YXXAN
The furious YXXAN orchestra is by far the toughest band yet to enter the glorious halls of Hinsides fame. Residing in the royal capitol of Sweden this grinding force of mass destruction seems to aim their arsenal at every kind of social construction there is, and hence Hinsides Magazine had to pay a visit to the bunker in order to discuss the origin of this lethal weapon together with founder Morbid Aggressor.
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Hello there, and welcome to the trench that Hinsides has dug out for you to hide in during this hearing. Now make yourself comfy and get ready to seriously harm any misconception of what kind of division YXXAN is! First moving target to mow down demands to know how, when and why the band came to be?
- Thanks! Starting Yxxan was a result of me picking up an instrument again, after a few years’ pause and unsuccessful attempts to form punk bands, and getting interested in the idea of one-person black metal unit. I started writing music intended for my own one-woman black metal project in 2018 and viking-era Bathory was my biggest inspiration. But writing slow riffs and building epic atmosphere turned out to be not my thing so I stopped forcing it and started over.
And if you were to make a hand-grenade consisting of a crystal clear definition of your sound and concept; what would it say while detonating?
- Bestial abrasive hyperactive offense!
Your name YXXAN (The Axe) is both graphic and interpretable in a lot of different ways. Please unveil how it came to you and why you choose to run with it?
- It’s straight forward and looks good on the logo.
What would you say are the core influences of YXXAN? It both sounds and looks like as if YXXAN would be spawn out of inspiration from bands such as Beherit and their likes? Bands that nowadays are referred to as ”War-Metal”. Is this a fair conclusion or not? Would you mind telling us a little something about your relation to this kind of subversive music.
- It is correct, in addition, Beherit not only is one of my main inspirations but also a band through which I pretty much found out about War Metal. Other core influences are likely predictable too – Revenge, Blasphemy, Morbosidad, etc. Some maybe less conventinal influences are Iskra and grindcore bands in the style of Death Toll 80K, Insect Warfare.
But the release that is my single biggest source of inspiration for Yxxan and the record I look up to is Damaar – Triumph Through Spears Of Sacrilege demo. Whenever I get too distracted, listening to Damaar makes everything fall back to place. Enough with the name-dropping for now.
And on a more personal level; what is it with the kind of music that you make with YXXAN that appeals to you? What do you gain from making it?
- The energy and approach of this kind of black/death metal provides a constructive platform for my natural self-expression. This is especially important in the context of a one-woman project as opposed to a full band, without self sustainable motivation it would be easy to lose patience for me at least.
From looking at your song titles it seems like you are more interested in social questions than the history of war, right? Where does this engagement come from, and to whom do you adress your message? Do you think that your lyrics makes you stand out in the ”War-Metal” genre?
- War is a social issue and there’s much more to war and history of war than stuff like memorizing the names of World War II tanks. Initially, I wanted the lyrics of Yxxan to be strictly limited to anti-christianity and blaspheming of abrahamic nonsense in general but at some point while writing for the second demo, I became less careful with maintaining that consistency. Now I’m just keeping it hostile.
YXXAN is responsible for two strikes in the studio so far. Attacks that has resulted in two demo tapes of which the latter shows a distinct development towards a harder and tighter performance. Do you agree on this notion, and how would you describe the evolution of your band until this day?
- As a matter of fact, none of the demos were recorded in a studio – I recorded both of them myself in my rehearsal room. ”Satanic Fortification Overbalance” is indeed heavier and tighter, it was a natural progress from ”Inverterat Korståg”. Even though the ”mentality” behind Yxxan did not change, I realized that I’d like to avoid the ”one-person black metal” feeling in songwriting and sound in general because it takes away from how war metal should feel like to me.
Many technical improvements were present for ”Satanic Fortification Overbalance” too – better gear, better recording equipment, bass guitar… Finally, it was mixed by Andrew Lee from Ripped To Shreds, which added an extra layer of the right kind of harshness and overall quality.
Another important step was building a live lineup with session members on guitar, bass and vocals, and bringing Yxxan to the live stage. One show has taken place so far.
Are there any new material in the making and if so; what could we expect from it? It would be interesting to how you look upon the future of YXXAN?
- Right now, I’m focusing mostly on writing for the next release, which is going to be a full-length. Expect more adverse grinding. And there’s at least one live show planned in 2022, at Hell Over Hammaburg festival – unless carnists breed more diseases and it gets cancelled again.
Ok then, it seems like as if you´ve managed to survive the raid of impertinent questions all the way to the bitter end now.
Good work and good luck with everything!
You´ve just read an excerpt from an interview that will be printed on paper in the next issue of Hinsides Magazine. The first issue can be ordered here: