1) Tell us a little about the state of metal in Denmark. Do you find there is a certain sound or style that is prominent in your country?
Filip: There is this style which I call 'typical danish metal' and it's very very bad! The most danish bands sounds like each other. But we still have a couple of good bands which doesn't sound like all the other bands.
2) "Tando Ashanti" was released earlier this year. What prompted the release of EP "XII" so soon afterward?
Filip: We actually recorded both records at the same time + two other tracks which will be on another release sometimes soon, so we recorded 18 tracks in total and actually wrote a couple more, which we didn't record because they wasn't good enough. I think it was a good way to do it like this, since some of the songs on the EP didn't really fit the vibe on the album, so to do more releases instead of making the album an double LP was what worked best for us.
3) There's a certain intensity in the sound of HEXIS that far destroys other bands in your genre. What do you feel gives your band that extra push?
Filip: Thank you very much! That is a pretty good question, but constant tremolo picking and double pedal, I think! Haha. But also when I listen to the most other bands in the genre then I find parts in their music which in my ears just sounds like ‘filler’, I think a lot of bands will be better if they cut a little more ‘into the bone’, but that is of course just my opinion, I know a lot of people probably don’t agree with me on that.
4) What were your musical influences (bands) that helped shape your songwriting today? What genre of music did you most relate to?
Filip: For my vocal then Bryan from Thou is my biggest inspiration, for our music then it’s Celeste and Shora for sure, but we also started to take a little more inspiration from some heavy hardcore bands like Grieved etc. on our latest recordings, which is something I want to focus more on in the future when we start writing again. I think the hardcore scene is what I most relate to, even if a pretty good amount of people who like black metal also likes us, then I don’t really find that scene that interesting.
5) What message do you hope to get across to your listeners in your lyrics?
Filip: I don’t really know, it’s not that our lyrics have any deep meaning, when we started the band then I tried to write something which was a little political, but I didn’t find that super interesting to write about, so since I started to write lyrics for our first album Abalam then I only wrote about exorcism stories, I’m always getting scared when I watch horror movies, so I guess I want to bring that feeling into our music as well, or at least try to.
6) Do you find you're more drawn to writing songs for EP's, splits or full albums?
Filip: I like both, but I think it’s a little easier to write for EP’s or splits because we can try a lot of new stuff out, when it comes to the writing for an album then we have to make sure that the 11 - 13 songs fits a little more together, I don’t want all the songs on a record to go into too many different directions.
7) At what age did you first begin songwriting? What made you decide to become a songwriter?
Filip: I started to play music when I was 14 - 16 years old I guess, I watched a lot of bands live and that was probably the coolest thing i had ever seen, so I wanted to do the same!
8) In a genre of copycat bands simply rewriting the same songs over and over, how is HEXIS able to accomplish the levels of songwriting and energy that other bands cannot? How do you prevent yourself from sounding like everyone else?
Filip: The thing is that I’m the only person who have been in this band since it started and there have been new people involved in pretty much every writing session, I think that made it easier to write something which didn’t sound too much like the previous stuff, but still sounded like Hexis.
9) If you could form a supergoup of metal or hardcore musicians to perform with, who would they be?
Filip: Zach Hill from Death Grips on drums, Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails on guitar, Alan Dubin from Khanate on vocals and me on bass, even if i suck at playing bass, but I promise to practice A LOT if you guys can put this lineup together! Haha
10) Describe HEXIS in three words.
Dark, intense, heavy
Get your copy of XII by Hexis here ! http://crownandthroneltd.bigcartel.com/product/hexis-xii-10-cd
Also check out their bandcamp here! https://hexisband.bandcamp.com/