Now Reading: 🤘 Interview with Dan & Vlad Of Hooker Spit | MikeOnMetal Interview #4
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🤘 Interview with Dan & Vlad Of Hooker Spit | MikeOnMetal Interview #4
In this episode of MikeOnMetal, I sit down with Dan and Vlad from Hooker Spit — one of Alberta’s most intense and exciting melodic death metal bands. We get into the gritty details behind the band’s formation, the story behind their unforgettable name, and what’s coming next for their discography.
We talk:
- The early days of Hooker Spit and how the band came together
- What inspired the name and how people react to it
- Behind-the-scenes insight into their current album and what’s next
- The evolution of their sound and their vision for future releases
AND we have a hell of a lot of fun along the way
If you’re into underground Canadian metal, brutal live shows, and unfiltered band stories, you’re gonna love this one. 🎧 Whether you’re a fan already or just discovering them now — this is Hooker Spit raw, real, and ready.
Interview Transcript:
Introduction
Mike: Welcome back to another interview, metalheads. This time I’m talking with Dan and Vlad from the band Hooker Spit. Hooker Spit is a melodic death metal band out of Red Deer, Alberta. This time we talk about the band’s origins, how the name came to be, we get into details about their current album “Crotch Splitter,” as well as their upcoming release – but they wouldn’t share too many details with me on that one. You’ll also want to stick around to the end of the video to find out who their musical influences are, and that might surprise you.
If you’re new here, my name is Mike Picket. I run everything to do with Mike on Metal, including the Mike on Metal website, the Threads feed, and the Instagram account. So if you’re enjoying the content that I’m posting, much more to come – hit the like button, drop a comment below, let me know what you’d like to see or who you’d like me to talk to, see if I can make it happen.
All right, flames up, let’s get to the interview.
Band History
Mike: So I mean, to start with, why don’t you give me a little history of the band? Now I’ll give you – from what I understand, it started in Yellowknife roughly about 10 years ago, and then Vlad moved to Red Deer, met with somebody there that said the project shouldn’t die, it’s something that needs to be brought out to life, and that’s kind of where the story really sort of took hold and became what it is today.
Dan: Yeah, so Hooker Spit was definitely a completely different iteration. None of the songs that we still have even sound remotely familiar to how they were played and presented. Everything was sort of… what’s the word I’m looking for… recomposed. Everything was sort of recomposed.
I met Vlad at a Sebastian Bach concert. Well, actually originally I met him at Lamb of God very briefly, but when I really got to meet him and hang out with him was at Sebastian Bach. It was a great show – he played “Liquor and Whores,” it was awesome.
And then he came back to my friend’s house. We had a mutual buddy Ryan – he has since passed away from cancer – but both me and Ryan were like, “Dude, there’s some good gold in here. It needs to get moved around and adjusted, but the core of what’s here is really awesome, so maybe don’t let it die just yet.”
And then Ryan had originally joined as the new drummer. Funny enough, Ryan originally did not think I should be the singer until I tried out and he was like, “Holy shit.” Because I was playing in a thrash metal band with him, right? And he was very directed in how I should do my singing, and he’s just like, “Yeah, I don’t know if he’s got it in him.” And then he heard me and he was like, “Okay yeah, no no no, this is how it should be.”
Mike: Nice.
Dan: Yeah, so Ryan passed away, and we went through a couple different iterations. I mean, that’s the beauty of life – it’s fleeting, unfortunately. And then we went through some multiple iterations of different members until we had something solid that we were willing to work with, and then we’ve just been moving forward from there. It’s been a really great experience so far.
And now we’re here. After COVID, we kind of exploded. So that was the big thing – we just really didn’t want to push out a turd. We really wanted to come out with something that was polished and make a bang when we first hit the scene. So we took that time to really plan on how we were going to present ourselves, our aesthetic, how we wanted the music to feel, how we wanted the live experience to feel.
Mike: Nice, nice. You put in the time while you… I mean, it was a smart move to do, right? Because I think there’s a lot of bands that probably didn’t do that – they just kind of took COVID as a break, whereas you guys sound like you put the work in.
Dan: We’re always working. The boys are behind me right now folding t-shirts. That’s awesome, that’s crazy – on a Sunday, right? And I mean, you’re here too on a Sunday, so I appreciate that.
The Band Name
Mike: Now, melodic death metal bands – I mean, we look at the names that we’ve got out there and they’re always related to like gore and death and coffins and all this kind of stuff, and you guys come out with Hooker Spit. And I went digging on this to try and find the origin of the name, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So how did Hooker Spit the name come to be?
Vlad: [joining the conversation] Hey Mike! Nice shirt!
Mike: Thank you, yeah, got to represent.
Dan: So there’s a couple different stories that we tell people about the name of Hooker Spit. If you want the real scoop… can I tell them the real scoop?
Vlad: [laughs]
Dan: It was basically what it was. And then we just tried to embrace it as much as we could. So I don’t know if you’ve noticed any sort of parallel with late ’90s, early 2000s skate culture?
Mike: Okay.
Dan: But there’s definitely that energy on the shirt that you were currently wearing, for sure. So that’s kind of what we really wanted to embody. It’s the things that we grew up loving – me and Vlad really bonded on anime as well as skateboarding and death metal, and we just wanted to really combine those aesthetics in a fun and fresh way.
So there’s like some punk rock energy in there too, you know, that “let’s party, let’s have a good time” – that’s why all the colors are nice and vibrant.
Mike: Very… I mean, you stand out.
Dan: Yeah, that’s exactly it. We don’t want just like a bunch of red and black and white and that’s it. It just doesn’t pop the same way, you know?
Mike: Right, yeah. And it’s funny because… like John Barbas – I don’t know if you know John Barbas from Heavy Metal Philosophy?
Dan: I don’t know John Barbas.
Mike: He’s a guy in the YouTube heavy metal scene. But he just brought it up that so much of death metal these days just blends, right? The album covers all look the same, the bands are all starting to sound the same. So I mean, I think what you guys have done is you’ve kind of made yourselves stand out.
Dan: Oh yeah, we’ve definitely made ourselves stand out. That was a calculated move for sure. It’s like Cannibal Corpse has already been doing it – they’ve been doing it since the late ’80s, and everybody kind of fell into that sort of aesthetic. And I mean, that’s all well and good, but if you consider what’s probably one of the biggest up-and-coming metal bands right now – they don’t play in our genre, but one of my favorite current bands is Electric Callboy, and they blend so many different aesthetics and it just makes them so engaging.
We seen anime was really starting to make a comeback, and it was one of those subjects where people don’t exactly ridicule you for watching anime anymore. So we’re like, “You know what? This would be a good time to cash in on that culture that’s starting to pick up.”
Mike: Yeah, I mean, it’s what attracted me to the shirt, right?
Dan: Yeah, exactly. And you know, there’s something to be said for shirts that people want to wear, because a t-shirt is a form of free marketing. We want people to feel engaged to wear our artwork and want to be like, “Yeah, you know, you see that Hooker Spit? They’re crazy.”
Live Performance Stories
Mike: I saw the singer punch himself so hard in the head that his bracelet exploded on stage. So there’s a story there.
Dan: Yeah, that happened. So Devon had given me this lovely bracelet from Mexico, and I wore it every single day. But at our Starlight show, I ended up punching myself in the head so hard the bracelet completely exploded into pieces. And I was after the show like, “Damn it, I’m sorry, but our friendship bracelet is no more.” It just exploded everywhere – I don’t know if some ended up in the crowd or what, but it was pretty wild.
Mike: Did anybody get it on video?
Vlad: Yeah, actually we had that entire show recorded by Obsene Productions. We’re just waiting to get back the footage from them, and that’s going to be our first professional sort of live video. We’re going to try and squeeze some home video stuff in there.
Mike: Nice, yeah. That sounds like the old Pantera “Pantera 3” was one of my favorite heavy metal videos from back in the day.
Dan: Hell yeah.
Vlad: It kind of gives you a vibe of what it’s like to be hanging out with us for an evening.
Mike: You guys put on a great show. I mean, I saw you here in Lethbridge, of course, where I got the t-shirt. But just energy right from start to finish – you guys just don’t let up. And there’s so many bands that they kind of have that sort of mid-tempo song to kind of give them a break, and I don’t recall that with you guys. At least I think it was just high energy right from start to finish.
Dan: Yeah, I make a joke about “The Huntsman” song because the intro is a little slow, and I try to make it all flappy like “this one’s for the ladies,” try to do like a Zakk Wylde thing with that one. And then it just kicks in and it’s like a rocket.
Recording Process and New Album
Mike: So you guys are in the process of recording a follow-up, right? You’ve got “Crotch Splitter” that came out in 2023. So now are you guys actively in the studio right now, or are you just kind of in the songwriting phase?
Dan: A little bit of A, a little bit of B. We have completed songs, and then we also have songs that we need to complete so we can get the train rolling. We don’t like pushing out turds, like I said earlier. It’s much better to take the time and have something be a valuable contribution rather than just pushing out as many okay songs.
We’re not grinding for… that’s also why we stay away from trying to push out singles. Like, you know, we write a new song, we’re excited about it, it’s like we got to wait for the album. And then we release a nice final finished product. We don’t want to do anything less than “Crotch Splitter” going forward. We want at least seven songs, lots of shredding, small-face showcase, vinyl, all that stuff. Make it feel premium, like it’s an artifact.
Like, we’re doing this because we love it, so we want to put in the love, and we want that to be felt. And I think that not pushing out a bunch of singles is good too. Like, there’s times when you’re sitting on a song and you’re like, “Ah, this is awesome.” But if you play it live and people really respond well to it, wicked. Also, when you’re playing live, sometimes somebody might put a little diddle in the wrong place, and you’re like, “Hey, I didn’t think of that. That’s really good. Let’s actually revisit this when we get back to the studio and see how that sounds.”
Vlad: And we’re also fortunate in that regard with… I own the studio downstairs in our jam space. So pretty much anytime anything comes up, I pop open the software, I’m like, “All right boys, let’s lay it out, let’s see how it sounds played back to us.”
Mike: Nice. So there’s no having to book studio time or anything – just whenever the inspiration hits, you’re there and ready to go.
Vlad: Yeah, I’ve done that in the past, and it’s nice being your own producer. It’s great getting a sound engineer in when you’re trying to do your final recordings. We have our buddy Levi Jones – he came in after we finished recording all the “Crotch Splitter” stuff and just kind of put all the stems together and gave it one final quality control.
And honestly, it saved us a lot of money. Time-wise, it sucks for us because we have to wear very many different hats, but hey, it’s like a $5,000 to $10,000 expense we don’t have to pay at the end of the day.
Dan: And seriously expensive. Like, in past projects I’ve done that, and you’ve got a guy in there who maybe has a different vision and can’t really see what you’re working towards. And then it’s sort of like an uphill battle to convince him that what you’re doing has merit, but you’re paying him by the hour.
My first producer was this guy who mostly recorded classical music, and I was in a punk rock band at the time. So you can only imagine how those ideologies would conflict.
Mike: Like oil and water. Worlds apart, exactly.
Songwriting Process
Mike: Recording process now – you said that you’ve got the studio in the basement. It’s kind of a process that I like to get involved in, that I like to hear about. Do you guys start with vocals and then write riffs around the vocals? Do you start with a riff and write the lyrics afterwards? Like, does the music come together first? What’s your process?
Vlad: Pretty much I come up with all the riffs. Bass player sits down with me and helps me a bit with transitions and kind of laying everything out. Then once we have finished the rough schematic of it, we do some improv drums on the program, we present that to the drummer and the other guitar player for them to figure out harmonies and ways to spice up my basic-ass drum beats.
And yeah, then when we have a song we’re comfortable with, we bring it to Dan, and Dan lays down the lyrics on top of it.
Dan: Yeah, I kind of listen to how the music is. I mean, I contribute to the composition element of it – like, “Oh, there should be a stop here,” or “Hey, I think we should play that part one more time.” There’s some light polishing that happens before he gets to the actual…
Vlad: Well, maybe a riff can go for another measure or two and stuff like that. Space is an important conversation because everybody’s playing all the time – it’s not grindcore, remember.
Dan: Yeah, like our “Mattress Actress” that we started testing out on this touring cycle got caught off by surprise – this three-minute song with a minute and a half solo.
Vlad: Yeah, because in the version that I got, he didn’t include the part where he goes “and the solo starts here.” So I had everything written, and I was just like, “Oh, okay, well I’ll move some stuff around.” He’s like, “Oh, it doesn’t need it.” I’m like, “No, nope, this is the song – we need a song that has just like half the song’s a solo.” And what better song than a three-minute song? Why not?
And honestly, we don’t ever really want to break the four-minute mark, because then, I mean, especially in today’s day and age, everybody’s in the scrolling culture. You listen to something for 10 seconds, and either it hooks you or it doesn’t.
And even myself, I think there’s like one seven-minute song from Iron Maiden that I like out there, but they drag on. And if you’re going to make a seven-minute song, make that like a unique song in the discography where you’re like, “Oh, you remember when they did that epic song?” Like, it just stands out. Then it’s not like every song is seven minutes.
And we try not to repeat riffs too much – kind of do the proggy thing. Some songs, the riffs are worth coming back to, like “White Lighter” and “Crotch Splitter.” But you know, you listen to “Flesh Beast,” “Call of the Void’s” got it a little bit too, but they’re diverse.
And then once all that’s kind of hammered out, I kind of lay back and listen to the track and kind of envision some sort of thematic concept for the song, and then everything kind of gets sewn in.
The way that I sing, I would say is it’s melodic, but it’s also percussive in nature. So it’s either going off of the melody of the song, or it has its unique melody, or it goes along with the rhythm section in certain parts as well – just whatever the song calls for, or the feeling that’s trying to be communicated.
New Album Details
Mike: So how many are written for the new album?
Dan: The magic number is going to be seven.
Mike: Yeah, and they’re in the can, or are you still working on everything?
Vlad: We got four, got another three that we want to make peace with. There’s some real powerful riffs that have been kicking around – some of them have been kicking around since “Crotch Splitter” was being recorded. And yeah, the time has come.
Dan: Just some lightning in the bottle sort of stuff, you know.
Mike: So I mean, two big trends that we’re seeing right now in metal – which I mean, a couple of these have been around for decades, but we’re seeing kind of a resurgence of them now – is guest vocalists, guest musicians, and kind of unique instruments. Like, there was a death metal album I can’t remember the name of the band, but I just listened to it yesterday, just released on Friday, and just out of nowhere there’s like a 30-second saxophone solo that’s got distortion on it. Anything like that in your guys’ new album?
Vlad: Not definitely not planned, that’s for sure. We want to stay faithful to the sound of the first album and not pull a “Black Album” on everybody. It’s just sort of a natural progression, you know. Like, obviously if you sit down and listen to your discography at the end of the day, once we’re all done and old and getting sponge baths, you’ll hear a natural progression. But we don’t want anything to be incredibly dramatic.
No Effects kind of has been playing the same music for 30 years, and people love him, right? They’re like the AC/DC of punk rock. They work, right? They’re still drawing crowds. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Mike: What, without revealing anything – I mean, you can if you want to – but is there a single track that you’re most excited about on the new album?
Dan: Oh, you’re gonna have to wait.
Mike: Okay.
Dan: Because I’ll be very vocal about it once it’s out, but you’ll have to wait.
Mike: What kind of timeline are we looking at?
Dan: Well, we do all have lives and full-time jobs. At the soonest, you can expect to get your hands on it next summer. At the latest… Gorgon timeline… well, at the soonest you could expect it next summer, at the latest you could expect it spring of ’27. We’re hoping to get it all going sooner than later, but we want to push out something that we’re proud of.
That’s just it too, because we don’t want to put out a half-baked product. So if it takes a bit more time, then it’s an itch, but at least we get to sleep well at night after we release it.
I’ve always been a “when it’s done” kind of attitude. Like, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a “Duke Nukem Forever” when it’s done, but if it takes the time, it takes the time.
And like, you know, “Crotch Splitter” has been out for two years now, and I listen back to it and I don’t hear anything that I’d want to change. I’m damn proud of that album, man.
Mike: That’s awesome. Good to hear. I love it. I mean, I still put it on, right? I’ve got it – I’ve got it on vinyl here. I bought it from you guys when I was at the show. It stays in my studio here, so I’ve got it close. So it’s a great album.
Vlad: If you got a black light, it looks pretty cool when it spins.
Mike: Oh, shit, yeah, actually.
Vlad: Yeah, the blue light – it looks damn good, starts glowing and shit.
Dan: There’s definitely love put into every single thing we do. It’s calculated, it’s controlled. Like, there’s a round table meeting, even if it’s just me and Vlad. Anything we do, there’s a conversation to be had. It’s not just like, “Oh yeah, good enough, all right, cool.” There’s definitely a quality standard we want to meet with ourselves, most importantly, because we don’t want to put out no dollar store items.
Like, even our long sleeves – I don’t know if you noticed that there’s individuated art specifically for it. It’s not like some little wiggle tribal signs on the side or anything like that. It’s our logo and then that little bat with a bra on his head.
And currently, we’re just in the process of getting more Hooker Spit ladies. We want to get a whole Disney princess lineup of them.
Mike: That’s awesome. I love that.
Dan: Yeah, we want a Hooker Spit girl for every occasion. New tour, new Hooker Spit girl. New album, new Hooker Spit girl. New t-shirt, new Hooker Spit girl.
Art and Branding
Mike: I’m really hoping that we’ll be able to do a “Loud as Hell” edition at some point and have like a sort of “Cadillacs and Dinosaurs”…
Vlad: Actually, our artist is very enticed by that as well. She’s a huge dinosaur fan. Got the whole car collection, basically. She’s been collecting the toy cars since like ’93 when the first one came out, and got boxes and boxes of them, man. It’s crazy.
And we’ve got a sort of Iron Maiden thing going on with our artist. We love her, she loves us. We have a bit of an exclusivity deal with her doing our art. I’ve known her for about half my life at this point, and we’ve been great friends. And honestly, there’s nobody else I’d rather get to do the art, and the contract doesn’t even bother me – it puts a smile on my face.
We know everything that’s kind of come from her is top-notch quality. We’re going to be happy with… We get DMs all the time with artists being like, “Hey, could I do art for you guys?” And we’re like, “No, probably not, sorry. It’s nothing personal, but we got our person.”
And like, even the Hooker Spit logo – we didn’t… we told her that we wanted it to look cool and rounded and kind of like street art, but we didn’t give her much to go off of. And that’s what she came back with us, and it was pretty much like a branding package. And Dan and I looked at each other when we got it, and we’re like, “Shit, man, that’s it. That is our brand now.” Looks like it’s spray-painted on a wall, but it also looks like slime, which I’m totally down for.
Dan: It fits the whole “spit” portion of the name, right?
Vlad: Yeah, I feel like Hooker Spit could even exist as a band in the Ninja Turtles universe, you know, in greasy New York. That’s kind of the vibe – ’90s skate culture, you know.
Festival Experiences
Mike: So you brought up “Loud as Hell,” and it’s funny because actually one of the videos that I watched of you guys was an interview with Nate Trash from 2022 “Loud as Hell.”
Dan: Oh yeah, we didn’t play that one. We didn’t even play that one – we’re just hanging out.
Mike: Oh, really? Okay.
Vlad: Yeah, we played the next few, right? We were just planting seeds, man. We went out, we handed out stickers, and then the year after that, we made the cut. We literally made the cut – we’re the last name on the bottom right of the poster.
We were just excited that we didn’t have to do the kickoff event – that we were the main part of the main event. Usually more bands… you either… or you got to play one of the fundraisers, you got to do something for the “Loud as Hell” family. And we very much lucked out in that regard, and it was awesome.
That was, I think, to this day, that’s the best show we ever sold. We got paid like, I think we got paid a hundred bucks for playing it, but we made like $3,500 in merch. Like, that’s crazy – everybody was walking around with a Hooker Spit shirt.
And there’s something special about it. And our slot was… we played at noon on a Saturday – “Hooker Spit Pancake Breakfast with Hooker Spit.” And we were expecting like maybe 20 hungover people eating pancakes and syrup, kind of nodding their heads, you know. And we ended up getting the full treatment, man. It was like three-quarters of the festival showed up there. It was unbelievable.
We felt really bad for the next two, three bands that played after us. It really solidified that we were doing something special, because there were people that were coming all the way from Winnipeg, and they were like, “Yeah, but I came specifically to hear you guys.” And just hearing stuff like that, it’s like, “Okay.”
We had one guy from Toronto was like, “What the fuck?”
It always weirds me out. Like, a buddy of ours was like, “Oh yeah, I was in Germany and I saw a guy with a Hooker Spit shirt.” And we were like, “Wow. Okay. Yay.”
Vlad: We got a bit lucky in the international department. I used to go on 70,000 Tons of Metal lots, and I made a lot of international friends on that boat that I’d go visit over the years. Catch Wacken or Summer Breeze, you name it, with them. Just definitely makes travel easier when you know somebody there. And yeah, no, they’ve been… some of those friends have been so kind as to support us and our endeavors.
Mike: That’s amazing. So any plans of going to “Loud as Hell” this year?
Vlad: We’re not on the roster. Just our guitar player’s going.
Dan: It’s up in the air for me. I just started a new career, and schedule-wise, this would be the first one that I missed since I started going years ago. I’m not… I’d be going myself, but I’m off to New Brunswick with the girlfriend – little R&R on the East Coast. There’s a high chance that if I have that weekend off, though, you’ll definitely see me there.
Mike: Okay. It’s my first one, so…
Dan: Oh, nice. First time – you’re gonna enjoy it. Yeah, honestly, out of all the festivals in Western Canada, “Loud as Hell” is the one to show up for. The heat can be killer, you might get a windstorm, you might get some rain, but it’s just so well put together, and it feels like you’re at a real event. Almost like throwback to the Heavy Montreal days – not quite on that level, but it’ll get there in 10 years.
You got pretty fair skin, though, so make sure that you wear some sunscreen.
Mike: Man, I will be crispy in like an hour.
Dan: Now, if you get a chance, go ahead – there’s an amazing East Coast food truck, and they serve deep-fried pepperoni. You got to hit that shit up. It’s so good. And the donair is really good too. Actually better than the ones I’ve had in Halifax, really.
Musical Influences
Mike: The reason I actually brought up the interview was that Dan, you had mentioned a band in that interview that you were… I wouldn’t say upset, but you wished was still together – was Three Inches of Blood. And then the next year, they actually started up again and reformed. So I was wondering if you were going this year so that we could maybe give you a few other bands that have broken up or that are no longer making music that you could predict for next year, so we could see some bands getting revival.
Dan: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I got to do it for the cause. Adam predictions. I got to do it for the cause, absolutely. If it can come through, then why not?
Mike: Okay, so if you’re there, I’m going to come find you, or shoot me a DM and let me know you’re there so I can come and find you, and we can get it on video, and we can get some bands that maybe reform again for next year.
Dan: Like, when Trevor Strnad passed away, I was like, “This sucks, I want them to get back together.” And then Brian was like, “Fuck it, I’m doing the vocals.” I’m not taking credit for that, but it happened.
And they did amazing, by the way. They did a really good job. When I caught them… I didn’t get to catch Three Inches of Blood, unfortunately, because there was a blizzard the night that they were playing in Edmonton. We were supposed to go.
Mike: That sucks. That’s shitty. I saw them in Red Deer years ago.
Local Metal Scene
Mike: So what’s the scene like in Red Deer? How… like, Lethbridge is… I mean, we’re getting there, it’s starting to build, but it’s taking some time, right? I mean, it’s still not where it should be. I mean, we’re a city of 120,000, 115,000. So I think you guys are quite a bit bigger than us, but what’s the metal scene like in Red Deer?
Dan: Red Deer came out of COVID swinging. And I mean, you got the guys at Proud Dad’s Productions – they pretty much do all the shows for the… it’s bumping, man. We’re surprised… when we played Red Deer this last tour, we didn’t perform for a regular crowd – it was all a new generation of metalheads we seen out there.
So that was surprising. We also had to play the day after Art of Attrition played, so that was a hard one to follow up, and we still had a full room.
Vlad: There’s… I don’t think there’s ever been a show that we played in Red Deer where it wasn’t a phenomenal turnout.
Dan: No, there’s one – April 1st, I think it was in ’22. But everybody thought… don’t ever announce a show on April 1st. Everybody will think it’s a joke. We, with Time Raising the Ruins… that was the only flop we had in Red Deer. I mean, in the last four years, we’ve probably played there about 10, 12 times. Has it been that many times?
Vlad: Yeah.
Dan: And out of all those shows, one flop is… that’s really good. And that was before we even had merch, so we didn’t even really feel it.
Final Question: Musical Influences
Mike: I got one last question for you. This is kind of my question that I ask everybody that I’m going to be interviewing. So you guys are a melodic death metal band. Outside of that genre, what would you say is the genre that has influenced either Dan for you, the vocals, Vlad for you, the music, or even just as a whole for the band? What genre had the most influence?
Vlad: I mean, shit, man, if it wasn’t for Pantera, I would have never started playing guitar. So I’ll say groove metal.
Dan: I’d say probably punk rock for me. The self-awareness, the philosophical elements of punk rock. We’re not talking about sad boy, you know, Midwest stuff, but a lot of the bands that I grew up with were very forward-thinking, were very self-aware, you know. Like Bad Religion, No Effects even – I mean, that didn’t help with his drug addiction, but he was aware in other ways, you know. And let’s not forget the OG: Miley Cyrus.
Mike: I’m a Katy Perry guy myself.
Dan: Okay, perfect, good.
We do love all types of music.
Mike: That’s good, that’s good. I’ve run the gamut. I mean, I did my rap years, I did my top 40 years, and I mean, at 50, just before 50, I returned back to metal, and I’m just… I’m fully into the metal scene again. And just…
Dan: Welcome back, welcome back, Mike.
Mike: Yeah, happy to be home.
Closing
Mike: We’re gonna be happy to come back to Lethbridge again.
Dan: What’s that? We’re gonna be happy to come back to Lethbridge again.
Mike: Can’t wait to see you guys again. Looking forward to it. Hopefully before the new album, but if we have to wait till 2027, we’re happy to.
Dan: I mean, worst case scenario, you’re just going to get a taste of the album before it’s out.
Mike: That works. That works too. We’re down for that.
Dan: Yep, cool, cool.
Mike: Well, honestly, I appreciate you guys. Dan, thank you for scheduling this. Vlad, nice to have you pop in on it – totally unexpected but really appreciate it.
Dan: Oh yeah, man, awesome.
Mike: So yeah, I mean, we’re looking forward to the new album. I’ll be sharing details on the channel with everybody and through all of my different feeds and everything. As you guys release information, let me know about it, and I’ll make sure to get it out to the masses for you.
Dan: Badass. Thank you so much for having us, man.
Mike: You bet. Okay, appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day, you guys.
Dan: Thank you. Okay, cheers.
Outro
Mike: So that was Vlad and Dan from the band Hooker Spit. I had a really good time talking with these guys. I can’t wait to see them play live again and just catch up with them once their new album comes out. I’ll post more details about that here on the channel once I know about it. I’ll also post it over on my Threads account.
So that’s it for this one, metalheads. As always, support your local scene, buy the damn album, and stay heavy.
