HKSPK - ''It is about what you bring back with you''
Jim ‘’HKSPK started in 2023. In the beginning, we simply wanted to make music together. There was no huge master plan behind it and certainly no idea that only a few years later we would already be talking about our second album.
‘’The name itself comes from what I would call an absurd and slightly questionable nominal compound. When we needed a band name, we basically threw together several words that came to mind and ended up with something that was probably much funnier to us than it would have been to anyone responsible for marketing.
‘’We were advised fairly quickly to stick with the abbreviation HKSPK.
‘’That was probably good advice (ha-ha).
‘’We like to keep the full meaning as a little mystery these days. Anyone curious enough will eventually find it through some research – and once they do, they will probably understand immediately why we kept the five letters.
“Heimkehr” is a short, sharp assault. What led to the intent behind it and its “return home”?
‘’The word “Heimkehr” – “homecoming” – sounds positive at first. You think of arriving somewhere safe, coming back home and leaving whatever happened behind you.
For us, it means almost the opposite.
‘’The artwork by Steffen Schmolke shows a wounded figure wrapped in bandages, leaning over a table and writing on those same bandages. The person has returned home, but the wounds are still there.
That image represents a lot of the album.
Many of the songs deal with war, loss, despair, memories or personal experiences. You can physically return to where you came from without actually being the same person who left.
So “Heimkehr” is not really about reaching safety. It is about what you bring back with you.
Musically, the album follows a similar path. It begins with the more direct, aggressive Death Metal songs and slowly moves towards darker and more atmospheric Black Metal. Almost like the difference between the battle itself and what happens afterwards.
There are a variety of different influences. Does each song require something different, or have those influences developed over time?
‘’Probably both. We never sit down and decide that the next song needs to be 40 percent Black Metal, 30 percent Death Metal and another 30 percent Hardcore.
‘’That calculation would probably go badly anyway (ha-ha).
‘’Usually there is a riff, a melody or a rhythm first. We develop it and see where it wants to go. If something works, we keep it. If a Punk or Hardcore part fits into a Black Metal song, there is no reason for us to remove it just because somebody might think it belongs to another genre.
‘’Of course, our influences have grown over time as well.
‘’We listen to very different kinds of extreme music, so eventually all of that ends up somewhere in your head. When we write, we do not really think about where each individual influence comes from anymore.
‘’The only important question is whether the three of us think it sounds like HKSPK.
What is it about “Rot In Despair” and its agony?
“Rot In Despair” is probably one of the clearest examples of music becoming a kind of outlet for us.
‘’The basic musical idea is actually very simple. The verse is essentially built around two chords, but during the writing process we realised that adding more and more would only make the song weaker.
The repetition became part of the feeling.
‘’It creates this weight and almost uncomfortable sense of being stuck in something.
That fits the subject very well.
Music has always been a way for us to preserve stories we experienced ourselves or heard about from people close to us. With “Heimkehr”, that became much more important than on previous releases.
In a way, some of these songs work like diary entries.
Only considerably louder ones.
What impact do war and violence have on HKSPK? Is creating music a way of creating something positive from something negative?
‘’War and violence appear quite often in our lyrics, but we are not interested in glorifying either of them. What interests us much more is what happens to people because of them. The injuries, the memories and especially what remains afterwards.
‘’That is probably one of the central ideas behind “Heimkehr”. The beginning of the album can almost represent the state of somebody before and during a battle: direct, violent and aggressive. Towards the end, the songs become more atmospheric and focus more on what comes afterwards.
‘’If something positive comes from that, then maybe it is the fact that music gives those thoughts somewhere to go. You take something ugly, frightening or painful and turn it into something creative.
‘’It does not make the original thing positive, but it gives it another form.
Apart from the savagery, there is also black humour and touches of melody?
‘’Definitely.
The humour is very important to us, even though it takes a little break on parts of “Heimkehr”. We have become more serious in some areas of our lives and that naturally affected the lyrics. But there is absolutely no fear that this so-called “HKSPK humour” will disappear. We recently spent four days together at Party. San Open Air – unfortunately only as visitors – and we were anything but serious there (ha-ha).
Concerts and everything surrounding them usually provide excellent material for future absurd songs. “White Secretions II” is probably the best example on this album.
On the other hand, melody has become increasingly important as well. Especially towards the second half of “Heimer”, we allowed the songs much more space and atmosphere.
For us, brutality works even better when it has something to contrast with.
Your music seems to be in continual evolution. Are there no boundaries?
‘’We do not consciously set many boundaries.
Of course, there are things that simply would not sound like HKSPK anymore, but we usually discover that while writing rather than deciding it beforehand.
We definitely want to develop our songwriting, arrangements and lyrics.
At the same time, we do not want to forget where we came from musically.
Evolution does not mean that everything you did before suddenly becomes wrong.
Sometimes you learn something new and add it. Sometimes you realise that the stupid simple riff you would have written three years ago is still exactly what the song needs.
The songs decide quite a lot for us.
How important is it to create music that leads people to question themselves and the environment around them?
‘’We are not trying to write songs that tell people what they are supposed to think.
That would probably be incredibly annoying. But if somebody listens to a song and starts thinking about the subject afterwards, that is great. A listener may even come to a completely different interpretation than we had while writing it.
For us, that is not a misunderstanding.
‘’Once a song is released, it no longer belongs only to the people who wrote it. Somebody may hear it during a completely different situation in their own life and connect it to something we never intended.
If music can cause that kind of reaction, then it has probably achieved more than simply sounding good for four minutes.
Does that also include the rawness of your music – expression that feels true and genuine without the need for studio polish or added effects?
''Yes. We recorded, mixed and mastered “Heimkehr” ourselves in Room13, and of course modern technology allows you to correct almost everything.
You can move every drum hit, correct every small timing difference and polish the guitars until they are practically perfect.
‘’But perfect does not automatically mean better. There are moments on the album that we technically could have corrected, but we deliberately left them alone because the songs lost energy when everything became too clean.
Since “Holy Scum” and especially “The Human Butcher”, we have learned a lot about recording and production. We wanted “Heimkehr” to sound better, but not sterile.
A guitar should still sound like somebody actually played it. At least most of the time (haha).
What led you to the extreme side of music, and what is its importance to you not only as a genre but as a means of expression?
‘’Extreme music gives you an enormous range of possibilities.
You can express aggression very directly, but you can also create sadness, atmosphere, desperation or even humour without suddenly leaving the genre.
That is probably what attracts us most. A distorted guitar and extreme vocals can sound brutal, but they can also carry something incredibly emotional.
For us, Black and Death Metal are therefore not only about being as heavy or fast as possible.
‘’They are tools. Sometimes a song needs blast beats. Sometimes it needs two chords repeating for what feels like forever. Sometimes it apparently needs a story about a completely disastrous night involving far too much alcohol.
‘’We have room for all of that.
Top 6 albums of all time?
‘’Reducing it to six is already difficult enough, but these are definitely records that left their mark on us:
Ellende – “Ellbogengesellschaft”
Minenwerfer – “Alpenpässe”
Bearded Bastard – “Beardhammer”
Nargaroth – “Black Metal Ist Krieg”
Akrea – “Lebenslinie”
Hatebreed – “Supremacy”
Those albums are very different from each other, which probably explains quite a lot about us.
There is atmosphere, melody, traditional Black Metal, Death Metal influences, Hardcore energy and music that simply punches you directly in the face.
Throw all six into a blender, add a few questionable decisions and three guys from Brandenburg.
You might end up somewhere close to HKSPK.
Maybe.
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