to Liam): You have the tattoo!
Liam: Yeah I have (shows tattoo). I don’t know why I am showing you this, it’s an audio format! I had their logo tattooed on me when I was 19 so to play a show with them is amazing.
Liam: We keep doing these shows, Callous Daoboys and Weigedood and Employed to Serve and all these bands are very different from each other, and some we fit with better than others, but there has never been a show where we have not felt welcome by the crowd.
Ari: I think there is a certain Venn diagram, where we kind of overlap, just enough.
E&D: I think that old genre gatekeeping thing is in the past
Ari: Yeah, totally.
Liam: There was a guy in the crowd for GGGOLDDD with his whole battle jacket patches being indecipherable black metal band logos, but he was just vibing to basically, goth Bjork! That was an intense set. for me. If I was going to see a band and the support band was a band that sounded like the headliners, just not as good, what’s the point? So we might as well see something totally different.
Ari: The role of the support band is to warm the stage up.
Liam: However they see fit!
Ari: And that is what we like to do, we like to make it white hot!
E&D: So your music, from a lyrical point of view, is quite personal?
Ari: Yeah, Luke is our main songwriter for lyrics and he is an incredible wordsmith – anything from personal health struggles to social struggles. Maybe that is not so overt as it is in some bands but Luke has started to bring that into our music
E&D: What made me think that was, at one of the shows, Stefan seemed quite upset, and that maybe it was something personal to him?
Liam: Yeah, Stefan wrote all the lyrics to our first EP and that record is very personal to him; and then for our upcoming album Luke has taken charge of the lyric writing, and that album is very personal to him; and then on the next record we may look at it from Stef’s perspective or maybe I will write something. We’re not a band that tries to limit the input from any one member, we try to create something together.
E&D: So it’s a democratic process?
Liam: Yeah, Luke has a load of great lyrics, and a lot of vocalists might have said, “No, I am the vocalist, I write the lyrics”; but Stef said that this is great stuff and would like to use it.
Ari: The thing is lyrics are openly personal, but you also want to share the experience with someone else and give them the freedom to make their own mind up as what that means to you, as a person.
E&D: I was talking to Svalbard and they deal with some pretty edgy issues, and when I asked how people react they said that people react positively when their hear that someone else is going through this shit.
Liam: What is great about Svalbard is that they don’t tend to hide it under some kind of metaphor and things, they come out and say these are the things that are awful and that we should do something about, and it and I really respect them for that.
E&D: So you have been working with Joe Clayton (producer, No Studios). How has that experience been?
Ari: Well, he is the sixth mother! He IS the hidden mother! He’s like our Nigel Godrich. He’s produced everything we’ve done, he knows exactly what we like, and he has an input. It’s good to have all these songs ready to go and then to have an external input.
Liam: We Love Pijn and what he’s done with Curse These Metal Hands, and we respect him as a muscian just as much as we do as a producer; so when he gives us a suggestion, like, what if you did it this way? He’s usually right!
Ari: He’s the best heavy producer around at the moment by far.
E&D: Absolutely, how he brought Pijn onto record was incredible
Ari: Yeah, he’s a maverick.
Liam: He’s been great to work with and the album is almost done, Everything is done except the vocals but what we have so far sounds fantastic and were super happy with it, and super excited to get it out to people
Ari: It is sounding like we want it to sound.
Liam: It honestly sounds better than I envisioned, not because I didn’t think it would be good but it’s good in ways I didn’t expect.
E&D: I have not seen you guys in a while, I like the cleaner vocals mixed with Stef’s screams.
Ari: We’ve explored more on the album, we had a bit of a worry because people only know us from the EP and the single which are more blackgaze – way more heavy vocals – and we’ve leaned into to the more post-hardcore.The fusion between Luke and Stef just works.
Liam: When Stef does come in, it hits so much harder because there has been this emotional build-up before Stef’s shrieking comes in. Those [new] songs are sounding great live too.
E&D: Is there anyone you would like to give a shout-out to, anyone we should be listening to?
Liam: Sure, there are a few. This festival is a beast and so many of our friends have played fantastic sets this weekend. I would like to shout out Din Of Celestial Birds, Wallowing, and Copse. I am sure I have forgotten some! Callous Daoboys, we played with them, they are the nicest guys, and of course James Scarlett for booking us. We know he took a punt on us as a small band
Ari: Yeah, there are a few locals bands near us, Sobriquet, the guys from Leeds…
Liam: Which one Ari?
Ari: All of them! (Everyone laughs)
Liam: I knew there was a reason why I usually do these by myself! There are so many good bands in the north at the moment.
E&D: Grub Nap were good, they’re from Leeds.
Liam: Oh yeah, Steve (Myles) did the artwork for our EP! They make a lot of racket for a two-piece, especially after GGGOLDDD – they felt like a kick in the bollocks
Ari: I think Caligram deserves a shout-out as they are such good lads, and they would be incredible at this festival; they put an album out this year and it’s one of my albums of the year.
Liam: I would also like to shout out Pleadies from Manchester, although it is quite selfish as we are playing some shows with them in September and you should all come to those shows!
Hidden Mothers support Svalbard on October 21 2023 at the Key Club, Leeds.
