1. Greetings! Thank you for agreeing to answer our questions. Could you please tell us about the band's lineup and background? I think this information will be useful for people who don't know much about you, especially here in Russia.
Thank you for your inquiry. Hagzissa is a black metal band, founded in Upper Austria and nowadays scattered around Vienna, Styria (behind the mountains in the south of Austria) and Prague, CZ.
Hagzissa has been called to life about ten years ago
by myself (B./Hzg.v.Moser-Wampula) and my urge to create some
manaical music based on dark folklore, devilry and other primitive
magic. Back then I asked C./Mag.Rastelli - who shortly before moved
to Austria from Parma, Italy - to join on guitar. L./A White Pawn
with whom I was and still am in Kringa today, agreed on sharing his
relentless drumming abilities. It soon was evident that we needed to
take the act onto stage, so right after the demo/promo recordings, C.
Being the more capable musician anyways took over bass duties from
myself, so I could fully shapeshift. M./Juncker v.Morast joined for
avid twisted guitar hexes and helped further develop the sound, which
resulted in "They Ride Along" (full length album, IBP 2019
and a split with our siblings in mind, HEXENBRETT in 2022. After that
however, M. Moved on to focus on different artistic expression and
also the White Pawn followed shortly after the first rehearsals with
new guitar witcher, V.Adalbert II from Prague and whom we knew from
former shared stages and backing colloquies.
During this turbulent
times, we managed to craft material which is now presented in form of
an EP, called "Revelry of a Maltreated Jade" and just
released in December, meant to mark the disbanding of A White Pawn
and the new initiation of V. - solve et coagula. Even before these
recordings and after quite some patience, we managed to find and
introduce a more than suitable new face to overtake the
drum-pondering duties in the persona of F.Maledict, based in Vienna.
In this constellation, we played some excellent concerts this year
and finally focus on writing the second full-length at the moment.
2. Hagzissa, as I understand it, is a variation of Hagazussa? I imagine it ties in perfectly with the theme of your songs. How did you come up with this particular name?
I have always been interested in sagas, folklore, fairytales and mythology and grabbed any book I could find on the topic from a rather early age on. Once I was obsessed with anything I could find on the dark age of the Inquisition, especially here in Middle Europe, so came across that term which is the ancient etymology behind "Hexe", the German word for witch. I found it fascinating that it could be translated to "rider of fences", meaning the veil between the here and the beyond and that these entities basically chose a life between the worlds. Be it superstition and demonization or maybe shamanic and related religious practice among other qualities – to us, witches are people who are actively cutting down borders and drink of an eventual other wisdom that lies beneath and beyond in trade for shunning and distantiation from social conformities and dull comforts.
There's an Austrian folk horror movie called "Hagazussa" which got released around the time of our initiation. However the name Hagzissa has been with me for years before and the band was active before the film release, too. But it's a great flick, really and I can highly recommend you to watch it if you want to get to know a bit more of our – let's call it - foundations.
3. You have a rather interesting sound style. What bands inspire/have inspired you, and how would you describe the process of creating them?
There really is a plethora of musical influences, really. And the older we get, the more varied it becomes (because it's not very wise to neglect whatever speaks to your soul). But any kind of (mainly) old, dark and obscure heavy metal is and will always be the main ingredient. For instance, I could tell you that over the years we have covered songs by Paul Chain, Zemial, Kat and Black Sabbath. And a neverending source provides what I call the Triple M club: Master's Hammer, Mortuary Drape, Mercyful Fate.
We are fascinated by that "violet" kind of doom metal from Italy and by what they call "Dark Italian Sound". That probably had the most impact on our first ideas of occulted black metal with rock and punk influence.
So even if we try to stay informed about the nowadays BM scene, t's more the first wave of black metal we are drawn to. Meaning that time, when it was a new found thing to be unearthed, and the rules have not been carved in stone yet - A fresh breeze from the other side.
4. What about other sources of inspiration? I read in one interview about a list of films you mentioned (Nosferatu, Suspiria, The Wicker Man, and a few others). What about books? Can you highlight any others?
It's similar. The asthetics, the colour-tone, the atmosphere of old (prime from 60s to late 70s/early 80s) horror cinema, paired with a straight forward mindset towards production. Important: a limited toolkit. It's what makes the soul itch and the mind creative. The films you mentioned are excellent examples for what I mean.. I would add "Viy" to the list - both the Soviet (1967) production and the Yugoslavian adaption "Sveto Mesto" (1990) - as well as the Polish "Diabeł" (1972) or Czechslovak "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders" (1970).
When it comes to books, I was more on the non-fictional side, as mentioned before. But lately I tried some horror fantasy novels like "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood or "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen. Those were right up the Hagzissian alley for sure. Next one shall be "The King in Yellow" most likely. Yet, I am currently reading a guideline through the "Rauhnächte" (The Twelve Nights or the witching days) for seasonally practical reasons - parallel to one of Werner Herzog's biographies.
5. It's also interesting how the band's music has evolved over the course of its existence. From the rawness of the first demo to the punky edge of the album. Your new EP sees another shift, and the music sounds quite original. Is this just due to the lineup expanding before the album, or was there something specific that influenced this?
The demo contains our second rehearsal ever and was recorded solely for the single reason to make the existence of the band known - and luckily, it truly fell on fertile soil with PK from Iron Bonehead finding out about it. That recording honestly speaking was released against the will of L./A White Pawn and neither me nor Mag.C.Rastelli consider it to be representative for any phase of the band – and thus will never be re-released.
This is why all 4 songs re-emerged on "They
Ride Along" which is an album of music I am still very proud of.
With this, we truly managed to craft the music together, I personally
want to listen to.
However nowadays, I deem both the material of
the split and "A Single Feather Coiling" from the latest EP
to be more of a guideline of what to expect from to be recorded
compositions I have gathered of the last few years. The writing
process however is very active at the moment and both C. and
V.Adalbert II are contributing with own compositions – which I am
especially happy about! About the half the album is readily written
and clear to us whereas the second half could add different
colouring to the already very satisfingly wicked mix.
6. Tell us about the influence of local mythology on your music, as it's so rich in your country. I have a book, "Tannen-E is a city under eternal ice," which includes various Austrian legends based on each land where certain events took place. And it still fascinates me. I wouldn't say it's my go-to book, but I still enjoy returning to it from time to time.
That is probably the most interesting question to me personally! Never heard of this book and its title sadly makes little to no sense to me. So I had to look it up and it seems to be only available in Cyrillic lettering – which I sadly am unable to read – and without any further (back-)translation. In case anybody can help me out on this, please do not hesitate to contact Hagzissa!
To put myself in the right place, I drink heavily from Alpine and even more local legendry. While at first the lyrics are based on a very intuitive writing process, I always find myself adding a lot of small gestures, practices or even character traits of figures of which I read. To some texts, I have a very clear picture of localities in front of my inner eye, some of which I never visited, like cottages, crossroads on fileds or a glade in some forest. To finally answer your question, there's a lot of different and very local traditions in the Alpine region, sometimes being exclusive to just one village – most notably during the dark and cold winter time. Look up Perchten, if you are interested.
7. Congratulations on the release of your new EP on Iron Bonehead. Tell me about the title, “Revelry of a Maltreated Jade,” and what the hell is going on on the cover artwork?
Thank you very much. For Hagzissa, the past few years have been troublesome and at toil. The title discribes a tiresome journey where a lot has been sacrificed on the way – yet, in the end the traveller(s) get paid with a frenzy, a lustful dance and great reward of joy. A fire re-ignites and blazes bright after the mare awakens from its own darkest night.
The artwork from scratch to finish has been done by V., who is talented in many ways. Besides the cover art, he did caligraphy, linol cutting and layouting. His background is those of an artistic family, where his father and passed grandfather are/were talented and very successful photraphers. V. himself has been doing puppetry for years in his youth – an art form with great tradition in Prague and Bohemia. Now - back to a topic from before – inspired by a movie poster from Jan Švankmajer's weird adaption of "Faust" from 1994, the cover art was a family project combining their disciplines, creating a gathering at the infamous Brocken or Blocksberg.
8. By the way, who is the author of your logo?
The first abstracts were drawn by myself with some addings of automatic drawing in the vein of A.O.Spare, executed by M.J.v.Morast, our former guitar player.
9. How important are live performances to you? Judging by the footage I've seen, you seem comfortable on stage. The liveliness and visuality of the music are truly remarkable.
It means a lot to us to put ourselves in different shape and "live" through these songs on a public stage. Like a "viole(n)t theatre" where the Devil himself is the director and both given and giving lead. We act with passion to ride and dance along the narrow path of the here and beyond.
10. How did the idea for these particular stage outfits come about? Do you put anything special into them?
The clothes we use on stage are meant to represent a twisted and darker aspect of the individual carrier as a person. A shadow-self you could say. Each band member is responsible for his attire and appearance himself. For these reasons we look quite different from each other. Up to this point, it is clear that inspiration rather emanates from times of old than any futuristic dystopia. You see, it's loaden with traditions, torture, pain, angst and fire. A strong collective unconscious collected.
11. Tell us about your musical circle? Do you maintain connections with any local bands beyond those you're involved with?
We are glad to be at an interesting turning point of subcultural scenes and always share what we find. If some time is left at the end of the day, none of us is wise enough to call it a day and here and there new music or other projects are emerging.
Besides direct connections via shared members like Konfession, Serpere, Kringa, Forgotten Shrines, Bahratal or Sněť, I would like to mention: Peace Vaults, Weathered Crest, Herrgottsblick, Brånd, Ludgar, Ara and Circle of Shadwos. Furthermore there's Kvelgeyst from Switzerland and Hexenbrett from lands unknown.
12. What can you say about the Austrian Black Metal scene today? Many people still associate it with a slightly different kind of metal, one that's deeply ingrained in their minds. I'm talking about Summoning, Abigor, Golden Dawn, Pazuzu - you get the idea. But times and diversity have changed.
Times have changed indeed. What has been a creative and well respected outburst then has gone forgotten for a bit nevertheless. I can't say much more about the bands you mentioned since none of us is really taking too much inspiration from these groups, to be honest.
To name the relevant ones of today, I may refer you to my answer of your previous question.
About the rest claiming to do black metal, I do not really care.
13. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. We're looking forward to new material, and the full-length album in particular!
It was done with pleasure, thanks again to you for reaching out to us. Spread the venom!
