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Photos by Matt TxF
Nikki: After nearly fourteen years of silence, The Hope Conspiracy arose to release Confusion/Chaos/Misery, a four song EP that confronts head on the late stage capitalist dystopia the world has become and the oppressive regimes that fill their own pockets while fueling our collective downfall. When did you make the decision that the time is right for The Hope Conspiracy to return and what was the impetus to write new music after such a long period of silence?
Kevin: I believe Spring, 2022, was when we collectively decided to get serious and book time at God City Studios for the following Fall. Jonas, Jared, and Neeraj had been getting together, on and off, to write new material when they could fit it into their schedule for about 10 years, at that point. Between careers, family, other bands, and side projects, etc., it kept getting put on the back burner again and again, unfortunately. Before you knew it, 12-14 years went by and the reality of that sort of hit us. If it was going to happen, then we needed to commit 100% or forget about the whole thing, because, let’s face it, we aren’t getting any younger… We are all like brothers at this point, so making the commitment meant that we were forced to focus all our creative energy towards it with the added benefit of everyone being together in one place for the first time in years. It was a great way to be able to catch up as friends and work on something meaningful together. As far as the subject matter of the lyrics, it is pretty bleak, but I am just being honest about what I see and feel about the current state of the world and this country. More and more people are seeing and feeling it, as well. The music was a perfect backdrop for that expression of disgust.
It’s awesome to see that The Hope Conspiracy is back with a familiar line up. Was everyone on board with making new music from the jump, or did it take some convincing to get everyone back to the table? Given the current geographic distance between band members and the busy elements of each of your lives, from family to careers to many of you playing in other bands, how did you manage to get together to write and record new music?
I believe I was the one that needed the most convincing. To be honest, I never really envisioned playing another show or making a new record, but all those years the other three guys were getting together in their free time out in California to work on new stuff. I was out on the East Coast, mildly encouraging them from afar. I gotta hand it to those three for keeping the fire lit and putting in the time when they really could’ve been doing just about anything else. Once I was able to flip that switch in my mind and adjust how I felt, it became an adventure of sorts, flying out to California to hang with the guys and collaborate together again. Once Jim was fully on board, and the five of us arrived at God City [in] November, 2022, that was when the ideas started to gel and the song writing really took shape. The five of us are proud of the final product. I think it is the best thing we have done.
Every band has a different approach to writing music, some defer the responsibility to one or two members only, while others function more as a democracy, with each member having input and writing being a collaborative process. How does The Hope Conspiracy approach writing music? Returning to the studio fourteen years after your last release, did you find it challenging to fall back into the rhythm of writing and playing together?
This time around, the foundation of all the songs really started with Jonas, Jared, and Neeraj getting together, either in LA or Oakland, and hashing out the ideas. I believe there was a lot of rethinking and reworking of material in those years leading up to recording. We had a mountain of rehearsal space demos to reference, which was extremely helpful for going back and hearing what worked and what didn’t. Like I mentioned earlier, the ideas really fell into place when everyone was in the studio focusing on nothing else except the songs and what time we were breaking for dinner. It was a full band collaboration, which was great. Once all the tracking for the music was finished, that gave me all the time I needed to listen to what was created. Starting in January, 2023, I set up a vocal booth in the break room of my screen printing shop and just started writing lyrics and recording over the unmixed tracks. I would send them to the other guys, and they would get back to me with notes and ideas to try out. By the time I went in to record vocals, I felt 100% prepared, which has never happened for me. From there I started messing around with synths and noise to add some extra vibe to the songs. I would go back and forth with the other guys with the demos, and they would help me figure out the best way to execute the ideas I had for that. For the first time ever, I can say there is nothing I would want to go back and redo. Kurt and Zach at God City were easy to work with and made the whole experience comfortable and fun. They did a killer job capturing the energy of those songs.
One of the most notable things about the new music is that the aggressive, rage-fueled sonic freight train sound that is the calling card of The Hope Conspiracy remains unchanged. In fact, both Confusion/Chaos/Misery and Tools of Oppression/Rule By Deception seem to represent the band in apex form, your music harder and more aggressive than ever with lyrics that cut to the core. How did you manage to recapture the essence of the band and your sound after such a long hiatus?
I just think the sound is a natural evolution of where we left off with DKYN and True Nihilist. It’s way more focused and truly going for the throat in every way. I think the music is a full realization of the band at this point in our lives. We are just taking all those influences that have stood the test of time for us and channeling them into what this is. I think we were successful in doing that.
Full of rage and palpable contempt, are your lyrics a call to action or simply a form of cathartic commentary on a world that is burning before your eyes? When you wrote the lyrics for the new material, did you set out to directly address the sociopolitical nightmare before us or was that just what came out when you put pen to paper?
Basically, the lyrics are about noticing things with the utmost objectivity. Not being swayed by some “hate this person or that person” ideology, which is being spoon fed to us by the ones at the top that own everything and want more. I’m not telling anyone how they should think, feel, or act. Other people’s minds are theirs to fill with whatever useless garbage they want. I think that if people stop focusing on identity, and start focusing on what we have in common, which is getting completely fucked over left, right, and center, that would go a long way toward making things better. Stop thinking the world needs to be tailored to you. You are not special. When the most powerful people on the planet go on record stating their agenda, you should listen to them. They mean what they say. The last thing they would want is all of us out here truly united and holding them accountable for their crimes. That would be bad for their bottom line. No matter how much you hate the establishment, it’s never enough, in my opinion. I guess, if people want some positive self help bullshit, there are plenty of bands out there that can provide that. We aren’t one of them. That’s not what this is about.
There is no hiding the disgust you feel for the late stage capitalist dystopia we all find ourselves living through in 2024. In fact, it seems that with Confusion/Chaos/Misery and Tools of Oppression/Rule By Deception The Hope Conspiracy has written the soundtrack for the apocalypse, a scathing commentary on the world we have allowed to slip from our fingers and into the capitalist machine. You are very clearly angry, and the new music is nothing short of a sonic declaration of war, but do you believe there is truly any stopping the events the human race set into motion so long ago through our collective greed and devastating apathy?
The end result of capitalism is that it devours itself. For example, that’s why there are only two commercial airplane manufacturers in the world now. One of them being Boeing, which is now owned by Wall Street, and has no problem cutting corners for the shareholders and ultimately putting everyone’s lives in danger by flying on their shitbox with wings. Doors flying off. Fuselage peeling away. Engines catching on fire. They are literally getting away with murder and putting profit over people. All the regulatory institutions and politicians are bought and paid for, so there is no accountability. The middle class and working class have zero representation. We live in a country that allows its people to go bankrupt from getting ill while we hand trillions to the war machine. If you aren’t angry then you’re completely out of touch or fucking stupid. Someone that’s doing very well, and insulates themselves from regular, everyday, working people struggling to make ends meet, and just can’t wrap your head around why everyone is fed up. All I have to say to the out of touch millionaires working for billionaires is, it’s coming for you, too. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Hope Conspiracy has always been an incredible live band with a stage presence as relentless and aggressive as the music you make. As you prepare to head back out on the road and play shows in support of the new music, are you excited to get back to it? What preparation goes into bringing on the all-out assault audiences expect from a Hope Conspiracy set? Do you have any more plans for shows or touring beyond the twelve dates that have been announced so far?
We are just trying to get as much practice in as possible whether it is together or individually on our own time. We are putting in the work so that it doesn’t suck live. I’m sure the day of the first show the usual jitters will be there, especially after not having played live since January 2010, which is crazy to think about. Hopefully once the initial 30 seconds of the first song passes, and everyone is getting into it, those feelings will fade away, and it will be like it was where we last left off. As for right now, the announced dates are the only ones we are focused on. Whatever happens after that is anyone’s guess.
Not long after the release of True Nihilist in 2009, The Hope Conspiracy stopped playing shows and, though there was some mention of new material around 2012, you didn’t release any new material until last year. Was it a conscious decision to stop playing as The Hope Conspiracy or was it just a matter of life getting in the way? Did you always plan to release more music together? Was there any material produced in those fourteen years that never saw the light of day?
There was no conscious decision to stop, really. It just kind of happened that way due to all of the reasons that life throws at you. Like I said before, Jonas, Jared, and Neeraj kept working on new music when they were able to fit it in. So, they were truly all in on the idea of releasing new music. I’m sure there are probably a lot of parts on those practice space demos that didn’t get used, but everything you are hearing now is what was being worked on roughly between 2012 – 2022.
In 2021, Deathwish rereleased Death Knows Your Name, coinciding with the 15th anniversary of the album’s original 2006 release. What motivated you to rerelease the album? Was it intended, as some suspected, to foreshadow new music from the band?
Basically, we missed the 10th anniversary, so we just held off another 5 years and made it the 15th anniversary edition. Jonas thought it would have been funny to do a 13th anniversary, but yes, it ended up being a great way to get the conversation going about new music. When we saw how quickly the rerelease sold it really blew us away because we truly weren’t sure if anyone really gave a shit at that point. I, personally, was really surprised.
Can you ever see the day when The Hope Conspiracy writes a song that isn’t filled with rage? If the world righted itself and everyone learned to behave, would you be out of a band?
Probably not. In the earlier days, there was some personal subject matter in the mix because the music back then kind of allowed for it. The world righting itself isn’t foreseeable, so if we were to make another attempt at writing newer music it would be more of the same, I’m sure. It really depends on what the music ends up sounding like and what feelings it will stir up.
The Hope Conspiracy has been inspirational to so many, but what bands or artists inspire you? While your sound clearly hasn’t changed except to become more distilled unto itself, have your influences changed over the years?
There are a bunch of newer bands that we think are awesome, but the classics always seem to permeate the collective consciousness of the band. When we first set out to do this in 1999, we were basing our sound and direction around Unbroken, 108, [and] Damnation AD, to a certain extent. We really connected with the sound and approach of those bands. In some ways, I think it was successful, and, in other ways, not so much. I guess, in the end, we sounded like ourselves, which is a good thing. As time went on, the range of influences certainly widened. On Endnote, we had Death N Roll vibes, with almost post punk like instrumentals, which was kind of weird and cool. Again, I think some of it was successful and some of it wasn’t. From DKYN onward, I think the sound has just become more and more focused and really taking the classic influences, whether it’s Discharge, Cro-Mags, or Killing Joke, to name a few, and putting it through the Hope Con filter. Whether it is a song title, lyric, or riff, some of the influences may be obvious, and that is fine. We are just paying homage to those bands that made us want to do this in the first place.
With the last Hope Conspiracy tours at least a decade in the rear view mirror, how are you all feeling about squeezing back into the van together? Does the prospect of long drives between venues and fighting over the stereo and where to eat lunch hit any different after a 14 year hiatus?
I can almost guarantee nothing will be different other than the amount of grey hair on our heads, or lack thereof. We all get along really well and can talk endlessly about music, food, ’80s action movies, and how terrible Metallica is now.
Thank you for taking the time to talk about the band and your music, it’s awesome to see you back in action. Is there anything we missed that you’d like to talk about or anything or anyone you’d like to shout out as we close the interview?
Thank you for asking us to do this. We really appreciate it. I want to give a shout out to Alex Heir (Death/Traitors) for all the insane artwork he created for this release. We couldn’t be happier with how everything looks. Jake Mulhern (MOTHPOWDER LIGHT SHOW) for the awesome music videos he made for us with no time to do it. We also want to give a huge thanks to everyone that has ever helped or supported the band in any way over the years. And the staff at Deathwish, especially Jake and Rich, for all their hard work and support, as well.