Interview with Hell of a Mind: ‘It’s the beginning of everything, the Lost Temper era’

Seville-based alt-rock band Hell of a Mind have released their debut full-length album Lost Temper, charting their reflective and though-provoking journey through anger in its various forms.

The band comprises Javi Patón (vocals, guitar and composition), Manu Ramos (bass) and Segio Bueno (percussion). Patón met Ramos nine years ago when they played in another band together: ‘I was playing as a solo singer-songwriter but I was looking for a band and they were looking forward to playing with someone and that evolved to become Hell of a Mind,’ Patón said. Their name is a reference to psychology and mental health: ‘I studied psychology and I work as a counsellor,’ Patón told me last year. ‘For me, the name is some sort of way of talking about mental health problems, the problems society faces, the high unemployment here in Spain.’

He describes Lost Temper as ‘a journey through anger, dealing with anger and not expressing that anger through the years’: ‘When I was writing the album, I didn’t have a specific way of writing, everything just came out,’ he said. ‘Some songs are about relationships but I’m trying to give that sense, that I have a problem with anger.’

‘I’ve always connected with heavy music and rock music, it gives me something’

The albums kicks off with ‘Elephant In The Room’, which is a direct reference to his anger and bottling it up. It’s feisty, defiant and honest. Grungy, thuddy riffs underpin the song courtesy of a Big Muff pedal, which builds towards an insanely hooky chord progression in the chorus, which escalates towards a crashing outro, something that Patón excels at writing: ‘I played my Big Muff last night, we had a rehearsal – Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins promotes it, I love it! It’s kind of funny that chorus. I had the idea for it when I was in the place I used to work. I was tidying up the room and the idea for the chorus melody came into my head, then I tried to figure out the rest with the guitar at home. Despite writing about anger, I’m actually a very relaxed and calm person (which he how he always comes across when we chat) but I’ve always connected with heavy music and rock music, it gives me something (laughs). I didn’t know that this song would be the beginning of an album, it has been two years of writing but I didn’t write a lot in the last year. ‘Elephant In The Room’ is about anger and the inability to process it as well as about the anger itself, it’s dangerous.’

As the track opens: “Stuck in doom, there’s an elephant in the room. Looking for the moon, desperate to arrive soon. To the land he was promised but here no one is honest.”

The striking album art, which features his head exploding as smoke billows out everywhere, was done by his girlfriend, Inés Nieto: ‘She doesn’t do it professionally but she wanted to try something and I love how it turned out,’ he said delightedly. ‘I wanted it to be black and white, it feels very cathartic.’

He is a huge Biffy Clyro fan and the conversation soon turns to frontman Simon Neil’s latest Booooom/ Blast drive pedal, which he creates with Gone Fishing Effects, which we have both heard online and think sounds amazing: ‘The tone is incredible!,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I’ve been thinking about it (laughs). There’s always something interesting you want, it doesn’t stop! On the album, I use a clone pedal from the Proco Rat  but I saw that there is one from JHS, a Puckrat pedal, it combines all the sounds in one pedal. It’s amazing, the tone is amazing!’ Biffy Clyro would also make it onto his dream line up: ‘I’d have Biffy Clyro, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse and Highly Suspect because they are huge influences on my music,’ he said.

‘It starts in one genre and ends in another, going from poppy to heavier’

Patón is conscious that as a Spanish alt-rock band singing in English, radio stations and promoters don’t always know where to put them: ‘This is true for the title track ‘Lost Temper’, we tried to get plays on playlists but people didn’t know where to put it – it starts in one genre and ends in another (laughs), going from poppy to heavier. I wanted to do something different and reflect about lost temper. It was intentional, that poppiness and calm at the start, before the song gets heavier and you lose your temper and explode at the end. It started with the guitar and the first riff. Often, I get a melody or a riff, then it builds. I get the structure then everything else comes.’

As ‘Lost Temper’ kicks off: “I remember the first day that I took a step. I was losing my bet, terrified of what they said. Banning my ideas, crucified in my maze.”

As a teenager, his musical tastes went against the grain compared to what was popular on the radio in Spain at the time: ‘I discovered Pearl Jam – and the 90s bands I love like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine and The Smashing Pumpkins – thanks to my friends and the internet, they resonated with me very well. The other (Spanish) music didn’t make sense to me. Nirvana and Pearl Jam, they’ve been huge influences. Jeff Buckley was one hell of an artist. I really like Isaac Gracie, a folk singer from London. I played in a band before for three years, we played a few Muse, Biffy and Arctic Monkeys’ covers. A dream for me would be to play with Biffy Clyro, Muse, Wolf Alice and The Smashing Pumpkins!’

He’s also testing out new sonic waters, as he said to me last year: ‘I’ve got a new indie folk project called Sybaris. Sybaris was a woman who could become a beast,’ he said. ‘It reflects the music I make from the quieter side that Sybaris can be to the more aggressive side that Hell of a Mind can be. Sonically, ‘Skyline’ is a song that seeks to generate a quiet atmosphere accompanied by synthesizers, apart from the acoustic guitar as the main instrument. I lost my grandmother a few months ago, so this song was a way of channelling that as well as capturing the concept of life and motherhood as a cycle.’

Interestingly, his go-to guitar is a Stratocaster: ‘It’s my favourite guitar to write on, I’ve got an American performance one, it’s white and black, it has the best sound. I used to play it live. I’ve also got a Mexican Stratocaster, I love it for that beefy sound! I’m looking for a new guitar to buy, a new Telecaster, I love the sound, the clarity and punch of the guitar.’

‘Fake’, one of the heaviest and grungiest tracks on the album is Patón’s favourite song and best encapsulates everything that he was trying to achieve: ‘It’s the beginning of everything, the Lost Temper era,’ he said. ‘It was the first one I wrote after our debut EP. I was trying to do something different and ‘Fake’ came out, I love that outro riff!’

‘I didn’t know where to place it on the album but I wanted it to be one of the first songs as it was an important step in the journey’

Other songs on the album, such as ‘Like a Fiction’ are about complicated relationships: ‘It has a heavy backstory. It happened a few years ago. I was in a difficult relationship,’ he said. ‘I was a bit quiet about it, everything was giving me that sense of “What is happening?” I needed to say something, make some boundaries but I wasn’t doing that at all. The title references that the relationship feels like fiction, not real. I didn’t express how I was feeling. I didn’t know where to place it on the album but I wanted it to be one of the first songs (it’s the fourth track) as it was an important step in the journey. I was in a very bad place.’

Understandably, perhaps even more so for someone who actually works as a counsellor, expressing himself via music has proven to be enormously cathartic: ‘Music is very therapeutic to me,’ he said. ‘I try to connect with the music and the energy but not think about it too much.’ It seems fitting that he follows one of the darkest songs on the album with the happiest one ‘Falling into You’, which opens with a heartfelt spoken message from him to his girlfriend: ‘It’s about her, we’ve been together for almost five years,’ he said. ‘She is a very important pillar to me during the anger, she gives me a lot of strength. That song is trying to say that the world has changed but I’m here with you and that’s all that matters. It’s very meaningful to me.’ I say that she must love it and he gets very animated: ‘She does now but at the beginning, she kind of didn’t,’ he said laughing. ‘It has a weird 5/4 tempo, she didn’t get it.’

The album is also peppered with other significant moments. ‘Lizard’, as the the title suggests, evokes shedding your skin and starting a new chapter – in this case, a new job: ‘I wrote ‘Lizard’ a year ago, it was the last song I wrote for the album,’ he said. ‘It was closing a chapter with a new job. I’d been working with a clinic for almost two years but it was terrible, I was facing one problem after another. I felt like I was the bark and they were the lizard feeding on it.’ The closer ‘Where I End’ lays out how the journey ends – it’s anthemic, defiant and a real Carpe Diem song: ‘I didn’t know it was going to be the closer, I wrote it in the middle, but I knew it was about closure, I wanted everything to end, which is reflected in the brutal, energetic sound. It’s definitely about seizing the day and making changes.’

(Photo from left to right: Manu, Javi and Sergio.)