I know a lot of people, for some reason, choose to rag on the 90’s alternative metal or nu-metal movement. I think each decade has a musical timeframe that people gravitate unnecessary negative energy towards. No matter how much you decide to slam it, you can’t deny the impact that the bands from this movement made. Bands such as Tool, Korn and Chevelle were a part of that and continue to be relevant today. Haster is one of the many bands that they influenced and these guys from Orange County, California are about to elevate their game with their new album entitled Let It Go. The band, consisting of lead guitarist David Heida, vocalist Jarret Stockmar, bassist Bob McCool, rhythm guitarist Patrick Nolan and drummer Brian Tew, formed in 2010. They began fusing their 90’s influences with their own melodic brand of powerful, emotional metal, thus bringing a new sound to the musical dinner table for listeners to feast on. Their unique and passionate sound, combined with a fiercely dedicated interaction with their fans, especially on social media, has these guys creating quite a buzz. This is buzz is traveling and the word is getting out about this band, which is why we are ecstatic to announce Haster as our INDIE BAND OF THE WEEK!
I recently caught up with guitarist David Heida who gave me a crash course on all things Haster.
First off, the $25,000 question: what does Haster mean?
The back story of the meaning of Haster was when Jarret came into the band. We had a list of about a thousand names that we couldn’t decide on and one day I said , “Why don’t we just call ourselves Aster?” We’re all big fans of the TV show Dexter and that was his daughter’s name on the show. We were going back and forth on that name and doing some research on it and we found another band on iTunes that already had that name, so we thought fuck we can’t use that one. I was driving down to San Diego one night to see my girlfriend and I was texting our drummer Brian talking about the name Aster and trying to come up with a way that we could use it by doing different spellings of it and I mentioned putting an H in front of it. As I was driving through Camp Pendleton, it started hailing and there was this violent rain and wind for about ten minutes. Brian finally texted me back and he told me that “Haster” meant a violent rainstorm.
Are you serious? How weird is that? I think that’s one of the coolest band name origins that I have heard in a long time.
I know! It was just a random course of events and that’s how most band names come anyway. You know, sometimes it’s an inside joke or a saying in the band, but that’s pretty much our story.
When I listened the new album, I could get a sense of some 90’s influences coming through. Who would you guys say influenced the sound of Haster?
We kind of all come from everything, but I think our core sound comes from late 90’s nu-metal. I know it’s kind of weird to say that now because so many bands kind of rag on it, but that’s where we grew up and were influenced. For me and my style of playing, my main influences would be Chevelle, Korn, Tool, Slipknot, A Perfect Circle, Alice in Chains, you know, a lot of that grunge and nu-metal melodic stuff, but still very beat driven. I think that’s what most of the band draws on, but we all have kind of have random stuff that influenced us that’s all over the place. I’m a huge Silverchair fan and have grown up with them most of my life.
Let’s talk more about the new album Let it Go. You released your debut EP Searching in 2011, but this is your full length album debut. How does this one compare with where you were as artists when your first EP came out?
It’s weird thinking about Searching because all of that music was written about eight months before we recorded it. I wrote all of that music with Brian and when we found Jarret, we were literally in the studio the next month recording it. Searching, for me, was kind of like the infancy of the band and it opened the doors for everything for us to do. We’ve been able to define our sound over the last few years with all of the writing and the shows that we’ve been playing and I think we’ve really found our voice on this record. We really don’t limit ourselves musically, which is something that I really hated about previous bands that I was in where I felt pigeon-holed. I’ve always been a fan of a band that could play acoustically and then go super heavy with the next song. I think we’ve really found that on this new record; we create these rollercoaster type songs where we get heavy, break it back down and get melodic, then come back up with the chorus, go straight breakdown and then take it back down again.
Did you guys produce this one yourself or did you bring someone in to help?
‘Let It Go’ the new full length album, release date 3/25/14!!!I was lucky enough with one of my other bands to meet a producer by the name of Christopher Ecks who has his own studio in Corona, California called Ecks Studios. He’s produced a lot of bands and has unbelievable music theory and he’s also one of the coolest guys that you’ll ever meet. We’ve recorded everything as Haster with this guy and he’s the type of person who knows exactly what a song needs; if we didn’t have him, our songs would sound dramatically different.
It sounds like you’ve really tapped into something special with him.
I think so; he’s that outside voice that most bands needs and especially us. We all critique our songs so much that we need someone to tell us that’s good or that sucks. We have that with Chris and he’s definitely our main producer, main engineer, main mixer, main masterer and he pretty much does it all for us in that aspect.
Now, with that being said, did Chris ever push you guys out of your comfort zone while you were recording this new album?
I think the two members that get it the worst are our drummer Brian and our vocalist Jarret. Chris has always been a drummer and he’ll always impact the drummers as he helps them to get their own voice on their beat; he really pushes Brian to be the best drummer that he possibly can. We come to him with the songs already done, but he helps to push them to the next level. He does the same thing with Jarret’s vocals.
Your bio says that the band is from Orange County, California. Are you guys competing with a lot of other bands in that area for people’s attention?
The thing about living in southern California is that there are so many things around to do. You have Disneyland around the corner; you have the Angels, the Dodgers, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Ducks, the Kings, plus all of the shows coming through. It is hard to get those people to spend their entertainment dollar on you because there are so many different things going on each night. It has been a bit of a struggle over the last 3 ½ years to get the fan base that we have now because we’re constantly having to shove our music in people’s faces to get them to pay attention to us. You’re kind of fighting for the same fan base that your buddy’s band is also fighting for. We released Searching three years ago and some people are just finding it today.
What other bumps in the road have proven to be tough ones for you?
Well, when you’re in this industry, you are going to have people who are going to try and scam you. Where we’re at right now, at this point, we pretty much do everything ourselves. At this point, if you sign with a label, it’s just not really worth it. You are going to have so many people who are just going to want to make money off of you and right now, we’re not making a lot of money doing this, but it’s our passion. We really have to double check people because, as much as it sucks to say this, there are vultures out there that prey on young, naive bands.
You just mentioned that you guys are pretty much doing all of this yourself. Now, with that being said, why did you decide to do a full music video for “Medicine” after releasing a lyric video for “Crutch”?
If anything, jokingly, I think it will be the most popular song for the girls (laughs). “Crutch” is very heavy and fast and raw, but “Medicine” is that more melodic side of us where we can create a good story for the video. I joke all the time that the people who come to the shows most of the time are girls because they love music, they love going out and they usually drag people with them to the show. They usually know that one song, but we’re also trying to get to those people who get dragged to the show who don’t know us. So, we’ll play a little bit of everything that we have to try and reach those people. We thought that “Medicine” just speaks across the board where everyone can create their own meaning for it.
Haster – “Medicine” Official Music Video
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Personally, I think it’s a great choice and it looks to be getting the attention of a lot of people out there. David, it’s been great talking to you today. I’ll let you wrap this up with anything that you want to say to your fans.
First off, I want everyone to know that we are all heavily involved with our social media. If you want to know something and you ask us on Facebook or Twitter, we’re going to reply to you really quick. We’re all very hands on when it comes to that and we want to be one of those bands that really interact with our fans. We even started doing a podcast for our fans where our fans can get to know us better and we just sit around and have a few beers and talk. The new album will be out on March 25 and you can get it on iTunes and other locations. Thank you and everyone at Rock Revolt Magazine for wanting to talk to us and for supporting indie bands.
