Interview with Hong Faux: ‘For me, music is the best art form, it creates involuntary responses in your body’

Stockholm-based rock band Hong Faux have released their third album Hong Faux today (26 August), chronicling childhood memories, news events and zombie apocalypses.

They’ve been described as ‘old school super sludgy riffology with blues wailin’ vox’, which sums them up neatly. They comprise Nik Serén (lead vocals & guitar), Jörgen Åhman (lead guitar), Johan Bergqvist (bass & vocals) and Jonathan Hummelman (drums). They all met via the same music circle and friends of friends. ‘We think similarly about music and wanted to do something together,’ Serén said. Their name came about after a few beers: ‘It’s sooo hard to think of a band name,’ he said. ‘We just put two words together. It’s hard for Germans to say, they call us ‘Hung Fox’ (laughs). We just agreed to find something that sounded ridiculously weird!’

The tracks range from high octane, heavy and catchy alt rock anthems, full of hooks galore and riffs that will make you want to jump up and punch your fist in the air, to mellower, introspective and slow-moving tracks of a more evocative nature, both musically and lyrically: ‘Our ambition is to combine the guitar riffs from the ’70’s and the grunge scene’s more melodic arts from the 90’s with modern rock,’ Serén said. ‘We have always enjoyed pop choruses and were convinced that the harder rock crew would think we were wimpy. But we were wrong… I guess even the cool dudes like to be tickled on the thighs every once in a while!’

‘The music that really affects me has some kind of poetry in it’

Hong Faux comprises 12 tracks. The opening track ‘Feign Death To Stay Alive’ deals with the paradoxes of modern life from someone looking in from the outside and features one of Sweden’s biggest stars, Titiyo, singing the chorus line: ‘I am interested in stories and stories from the inside, what happens in people’s songs,’ Serén said. ‘I’m not good at listening to music that doesn’t mean something to me. The music that really affects me has some kind of poetry in it, it’s honest, with feelings.’

It’s a particularly poignant track, given its backstory: ‘I actually started writing the song the night that crazy Norwegian shot those kids. (When Anders Breivik opened fire on youngsters attending a summer camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya in 2011, killing 85 children.) There was the one kid who played dead and survived, it started from that. Killing kids is so sick and taboo. The song’s not about that but it was the starting point.’

As the song kicks off: “Heaven whisper bleary lies wanted ether for heavy eyes. Way below, way deeper down runs the river that makes you drown. Madame Justice lift the scales, pay with dollars or coffin nails. All for no one one for none, cast the garbage into the sun.”

Sonically, it is fittingly edgy and grungy, particularly in the “it’s the crown that wears the head, I’m only here to be with you” part of the chorus, which has some really hypnotising chords as a result of detuning the guitar which makes the full chord sound unusual even if it is a standard chord, so the difference is harmonic more than technical, according to Serén: ‘It’s one of those rare times that you find chords that aren’t typical,’ he said. ‘The rhythm is very bluesey, which is not the way to do a hit song (laughs). We tune a bit differently for the guitar. Most bands detune but we drop tune the fat string (E) and play chords with colourisations and not just riffs which creates a rich sound, if you do it right. In this song, the melodic character is richer as a result. There are a lot of nines (a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second) in there, it’s the perfect colourisation for chords. There’s heavy bass, we have a lot of tone and not much distortion. There’s something very primal about it. For me, music is the best art form, it creates involuntary responses in your body. I might hear a Chicago song and say I don’t like it but the hairs are standing up on my arms, so I actually do! Your body doesn’t lie (laughs).’

‘Peter & Anne’ on the album is a classic rock bonanza – think broad legged, shuffled guitar riffs wrapped in a zombie apocalypse and the progressive ‘Dream Machine’ is a harmonic and rhythmic juggernaut, its odd rhythmic patterns fitting well with the theme of the subconscious mind playing tricks on the conscious. ‘Hello Neptune’ is replete with powerhouse riffs. In essence, it’s a nursery rhyme with badass guitars offering a snapshot of the crazy process of “rowing your boat gently down the stream” – not upsetting anybody, not stepping out of line, not being difficult – all lessons learned from childhood.

‘The melody shapes the lyrics and the song shapes the melody’

Serén is the songwriter in the band: ‘If you want me to sing, I’ll write the lyrics,’ he quipped. ‘Me and Johan mostly write the music. The melody shapes the lyrics and the song shapes the melody. I like the song to talk to me a bit, to find the perfect melody and chords.’

Their artwork for their third upcoming album doesn’t lie either (see above). Depicting a foggy, mysterious tree-lined road at night, it looks as if something menacing is about to happen: ‘A friend of mine took the photo, it’s a road in Norway, the home of black metal (laughs). We were talking about art for the album and he brought it to me and I said “Man, that’s dark!” The danger of darkness isn’t explicit, which makes it even darker. It’s a bit Tolkienesque, it fits into the “Jante” mentality in Sweden that you shouldn’t stick out or be better than anyone else. Nature also makes you feel like that, don’t stick out or nature will fucking kill you!’

One of the things the band members bonded over is the harder bands that came out of Seattle in the early nineties, giving us heavy stoner riff galore with strong melodic vocals that honour the harmonic complexity of the grunge era, something that Serén describes as ‘arena stoner rock’: ‘We are Swedish but we like big riffs,’ he grinned. ‘Black Sabbath are kings! Swedes are good at melodies, we like big choruses and riffs that make people nod their heads. For a small country to produce as many top class acts at Sweden, there have to be a lot of bands who don’t make it.’

As a musician, he’s moved around, spending three years in LA: ‘I was writing music for films. Most movies I wrote for never even got released in Europe but some did, like Puerto Vallarta Squeeze with Harvey Keitel, for instance, a youth show on Nickelodeon, and we had a top ten single in The Netherlands. Not too much but not too bad. I even wrote a song for a Playmate (laughs). It was just me and another guy who played in Division of Laura Lee.’ His own mixed heritage has also influenced his songwriting: ‘My dad is from Spain. My Spanish is a bit shit, I speak it like a nine year old (laughs) but I understand it perfectly. My dad is from Galicia but my ancestors are from Ireland (O’Shearen). They called me ‘chocolate boy’ as a kid as it was rare to see a kid as dark as me. My dad was a hippie, he came back from London wearing flares with long hair and my grandad was a fascist politically, it didn’t go down well!’

‘The main riff is worthy of neck pain!’

Other tracks on the album have more light-hearted inspirations, such as ‘Deathmatch’, a fast-paced song which opens with a line of thunder before the heavy riffs swoop in. It borrows references from the old school gaming world to describe a conflict and Serén’s vocals give me serious Chris Cornell vibes on it: ‘The video game Quake was – and is – an extremely influential part of pop culture,’ he said. ‘The main riff is worthy of neck pain! We’re nerds, that was the first shooting game I played. I fired it up again the other night. I wanted to write about something that wasn’t too deep, we’ve got samples from the game in it. If you know the game, you’ll recognise the references to nail guns and levels in it. We play it in 7/8 but we make it sound straight. It’s always on the set list because of the jumping tempo.’

As the song goes: “I’ll ride the rocket, I’ll free the lightning. Nine inch nails are cutting holes.”

Earlier this month, they released a pared back alternate version of ‘Coming Through The Rye’, another track that gives me Chris Cornell vibes, also sonically: ‘It’s a very melodic song,’ he said. ‘Those major-minor traps where we go from one to the other in weird places – if you take away the rock ‘n’ roll, it’s pretty much a Frank Sinatra song. He wouldn’t have sung it (laughs), he would have said it was shit!’

The melancholic but beautiful piece highlights childhood trauma through the filter of the much-loved novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D Salinger. The original version has frequently been played on European radio stations as well as music television shows and has became one of the band’s biggest hits. ‘The book is banned in many states in the US because of “foul language” – to be honest, lists of banned books are the best “must read” list,’ Serén said. ‘What an absolute fuckface you have to be to ban a great book like that.’

‘When the bass riff starts for ‘Feign Death’ and you get the response from the audience, you know you’re not shit’

Interestingly, Serén is, in many ways, better able to enjoy his music offstage: ‘On stage, I don’t feel much,’ he said. ‘I have a lot to do. But when the bass riff starts for ‘Feign Death’ and you get the response from the audience, you know you’re not shit (laughs), you can’t fake that.’

If he could go for a beer with anyone, he picks Frank Zappa: ‘I have so many questions for him, about the music, about the weirdness, about the humour – we would laugh, disagree, and drink beer. If he couldn’t make it, I’d take Justin Bieber out – taking one for the team, getting him off your backs for a while!’

They’ve shared the stage with bands such as as D-A-D, Clutch, Graveyard, Danko Jones, Coheed and Cambria and Babyshambles and I say that I am a big fan of Pete Doherty’s songwriting. He was apparently not in the best shape on the tour in question and we ruminate about what it must be like to be his manager. We get chatting about bands who have been around forever and the talk turns to Keith Richards: ‘I saw this meme the other day about Keith and it said “These are Keith Richard’s daughters. When they pass away, he will inherit everything”,’ he said laughing. ‘Haha, he will outlive us all!’

Hilarious moments on the road are commonplace: ‘As a thank you gesture after the last show of our long D.A.D support tour, we ordered a cake with the text “Danskjävlar” on top and put it in their dressing room for them to find after their show,’ he said. ‘“Danskjävlar” means “Danish bastards” and is a reference to a scene in Danish director Lars Von Triers’ surrealist TV drama The Kingdom – where a Swedish doctor stands on the roof of the hospital and screams DANSKJÄVLAR out into the night. It’s an epic scene and Danes and Swedes have this brotherly love/hate relationship so it was perfect – we were lurking in the shadows, filming their reaction when they found it… it was a funny moment!’

(Photo from left to right: Johan, Nik, Jonathan and Björn. Björn has since left the band and has been replaced by Jörgen Åhman.)