Interview with Hongo
Rezine: Who plays in the band?
Right now the band was conformed by 4 components:
David – Guitar and vocals
Ernesto – Guitar
Villa – Bass
And me, Iván – Drums.
Rezine: What are the latest news about the band?
Ivan: We recently participate on the BSO of “Sangre de Unicornio”, an amazing animation short film which It´s carrying a lot of awards around the world.
You can see it here:
We have played a lot of live show to introduce our new album, a 12” split which have only a 15 minutes song on our side, but now we want to make a break to work on new stuff.
Rezine: What's the meaning of the name Hongo?
Ivan: A lot of people think that our name comes from food but this is not true.
There is a very different kind of mushroom that nobody think about, the mushroom cloud. So, the real meaning of our name comes from our society where death is only a new kind of business.
Rezine: How did the band starts?
Ivan: Our guitar players, Ernesto and David, have been friends and played together all their lives. In 1998, they had a dirty bastard Rock band called Greska, they started to play gigs, but it did not fully satisfy their musical interests.
A year and a half later, they decided to leave Greska to form a serious, more mature, political band. So they contacted Barrós (Destierro, Asfixia), who was Greska´s bass player to started the new project. With Mejuto (Madame Germen, Ictus) on drums and Diego on vocals they completed the band in early 2000.
In 2003 I replaced Mejuto on drums and we started to work on our first album.
Rezine: What inspires the lyrics of your songs?
Ivan: There´s not only one inspiration for us. Our music is made by our own sentiments, concerns, passions, angers… mixed with all the music/bands who have influenced our lives. When we write music we do what we want. There are no pressure, not an exact style and no limits.
We try to do the same thing with lyrics. They represent our own nihilistic vision of the world. A world completely devastated by wars, hungry, social classes, money, progress... human stupidity, and its zeal to destroy everything around it, is the key to make us his puppets. We are absorbed in our stupids "welfare state" problems crushed by its "inculcated fears" to live the life we want to live. It´s time to be free.
Rezine: What's coming up for the band ?
Ivan: We want to record our next solo album in 2017 (It´s hard but we'll try) and we are planning to make an extensive South American tour next year too.
Rezine: Do you have other projects?
Ivan: We are all involved in other musical activities. Another band projects like: Nashgul, The Somberlain, Caverna, Ed Hunter, Larkhill… and organizing gigs from other bands in our city.