SoCal Rockers Haster Talk New Album ‘Isolation’
SoCal hard rock band Haster is back with their fourth studio album Isolation. The album comes on the heels of a worldwide quarantine marking the perfect occasion for its spontaneous release.
The seven-track album is the culmination of Haster‘s storied career. Seamlessly switching between emotional abys and guttural aggression this release should be in any metalhead’s collection. If you’re a fan of Chevelle, Three Days Grace, or Deftones, hop over to Spotify and check it out!
We asked Haster’s guitarist David Heida about the release and how the band’s creative process has changed over the years. You can check out the full interview below.
I love the new album Isolation. Do you have plans for any music videos?
Thanks! Really appreciate that! When we were originally planning on releasing “Isolation”, we released the lyric/Apple-emoji video for “Just Like Me”. Then with us all now living in different states/countries and everything happening in the world now, we thought about doing a Quarantine video too but we’ll see what we plan on doing later this year.
The band posted on Facebook about moving out of California. Where do members want to move to?
Anywhere that wasn’t California lol. In one way or another, each of us wanted out. Many personal reasons for us all but nothing because of the band. Pat was the first to move in December of 2018 to Portland where we have played many times. Andrew’s lease in Hollywood was up in early 2019 and without any tours happening at the moment with his many projects, he decided to move back home to Mexico City. I (David) around May 2019 started house hunting in Las Vegas (where I travel to many times a year already) and moved here in July of 2019. Jarret was on the same path as me with Vegas. His wife and him started looking at places and ended up buying a new construction build in late 2019 and will be moving in any day now.”
You also mentioned that Haster has a huge pile of unreleased music. Can fans expect an extended album or new content soon?
Definitely expect more music from us. During most of 2016-2018, we were writing and recording like Mad-Men. We thought about doing another giant album release like we did with Let It Go (14 songs) but releasing smaller albums turned into a smarter plan for us. Towards the end of 2018 when we released “Just Like Me”, our plans were to release 3, 7 Song albums. Isolation being the first batch of songs of the collection we wrote. “Soul will Break” was the first song we wrote during this period too. So expect more Haster music coming!”
We interviewed Haster way back in 2014. Has the band’s writing or recording process changed since then?
Technology is a huge part of our songwriting now. Early Haster songs were all written by us jamming in our lockouts or bringing a piece of music to practice or writing something on the spot with everyone and those would turn into songs. With the last two albums (The Current Sea, Isolation), it’s been more emailing back and forth. Working on ideas at home. Completing the songs, then bringing them to practice, jamming them together, and then recording them. In some cases too, some songs aren’t even finished before we hit the studio with our producer Chris Eck. And in some cases too, some new songs get stripped down and re-written in the studio. With technology, I feel we’re able to produce as much music as we desire. Sometimes it might be too much for us all to keep up lol
Isolation is the first album the band released without a Kickstarter right? Do you have any unique plans to connect with die-hard fans?
The Kickstarter didn’t feel right with everything going on today. There’s al of that goes behind those campaigns. People having some much more worry going on in today’s world, it didn’t feel right for us to get excited about meeting our “goal” of a campaign with people really needing their money for essential things at this time. It felt way more exciting to us to just release the new music for everyone to enjoy and be able to escape while listening to our music.
What have you guys been doing to stay busy during quarantine?
Work, Video Games, Movies, and a lot of BOOZE! lol.
Is there anything else you want to say to the readers of By the Barricade?
We hope everyone stays safe & healthy during this time. We will make it through this and I can’t wait to see everyone at a show again!! Thank you for all the years of support. We can’t thank you guys enough for everything you’ve done for us”
—
Keep it on Bythebarricade.com for tons of interviews, reviews, articles, and photos! Also, “Like” By the Barricade on Facebook to never miss a post.
