In the early 80s HEXX made history as one of the very first U.S. metal bands and thus fans to this day regard their first two albums „No Escape“ and „Under The Spell“ as milestones of bay area metal. Roughly ten years after they first emerged things went quiet for HEXX , whose 2017 comeback effort „Wrath Of The Reaper“ saw them return to their musical roots. Ever since their career went smoothly and since their newest album „Entangled In Sin“ has just been released it is high time for an interview with founding member Dan Watson.
Hi Dan, and thanks a lot for taking the time for this interview! How are you doing? I hope you and your family are doing fine?
Hello Thomas, me and mine are doing fine. I hope you and yours are as well. Thank you for this interview!
Three years have passed since the HEXX comeback “Wrath Of The Reaper” was released. What have you been up to since?
After the release of “Wrath of the Reaper” we played some shows here in the bay area then we were fortunate enough to be invited to play the Bang Your Head Festival in Germany. That show was the highlight of the year for us. We spent most of the time after the release of Wrath of the Reaper rehearsing and preparing for our set at the BYH festival. Originally they only wanted us to perform a 50-minute set, then about a month before we were to go they contacted us to ask us to play an almost two-hour set because of the amount of material in our diskography. It was funny because we had our shorter set well-rehearsed and we were feeling confident and maybe even a little cocky. Then at the last moment, we had to bust our ass to get it together and rise to the occasion and opportunity of playing a much longer set. It all worked out in the end and we had a great performance. That’s show biz! After that, we got busy writing and recording our new album, Entangled in Sin.
With “Entangled In Sin” your new album is about to be released. What can you tell us about the record – where do you see differences (or similarities) to the previous effort?
The new album was recorded at the „Sonic Room Studios“ in Livermore California and was engineered by Tim Narducci and produced by Bart Gabriel. We put a lot more time and thought into pre-production with this album than we did for the Wrath of the Reaper record. Bart Gabriel was key in helping us during the pre-production process. I would send him demos of potential new songs and he would check them over and advise us on everything from tempo to lyrical content and everything in between. He was a valuable asset to this recording and I will always be grateful to him and the folks at High Roller Records for their support.
Entangled In Sin is, in my opinion, a better record. Not that Wrath of the Reaper is without its moments, but this new album is superior in many ways. Better songs and better production for sure. For this recording, we wrote and rehearsed everything with the click track in mind. We paid special attention to the tempos so that the riffs would flow and grove the way we wanted them to for maximum crushing power. Lyrically, this album also has a more focused message than its predecessor.
How did songwriting and recordings for the new album go down?
The process usually starts with me. I demo up songs complete with lyrical concepts and guitar and vocal melody arrangements. Then I send them to the rest of the band. They give me their input and together we tweak the arrangements, song structure, and lyrical concepts until we are satisfied. This album was plagued with problems and setbacks from the beginning. We suffered a crushing blow with the death of our original bass player and founding member Bill Peterson. He passed away a week or so before he was scheduled to record his bass tracks for the remakes of “Terror” and “Night of Pain.” Then our good friend, engineer and co-producer Tim Narducci’s father passed away unexpectedly. The band is no stranger to setbacks and problems so we managed to persevere and eventually after almost a year completed the album.
“Entangled In Sin” comes with striking cover artwork and title. What’s the idea behind it?
The idea is to call attention to the elephant in the room. To expose the hypocrisy of religion and theology in general. Some people have called it offensive and anti-religious. If those people find it offensive I would submit that those people are most likely ignorant of the brutal and blood-soaked history of the Catholic Church and Christianity. It is a fact that more blood has been spilled in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in human history. That their blind belief and faith in their god is directly responsible for the sexual abuse that has been going on in the Catholic Church since its beginning. As far as I’m concerned, if you object to this album cover than you are part of the problem. If you try and defend the Catholic church and its members against this most terrible injustice being done to children than you have blood on your hands and shit on your dick. I mean what moral compass guides these people to support a religious organization that sexually abuses little children and then try and cover it up? There is no possible defense you can offer from that position. I would think the only people that would find it offensive would be Catholics and pedophiles..or of course, Catholic pedophiles. The leaders of the Catholic Church are their own worst enemy. They prove by their actions that their theology is a scam. Think about it, if the Christian god can’t or won’t do anything about his own priests sodomizing little children and destroying their lives for their own selfish pleasures than what makes you think he gives a shit about you or me?
What do you talk about in your songs?
Okay, that’s kind of a long conversation but I will try and give you a brief rundown of what each song is about lyrically.
1. „Watching me Burn „ is about the traditional story of the musician selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads but in this version, our singer Eddy Vega sells his soul to the Devil of Oakland California. And its time to collect!
2. „Entangled in Sin“ is about exposing not only the Catholic Church and Christianity for being perhaps the most corrupt and evil religion on the planet but exposing the hypocrisy of all organized religions. When people give their minds and intellects over to theology, most of them are lost to sanity forever. To quote Sigmund Froyd: „Religion is so pathetically absurd and infantile that it is humiliating and embarrassing to think that the majority of people will never rise above it“.
3. „Vultures Gather Round“ is about the so-called unbiased free press media here in the US and how it feeds the American public’s hunger for violence, death, misery, and suffering. Also how it uses fear to keep the masses afraid and divided.
4. „Beautiful Lies“ is about how Americans have been lied to by their government and how, because Christianity is forced on everyone here, the American public are brainwashed believers instead of taking the responsibility of thinking for themselves.
5. „Power Mad“ is about the Roman Emperor Caligula. Any similarities to a certain inept, privileged, childish, ex-reality TV gameshow host current world leader are purely coincidental.
6. „Internal Enemy“ is about how people delude themselves. Reality is too much for them to bare so it is shunned in favor of fantasy and how religious faith is a willfully ignorant auto deceptive self-delusion.
7. „Strive the Grave“ is about the journey of life and how we must all someday face death. It is meant to put into perspective how special and fragile life is and how we should appreciate and cherish every moment and each other. Ya know, just in case of the off chance that when we die we are not reincarnated, or get to sit next to Jesus in heaven, or get to indulge ourselves with the 72 virgins Islam says you get.
8. „Touch of the Creature“ is about struggling with alcohol addiction.
9. „Wise to the Ways of the World“ is about the hypocrisy of Christianity and how it is used by governments to manipulate and control the masses who prefer belief to critical thinking.
10. „Over But the Bleeding“ is a metaphorical story about giving your mind over to theology and how once you do you are lost to sanity forever. It’s all over but the Bleeding!
11. „Signal 30 I-5“ is about fatal auto accidents along California’s Interstate 5 that runs from Los Angeles through the San Francisco bay area and up the rest of the west coast.
12. „Terror“ is a song about bad dreams and night terrors.
13. „Night of Pain“ is about our singer Eddy Vega and some of his early sexual adventures.
For the new album, you also re-recorded your classics “Night Of Pain” and “Terror”, which were originally released in “No Escape” in 1984. Why pick these particular songs?
It was Bart Gabriel’s idea to re-record two songs from the band’s debut 1984 release “No Escape”. Because of the less than great production of our first effort we thought it might be cool to re-record a couple of the more memorable songs from that album and release them as a single ahead of the release of the new record. John Marshall wrote and recorded a fantastic new intro for our remake of Terror. Night of Pain came out sounding very strong and Eddy’s vocals are awesome!
The COVID-19 pandemic affects all areas of life but venues and touring bands are hit especially hard. How do you feel about this?
Yeah, we are fucked because we have a new release and we can’t even play any local shows to support it. We have all but given up on the hope of being able to perform in Europe again. Most bands are in the same boat. All we can do is wait it out and hope things get back to norman soon.
Once touring is possible again, is there any chance that HEXX might come to Germany?
I sure hope so. The band lives to play in Europe because we are ignored here in the US. The hope of being able to someday connect with our fans in Germany is the only thing that keeps us going.
Thank you for the interview! Please let us do a short brainstorming at the end of this interview. What comes in your mind first reading the following terms:
Election Year: Oh boy, that’s another long conversation. I have been asked this question before so I will give a similar answer here. I’ll try to be brief but feel free to omit or edit my answer if it runs too long. First of all, I hate politics. I hate the two-party system that’s in place. The presidential elections are approaching, and in America, the clocks are striking 13. The ideals of truth and justice are being twisted and distorted by the mainstream media which is bought and paid for by special interest groups and major corporations. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign message is basically, Ignorance is strength. Or to put it another way, 2 + 2 = 5. I can’t help but see the horrifying parallels here to George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984. It sucks but given the choice between the two parties I am an unapologetic liberal and democrat. As a democrat, I am in favor of democracy. In my perception, in America, the situation as complex as it is can be boiled down and reduced to two things. Inequality and wealth distribution. Inequality has very negative consequences on society as a whole. It has a harmful and corrosive effect on democracy. The top one-tenth percent of the population is super-wealthy so its important to understand that privileged and powerful sectors have never liked democracy and for good reason. Democracy puts power into the hands of the general population and takes it away from them. Concentration of wealth yields concentration of power which inadvertently causes the cost of elections to skyrocket forcing the political parties into the pockets of major corporations. This political power translates into legislation that increases the concentration of wealth-creating a vicious cycle. The people controlling this concentration of wealth and power are very careful to look after their own interests regardless of how it impacts the population. The financial institutions and multinational corporations are the masters of mankind and their motto is all for ourselves, and nothing for other people. They pursue policies that benefit them and harm everyone else. In this way, democracy is flawed because the US constitution was set up to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. Otherwise the poor would get together and try to take away the property of the rich. This is where Christianity plays a major role. I am reminded of something Napolian was quoted as saying:“ Religion is in place to keep the poor from killing the rich“. It’s crazy because the system is actually set up to prevent democracy. The problem can be boiled down to one of two solutions. Reduce Inequality or reduce Democracy. To me, the Democratic party is more about reducing inequality and the Republican party is more about reducing Democracy. In other words, the democratic party is more about human rights, and the Republican party is more about corporate profits. Perhaps the lesser of two evils, I feel that the democratic party might be more likely to help the economic system by providing a broader distribution of wealth to the population. I also despise how the Republican party and its supporters hide behind the absurd Christian mask of virtue while ignoring their own religious doctrines. To me, this is the very zenith of hypocrisy. Add to that, this president has made the Republican party synonymous with white supremacy. They might as well adopt the Confederate flag as their banner. When the Whitehouse press secretary, Sara Sanders said in a televised interview that „God wanted Donald Trump to be president“ my blood ran cold because I knew that to believers in the Christian God of the bible, a vote against Trump is a vote against God. I am reminded of something the Roman philosopher Seneca was quoted as saying: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” I know I’m a thought criminal for not believing in the Christian God, his son Jesus Christ and our glorious leader Donald Trump but I got into Heavy Metal music because it demonstrates the raw courage necessary to go against the grain and to defy the mainstream heard mentality. I consider myself a true patriot because I love my country, but I am ashamed of my government and especially this current Republican administration. This all ties into the message of our new album and the cover art regarding the corruption and hypocrisy of Christianity and the Catholic church. Again, I have to ask what kind of moral compass guides these followers to identify with a president that endorses and supports an organization that sexually abuses little children and then tries to cover up for one another? I realize I might lose some friends, fans, and probably some of the few family members I have left on this earth over what I have said here but I feel that silence is synonymous with complacency and I refuse to be bullied into silence by anyone. As I said, I hate politics but this a very important election for this country and the rest of the world. It’s just too important not to fully understand what is at stake here. Republican President Donald Trump has lowered the bar for the presidency to the point that it no longer has any credibility. Thanks to Trump it has been reduced to a joke. A bad joke. And make no mistake…the joke is on us all. Unfortunately, This is what you can expect from a nation of week–minded believers instead of a nation of informed rational thinkers. So to sum it up, if the Christian God is real and wants Donald Trump to be president than to me, he is a homophobic, misogynistic, racist bully and I for one, don’t want anything to do with either of them.
Morbid Reality: If you are referring to the band’s death metal period, The Morbid Reality album demonstrates a band at the end of its rope. A group of musicians that gave everything they had to their craft and could not find acceptance in its field. I think deep down we all knew that the end was near. To me, this album is a reflection of our collective frustrations and anger. We were pretty pissed off at that point and I think it shows.
Vinyl: I love vinyl. I still have all the vinyl records I had when I started collecting them back in the late 1960s.
Festival Season: I love the metal festival season in Europe. I only wish that HEXX could be included more often. As I said before, it’s what the band lives for.
HEXX in 10 years: I don’t have a crystal ball but I can only hope the band can survive another ten years. Only time will tell.
Once again thanks for your time. The last words are yours – is there anything else you want to tell our readers?
Yes. I want to thank you, Thomas, for giving me the forum and opportunity of this interview and your readers for taking the time to read this!
Best regards,
Dan Watson
HEXX
15. Dezember 2020 Thomas Meyns
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