News

The Hickey Underworld 'Making Of Blonde Fire'

• 12th Oct 2009

From Antwerp, Belgium we introduce The Hickey Underworld. Forming from the closely-linked worlds of hardcore, punk and alternative rock, this is a band that a stagnant scene has been waiting for. Owing a small debt to the likes of Nirvana, Jesus Lizard and Minor Threat and possibly sharing common ground with fellow countrymen such as Evil Superstars, Millionaire and Deus – but still maintaining a stance of their own. There are no scene haircuts here, no false American affectations; no horrible emo posturing. This is the real: noise and anger and energy and ideas. And songs!

Yes. Plenty of songs. Their self-titled debut album is a juddering, thunderous, multi-headed monster of a record – part post-hardcore catharsis, part discordant melody overload…part unknown other.

The symbolically-loaded, talismanic / pseudo-Masonic artwork of The Hickey Underworld (and website for that matter) is something else too. Open up the sleeve or log on and you’ll find a mystical world full of symbols and hidden messages, a psychedelic state of the world representation inspired by Brazilian horror/sexploitation film maker Zé do Caixão aka Coffin Joe. The artwork took many months to construct, yet such attention to detail is all part of the band’s reaction to a digital/download culture that’s big on accessibility but down on the idea of a band as a complete package.

It’s a sentiment also echoed in their shocking and controversial new video to single ‘Blonde Fire’ – out on October 5th. Directed by Joe Vanhouttegem, THU guitarist Jonas describes the concept behind it as being “Creation VS Destruction, Life VS Death”.

They’re self-deprecating and suspicious of this whole music biz shebang too – as in evident in blog postings with titles such as ‘The Hickey Underworld turn into total assholes seconds after signing record deal’, which details exactly how and why success will destroy them, which is either very post-modern or just plain funny. We’ll settle for the latter.

So how did they get to this point? It began back when Younes Faltakh and Jonas Govaerts were teenagers, hungrily ordering import Dischord Records seven inches and geeking out to any new underground sounds they could lay their mitts on. A series of short-lived bands followed – “bad high school bands with awful names,” laughs Jonas – before drummer Jimmy Wouters, a graduate of the hardcore scene, joined what had now become The Hickey Underworld in 2005. Bassist Georgios Tsakiridis came later and the band you will soon come to love was formed.

Railing against the Anglo-centric sounds of their Antwerp contemporaries, in 2006 The Hickey Underworld won Humo’s Rock Rally, the countries biggest music competition. Gigs with kindred spirits such as The Bronx, MC5, Dinosaur Jr and Deus followed; new converts found.

It wasn’t until they came to the attention of Belgian electro pop quartet Das Pop, who kindly offered to produce their debut album, that things started moving and they signed a deal. (In fact, Belgium’s most famous musical export Soulwax / 2 Many DJs had done exactly the same for Das Pop before. Belgium is that kind of place.)

Produced by the Das Pop chaps and mastered by Howie Weinberg (of Nirvana’s Nevermind fame), when first released in Belgium in early 2009 The Hickey Underworld sold 3500 in its first week on the strength of the band’s live reputation alone. “In the underground scene that we’re from, if you sell 2000 records in a year it’s deemed a success,” says Jonas. “I really don’t know what we’re doing differently, but we seem to be doing it right.”

And their name? It comes from the song of the same name by late great Washington DC band Nation Of Ulysses, whose chorus goes “Hysteria is coming out of stereo / Action – don't you want some?”, which seems like an appropriate description of this next great band poised to make the leap from the underground.