Interviews: Hei'An

On this new occasion, we had the opportunity to interview the Post-Metalcore band Hei'An from Slovenia. Check out the interview and follow this band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. For those just discovering Hei’An, how would you describe your sound and vision as a band?

Well, we put our new record ‘Kiss Our Ghosts Goodbye’ under the metalcore genre umbrella, more specifically post-metalcore, but if you dive in a bit deeper, you can hear elements of a bunch of different genres, ranging from pop to drum and bass to deathcore, sprinkled in there. We all listen to a bunch of different genres, and we love to blend them all into the music that we write, so I’d say our sound is somewhat similar to other genre-bending metalcore(-adjacent) bands that do that as well, like Bring Me The Horizon, Bad Omens, Sleep Token, I Prevail, etc. In terms of vision, if I try to sum everything we’ve ever been about so far into a single sentence, I’d say we write songs about traumatic experiences and dark thoughts, but try to sprinkle them all with a layer of optimism and hope.

2. The name “Hei’An” is intriguing. What does it mean, and how did it come to represent your music?

It actually means “darkness” in Chinese (we just spelled it in a slightly stylized way, with the apostrophe and all) and can be translated in a few different ways, but one of those ways (and the one that I like best) is “peaceful / ominous darkness”. I just feel like it sums up how our music sounds and what it’s about very well. It’s nice and short and catchy, and it means a lot to me because it was actually suggested by my partner Aljaž, and that was long before he was even involved with the band in any way. I had a hard time coming up with the name for my band after having already written the majority of our first album, and Aljaž helped me brainstorm ideas. I remember we were just bouncing ideas off of each other one day, and he studied synology, so he’s very fluent in the Chinese language, so he suggested some ideas that derive from Chinese, and as soon as he suggested Hei’An and explained what it meant, etc., I fell in love with it. It just instantly hit home and felt right; that’s why it was only natural to me to go with it.

3. The title Kiss Our Ghosts Goodbye feels very emotional and symbolic. What’s the story or theme behind it?

Well, the album is not a concept album per se, but the songs do seem to have a common thread. They’re about different traumatic experiences, negative thoughts, situations and emotions I went through at different points in my life - like my ongoing fight with MS, my sexuality (I’m bisexual and have a male partner) and some of the bigotry and hate I received (even from some people that used to be extremely close to me) because of it, my ongoing fight with depression, the existential dread I feel when seeing the current rise of hate, xenophobia, racism, homophobia and other types of bigotry in the world etc. All of these things felt like “ghosts” that are “haunting me” at all times. And when I write, it’s always a cathartic experience for me, so writing this album was sort of my attempt at “kissing these ghosts of mine goodbye” and leaving them in the past, and that’s where the album title came from.

4. What do you want listeners to feel or experience when they hear this album for the first time?

I hope they will be able to connect with the record and the messages of the songs, and I hope it will help at least a few people work through their own demons and leave their own “ghosts” behind, like I did (or at least attempted) when writing it.

5. How did working with Randy Slaugh, Joseph McQueen, Zakk Cervini, and Ted Jensen shape the final sound of the record?

Oh, all of these people definitely played a vital role in shaping the sound of this record, for sure. We co-produced this record ourselves with Randy as the other co-producer, and since we’ve been friends with him for several years now, that workflow was very smooth and natural. We did a big chunk of the production and at least outlined our vision for the rest to him, and he just immediately understood exactly what we were aiming for and helped us bring it to life in the best way possible. My favorite part about working with Randy is that we share the same open-mindedness about music and we are all “musical omnivores” and listen to a bunch of genres, so it’s always really creatively liberating to work with somebody who doesn’t limit themselves with any “genre specifics” or “fixed ideas about how something should sound”, but is fully willing to explore, play around, and figure out what works best for the song no matter what anybody else thinks, so that the product sounds “familiar, yet distinctly unique”, if you know what I mean. Joseph, Zakk, and Ted, we’ve all been HUGE fans of them for a long time now, so working with them was definitely a dream-come-true as well. We regularly listen to a bunch of artists that these guys have worked with, like Bring Me The Horizon, Blink-182, Bad Omens, From Ashes to New, Architects etc., so when we got in touch with them, we kinda already knew how the record would sound in the end if we got them on board, but it’s exactly the sound we wanted and it’s exactly what they did, so we couldn’t be happier with it. Shoutout to all of them!!

6. Were there any specific sonic risks or experiments you took with this album that you hadn’t tried before?

Oh, for sure! With our first album, I already wanted to explore more electronic production elements, “pop vocals” and stuff like that, but I was kinda scared that the metal community would judge me and hate on me and that’s why I wanted the album to sound “metal enough” - which is pretty ironic because that album is really not a “heavy” album by any means whatsoever. With this one, however, I wanted all of us to completely let go of mental barriers like these and just write whatever we want, however we want, and just have fun while creating art. So we decided to lean way deeper into the pop / electronic element of our sound, but also into the heavy element of our sound, which made this record have a way bigger contrast between soft and heavy than the first one. The “poppy” is “even poppier”, the “heavy” is “even heavier”. We also really wanted for this album to have even more personality and to feel even more genuine by blending in elements from some more of the different genres we listen to (cause we do all listen to a lot of wildly different music - from metal to jazz to Kpop and everything in between), so it just feels like a more sonically interesting record than anything we’ve ever put out before.

7. Can you walk us through the creation of “Make Me Want To Leave You”? What’s it about emotionally or lyrically?

It was actually the first song we finished for this album, and it was written before ‘imago’ was even fully released. I knew I wanted to evolve our sound with this album and move into a more “modern, polished, and produced” direction (I studied music production, so this element became increasingly important to me over time), and ‘Make Me Want to Leave You’ was my first real attempt at writing a song like that. Sonically, it’s very much influenced by bands like BMTH and Bad Omens, with the blend of soft yet mysterious dark pop and bone-crushing metalcore. It was also the first song I co-wrote the lyrics for with Aljaž (he wrote his own parts here), and it was generally the first song we wrote with him as a full-time band member and marks his recorded debut as such, so we decided to have the lyrics show that in a way - the lyrics reflect our shared romantic relationship, emphasizing that no amount of bigotry or hate can make us want to leave each other or change who we are, and that nobody should feel pressured to alter themselves because of others’ misguided opinions on love.

8. The song has such contrast between intimacy and heaviness—how do you balance those dynamics when writing?

I think it all comes down to us, or in this case, me specifically, I guess, listening to so many different artists from so many different genres, styles, and musical backgrounds. I listen to a lot of intimate, soft, “poppy” music, and I listen to a lot of extremely heavy music, and everything in between, like I can go from listening to an emotional Jennie ballad to a bit of Skrillex stuff to a The Plot in You track to Humanity’s Last Breath all in one sitting - I get bored if I listen to the same kind of music too long so I need to switch it up depending on my current mood and state of mind, and we all share that quality to some extent, so I think that’s where this contrast in our music comes from. I also really like it when our music have a bit of a “storytelling” / “cinematic” feel to them, so the dramaturgy of the song is a very important aspect of songwriting to me, and in order for a song to truly have a story, I feel like there needs to be enough contrast for the whole flow of the “story” to work.

9. Your music blends metal, rock, pop, and electronic music seamlessly. Who or what are your biggest musical inspirations?

Yes, correct. As I touched on slightly before, we all listen to SO much different stuff. And for this record specifically, there are a lot of artists I could quote as inspiration. I mean, the most obvious ones would of course be bands like BMTH, Bad Omens, Sleep Token, Dayseeker etc., so modern metalcore(-adjacent) bands who also blend a lot of these styles you just mentioned, but you know, there are so many little details to this record that were inspired by artists from the pop and electronic world for instance, so if you listen closely, you can definitely hear traces of Jennie, Post Malone, Skrillex, Aloboi, Son Lux etc. in there, and many many more.

10. What does your writing process look like—do you start with atmosphere, lyrics, riffs, or something else?

It depends on the song a bit, and we’ve actually had two wildly different workflows if you compare our first album with this second one. I wrote most if not all of our first album ‘imago’ with just my voice and my acoustic guitar, so I started with lyrics, chord progressions and vocal melodies and only then we started to arrange everything for the full band and shaped the songs to what they are today, but with ‘Kiss Our Ghosts Goodbye’, our approach was mostly pretty much the exact opposite. I usually start by opening my DAW and playing around with some plugins, synth sounds, samples, etc. I started creating little loops, beats, chord progressions, melodies, etc., and only then did I start adding live instruments into the mix and arranging the full song around those things. So the vocal melodies and the lyrics actually came last, based on how the instrumental made me feel. The really cool thing about this workflow was that it felt much more freeing, spontaneous, and fun; it consequently resulted in the rest of the band being much more involved with the writing process than ever before, which also felt amazing, and I feel like the songs feel that much more genuine because of that. We always write new stuff, and we are already writing some new songs that might end up on any of our future releases, and we are still sticking to a somewhat similar workflow, so it feels like the right “method” for us, at this time at least.

11. Cinematic elements are such a huge part of your sound. Are there any films or visual arts that influence your songwriting?

Definitely! I’m a big fan of the film and TV art form, we all are, and one of the things that always sticks with me the most after seeing an incredible movie or series is the soundtrack; that’s what makes the whole thing that much more emotional and memorable for me. So yes, we always like to make our music sound like it has a story to tell, and thus, make it sound cinematic, at least to some extent. I wouldn’t say there were any specific movies, shows, or other kinds of visual art that influenced this record super directly, but some that might have popped into my head at least a bit during the writing process were the “Interstellar” soundtrack, the “Blade Runner 2049” soundtrac,k and the “Annihilation” soundtrack, to name a few. It’s also a bucket list thing for me to score a film someday, so I hope I get the opportunity to make that dream a reality someday.

12. You’ve played some major festivals like 70000 Tons of Metal and Eurosonic. Any standout live moments that really hit you?

That’s right, we feel very lucky to have had the chance to play some fairly high-profile shows at such an early stage of our career, like the festivals you just mentioned, and some more, but interestingly enough, the standout moment that REALLY hit me incredibly hard, and that immediately popped into my head as I was reading this question, was at a really small club show in Brno in the Czech Republic. It was a super small club, so we were sort of all breathing and sweating together with the audience, which is always a magical thing. People were singing, screaming our lyrics at our faces, crying.. And there really weren’t that many people at that gig, but everybody seemed SO into it, it was amazing. But the moment during that gig that stood out the most was when a guy in the audience who was in a wheelchair started moshing and partying (I repeat, IN A WHEELCHAIR! MOSHING!) with the biggest smile on his face, and he came and shook hands with us from below the stage as the gig was coming to an end, and I could just see his genuine smile and tears in his eyes.. That moment really hit me like a truck, in a very positive way. I honestly get misty-eyed anytime I think about it. Making people feel something and forget their hardships for at least a short while, that’s kind of the whole point, I think.

13. How has your European background shaped your musical identity, especially as you break into the U.S. scene?

The European music scene is strongly influenced by the US scene as far as I see it, but it does have its own identity as well and its own vibe, and we have a bunch of artists that are absolutely huge in (parts of) Europe that barely anybody in the US has ever heard of, and vice versa. In the metal scene, I feel like the difference between the EU and the US scene used to be much more obvious in the past, but nowadays metal has been developing into one of the most diverse and “subgenre-rich” genres out there, and the difference between the “typical EU metal band” and the “typical US metal band” is becoming less and less obvious I think, just because of the sheer volume of bands from both (and all other) continents doing so much different stuff and influencing each other more than ever before. I do however get the vibe that the EU music scene seems to have a much bigger focus on small unique underground artists than the US does in general, as we have sooo many small alternative festivals here celebrating a vast variety of small artists from all over the world, also each European country has its own scene with its own specifics, its own folk scene, its own pop scene, its own metal scene, its own club scene, so the diversity here seems to be bigger and more evident. Maybe that’s part of the reason why all of us in the band listen to so much different stuff, just because we’ve been “bombarded” with such a wide variety of different music since we were kids, which I’m not sure is usually the case in the US (although I’m sure there are a lot of exceptions). We are all huge fans of the “US production sound,” though, which is becoming increasingly popular in the metal(core) scene worldwide lately. I guess that’s why we mostly had US-based producers on our team for this record. In any case, we find both the EU scene and the US scene FANTASTIC in their own right.

14. With the U.S. now discovering Hei’An, what are your goals or dream collaborations moving forward?

We are hoping to record a full album in LA, there are already some loose plans being made (it's still super early, but yeah) with a few producers and engineers, some of which we know from before, some of which we met really recently, so us slowly starting to get some US listenership is for sure slowly starting to open doors for stuff like this as well. In terms of goals, there are definitely a few venues and festivals in the US that we really, really hope we’ll get to perform at someday (soon?). Festivals like Vans Warped Tour (now that it’s back), Welcome to Rockville, Emo’s Not Dead Cruise (especially since we played at 70000 Tons of Metal before, and we LOVED the whole “cruise festival” concept) would be only a few of the festivals in the US that we’d really love to get to perform at. We’ve also all always fantasized about playing at some of the legendary venues in the US, like the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Hollywood Palladium, etc. We are well aware that these are some REALLY big goals and that we’ll have to keep working our asses off and keep grinding like crazy for a long time before these goals could actually come within our reach, but we really hope we can make all of this happen someday, that’d be an absolute dream-come-true. In terms of collaborations, I have two very interesting ones I’ve been dreaming about recently - and they’re both 100% unrealistic at the stage we’re at right now, because both of these would be A-list collaborations, but since you’re asking about DREAM collaborations, I guess I can forget about what’s realistic for a second. One would have Skrillex either produce a song for us or do a remix of one of our songs. And the other would be having Jennie from BlackPink featured on a track, or getting featured on one of her tracks. I was always a big fan of artist collaborations that “seem weird” when you read them out loud, but end up working incredibly well in the context of a specific song. A great example would be “AmEN!” by Bring Me The Horizon, where they also got Daryl from Glassjaw and Lil Uzi Vert on that track. When I first read that combination of artists out loud, I was like “ok, WHAT is going on, how the HELL is this gonna sound?”, but in the end, the song ended up being an absolute banger, and the “weird” combination of artists made it that much more hard-hitting, unique, and interesting. I’d love to do something like that someday, even if not with A-listers like Skrillex and Jennie (although one can always dream, haha).

15. What does success look like to Hei’An? Stadium shows, soundtrack placements, or something else?

Honestly, the biggest goal we have for this band right now is to get it to a point where we are big enough to be able to live off of this band’s revenue alone. I know I personally want to get this band to a level where I can only focus on this band, so my music, and my music alone, and write, record, produce and tour 24/7/365, and make at least enough money with it so I don’t need to worry about any day jobs, side hustles, fundin,g etc. while doing it. Especially with how saturated the scene is nowadays, this alone is proving to be an extremely difficult goal to achieve, but I know we’ll most definitely keep grinding and working on trying to keep improving all aspects of this band until we do eventually reach this goal. Beyond that, I’m sure we’ll keep “expanding” our goals when we finally start truly reaching the goals we have right now - and yes, stadium shows and soundtrack placements would for sure be some things that we’d love to achieve some day if possible, but I like to take things step-by-step, and the next step would be improving Hei’An’s financial viability to the point where the band becomes profitable enough so we can all focus on this band alone. Hope we can achieve this goal ASAP. I mean, none of us are doing this “because of money”, we are doing music because we LOVE it, that’s for sure, but the thing is.. This band is already taking up quite a bit of our time, especially for me, it takes up a lot of my time and energy (which I of course gladly “give”!), and it takes quite a lot of sacrifice and investments and whatnot, and I just know I will feel so relieved and proud of all of us when I can finally start focusing on Hei’An ONLY.. Can’t wait for that day to eventually come.

16. What’s one band or artist people wouldn’t expect you to listen to?

Well, I mentioned Skrillex and Jennie before, and I’m sure some people might find these to be pretty “unexpected”.. If I try to think of a few more (from various genres and styles, and in no particular order): Charli XCX, Aloboi, Immanuel Wilkins, Allday Project, Alex Hagen, Go_A, etc., just to name a few. I/we listen to too much different stuff to be able to choose just one “unexpected” band/artist, as so many would probably fit that criteria.

17. If your album were a movie, what genre would it be—and who would direct it?

Definitely psychological horror with a few drama elements and a story that’s inherently romantic, but in an at least slightly disturbing way. I’d love to have Mike Flanagan direct it; he seems like the perfect director for a movie with the characteristics I just described, and we are all HUGE fans of a lot of his work, especially “The Haunting of Hill House”, “The Haunting of Bly Manor”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. I’m well aware these are all TV shows and not movies, haha, but yeah, a MOVIE in that style with a story that kind of represented our album, that would be SICK.

18. You’re about to go on stage—what’s the last thing you do before walking out?

The very last thing we do before walking on stage, after all the endless warmups, drinking a lot of water, getting dressed in our stage outfits, etc., is always a band group hug. It’s just such a wholesome way of taking one final calm and quiet breather and further connecting with each other, before unleashing all the energy we’ve got on stage.