Interview with AHNA
Rezine: How do you describe AHNA?
Anju: We play death metal with a strong punk influence. We started out as a two piece band, but eventually added 2 permanent members. This change in musicianship, Graham switching from bass to guitar, and having a bass player, and now having a second guitar player, removed the restrictions we had as a two piece and really influenced the changes in our sound over the years. The second guitar player is the newest addition which means that we are fully realizing a lot of stuff from our records live now.
Rezine: Who is in the band?
Anju: We had wanted to be a four-piece band for a while but we took our time to find the right mix of people. It started out as a two-piece with me on drums/vocals, and Graham on bass/vocals. Eventually, Graham switched to guitar and we found a bass player (Derek). Before that switch, we only had guitar on our recordings, but not live. Derek joined on as a bass-player after he moved to Vancouver from Montreal. We were trying to start a death-doom band with him and he was playing drums for that, and we realized he is a perfect fit as a bass player for AHNA.. We played as a three-piece for almost 2 years before my other band played with Chad’s band this one night, and I noticed that he played in a Carnage-inspired OSDM style, his tone was even pretty close to dead on, and i’ve always liked him a lot so i pitched him to everyone else. He joined in the fall and played his first live show with us on our Mexico tour in December. Rezine: How did it all start?
Anju: Graham and I played in a doom band and wanted to start something that we could push to more extreme boundaries, so we started this project. We started with exploring drone/doom/noise, and within a few months had moved into doing straight doom. The band has evolved and grown quite a bit over the years. Rezine: What are your music influences?
Anju: As a band, I would say our influences are death metal/war metal/death-doom/d-beat/crust, Sacrilege is a big one for my vocals and some of our writing, we are huge Autopsy, and in general old-school death metal fans, but we also listen to Revenge, Blasphemy, Archgoat, Diocletian etc.. on a regular basis. We also listen to lots of punk, but especially d-beat, crust, and noisy aggressive punk. Most of the music we are influenced by is pushing a limit or expectation.
Rezine: What inspires the lyrics of your songs?
Anju: Lyrical themes can range from generic to specific themes but mostly just relate to death/murder/war. We have had lyrics about specific wars, historical events in Canada’s history, psychological trauma, capital punishment, atrocities etc.
Rezine: Do you have a song you like to play live and why?
Anju: I would say Noone Survives from the Perpetual Warfare EP is a pretty strong song to play live, most people know it, and most of our current live set is Graham’s vocals so that’s the first track in the set where I do vocals and I think it catches some people by surprise. It’s a punk song but has obvious metal roots, so it’s a nice release. I also like any of the songs with a lot of blasting because it’s a head fuck.. Graham’s riffs are pretty entracing, and when you just have a blast underneath it adds to that experience.
Rezine: Do you have an album coming out?
Anju: Yes, we have a new LP in the works called “Crimson Dawn”. It’s due out in late summer/early Fall. Half of the record is part of our current live set.
Rezine: What's coming up?
Anju: Mostly festivals and tours, and the release of Crimson Dawn, we are playing Have a Good Laugh Festival (Vancouver June 9-11), and Covenant Festival (Vancouver, June 15-18). We have a tour to East Canada to play a few festivals, including Ear Slaughter fest in Montreal (June 3-5) and Briefcase Productions’ annual celebration in Toronto (May 20/21), and have dates between Toronto and Halifax. We also have a tour in the summer in Europe and are playing a festival in Croatia called No Sanctuary Festival (July 28-30) and Germany (Paranoya Festival - August 27-29) and have tour dates in between as well. We are heading out to Alberta/Vernon this month.
Rezine: Do you have other projects?
Anju: I play drums in a death metal/doom band called Temple of Abandonment, and a grindcore band called Waste Away. Graham and I both play in a death/war metal band called Ceremonial Bloodbath with our friends Dave and Trevor that we expect will get going in the fall.