Destiny Strikes With PAUL LEWIS From HIDDEN INTENT

Interview by Kris Peters
Adelaide thrash metal outfit Hidden Intent have never tried to hide
their influences. In fact, they have always worn them more as a
badge of honour, an unmistakable pointer to their roots past,
present and future.
Playing a brand of 80s-throwback thrash metal - a form of music
that wholly embraces its American and European roots in the Bay
Area, Scandinavian and Teutonic thrash scenes - Hidden Intent have
sprinkled just enough Australian flavour into the mix to cast very
much their own DNA through a genre of music that is notoriously
known for shunning any deviation from the normal.
After years of toiling on the live circuit here in Australia, the
rest of the world has finally succumbed to the brutality of Hidden
Intent, earning the band a spot at Wacken Open Air on top of
countless shows on foreign soil. And if you think their last album
Dead End Destiny was the one that firmly swept the door ajar, then
wait until you see what their next offering, Terrorform, will
deliver when released on Friday, March 21.
HEAVY caught up with drummer Paul Lewis to talk more.
"I think every album's a little bit different overall," he
measured. "And this one's certainly different from the previous
ones. I think there was a lot of anger on this album. It's
certainly a darker one for us, and it comes through with the tunes.
The process was a little bit different overall, but we've been flat
out, and it's been a mad rush to get it done. We're a band that
needs deadlines, so we kind of booked everything in. It's like 'you
have to be done by this time or else it's not going to make it'. So
we've just got over that mad rush, and now we're doing the launch
on Friday."
"It's definitely our most broad album we've ever done," he
continued. "And, like I said, there's a lot of anger on this album.
It's faster. It's heavier, but it's also lighter as well. There's a
couple of acoustic things in there, which we have done a little bit
of before, but not, I guess, to this extent. So on every album, we
like to sort of widen our lane a little bit more. We're always
going to be a thrash band. We're never going to veer away from
that. It seems like every album, we like to just push that boundary
just a little bit more to grow and to keep our fans guessing as
well. Which is pretty hard."
In the full interview, Paul explained that the writing process was
shaped by both positive and negative experiences, including
personal losses within the band. He went into more detail about the
title track, Terrorform, which features a guest appearance from
Guillermo Izquierdo, the temptations of rehashing Dead End Destiny
because they know it worked, the play on words that makes up the
album title, this weekend's double album launch with Headbore and
more.


Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.