Music
Press
"Indianapolis band We Are Hex thrilled during its ... live performance. Musically, We Are Hex conjured a satisfying post-New Wave nightmare, one drenched in keyboards and feedback." - David Lindquist from the Indy Star
- Indy Star
".. a post-new wave, hyper-tech, electronic pop style, We Are Hex has only performed a few times but has already assembled a polished style" - Paul F. P. Pogue, Nuvo - Nuvo.net
MFT Video blog
"I also really, really enjoyed, we talked about this, the We Are Hex performance at Spin ... but I really, really enjoyed the We Are Hex show." - Joe Downey, Musical Family Tree
Indianapolismusic.net:
"This is a band to watch that is for sure. Nobody else is making music like this around here and they seem to have a lot of talent and potential for building a great audience." - Jeb Banner, Musical Family Tree - musicalfamilytree.com
Experimental, rhythm-driven rock band We Are Hex has prepared a debut album titled "Loomers Versus Lurkers" for release later this year.
You may recognize drummer Brandon Beaver, keyboard player-bass player Mark Tester and vocalist Jill Weiss as former members of hardcore punk band Ari Ari.
While guitar figured prominently in Ari Ari's sound, there is no guitar in We Are Hex.
Weiss also retired an uninhibited stage persona seen in Ari Ari and even during the early days of We Are Hex. Chalk it up to the addition of keyboards to her skill set.
On Friday, We Are Hex will perform at the Melody Inn as part of A Caesar Holiday's record-release show.
The members of We Are Hex recently talked to Indy.com about the band's name, Weiss's stage persona and more:
On all three musicians being former members of Ari Ari: "This band didn't unfold out of (Ari Ari)," Beaver says. "It happened on accident. Mark and I got together one night to see if we could write something. That started snowballing, and Jill found her way in. This band is still very spontaneous." Tester adds: "It's a coincidence that we're all in this band together and we were in another band together."
On Weiss's more subdued stage presence in We Are Hex: "I think there's a difference between being a performer and being a musician," she says. "This is the first time I've felt like I'm really playing with Mark and Brandon."
On songwriting: "There's no science to how we write songs," Tester says. "Sometimes Brandon will play a drumbeat that I really like. I'll say, 'Keep playing that.' We'll play 20 minutes of stuff we're not familiar with, and we'll keep two minutes of it."
On the band's original vision: "We had this idea where we wanted to be a pop band," Tester says. "But in a really unconventional sense. Our songs would have a more poppy song structure than anything free form. There would be a verse-chorus-bridge-chorus thing. But after awhile, we realized we weren't interested in doing that at all."
On a new definition of "pop": "It's become a reworking of pop music from an outsider's perspective," Tester says. "There's a lot more emphasis on sound in the band than there is on hooks and melodies. We're interested in throwing a bunch of stuff that sounds good together into one section of a song and have it be an overwhelming, massive sound you can't make out except for that it's all in the same key."
On the value of rhythm: "There's a lot of times when Jill and I play the same note," Tester says. "I'll use pedals until it's feeding back, and the drums are kind of what's propelling everything. The drums are the closest thing to a musical instrument at a lot of points. I'm more worried about making weird sounds."
On vocals: "We keep a lot first and second takes (in the studio)," Weiss says. "We want our recordings to be as raw as possible. My voice cracks. My voice goes off key. But we keep the takes that mean something. They're lyrically and emotionally there. Who cares if you can hit the note? If you give me 100 takes, I'm going to hit the note. Anybody will." Tester adds: "The best vocalists are flawed, and that's why they're good."
On the band's name: "That's just some words," Beaver says. "We were at a bar one night, and I suggested that I would really like to use the word 'hex' in the name. Then it kind of popped out. It looked good when we wrote it down."
---David Lindquist - Indy.com
Discography
Summer 2007 3 Song Tour Demo
contains the tracks:
1.) Secret Speed
2.) Five Minutes with the Thief
3.) Tired of White Nights
Info: Various demo recordings done at Azmyth Studios and Phantom Manor Studios.
Debut Full Length "Loomers Versus Lurkers" to be released: April 2008.
Info: Coming Soon.
Photos
Bio
More than, less than, more of, less of.
The root of We Are Hex lies in its individual members' collective desire to write the songs that all their favorite bands either forgot to write or just never got to writing, while at the same time spiking the vein of something completely different and new.
Initially, We Are Hex began as an earnest attempt at capturing a modern twist of the vibrations laid out by bands like the Jesus and Mary Chain, Suicide, My Bloody Valentine, the Silver Apples, the Birthday Party, the Stooges and several other groups the threesome initially hoped to somehow emulate just for kicks, and why not?
Subsequently, despite their best attempts We Are Hex, to their credit or not, has ended up sounding nothing like any of the aforementioned bands. Instead they have found their own steady footing playing noisy, drony pop-influenced rock 'n' roll, becoming a band more interested in sonic grandeur and sound itself than sounding like anything or anyone in particular.
We Are Hex cut their teeth musically in a previous band, logging in over 250 shows and several tours coast to coast in under two years, they are now set to take the same tone of seriousness with this current project. Having already played a handful of live dates around the Midwest, treating people to songs interlaced with a barrage of atmospheric, warm sounds and dense, shrill feedback, We Are Hex is currently setting their sights on recording a full-length record for release, somehow, in early 2008.
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