It’s almost impossible to read a Hookworms-related article without the mention of some psych-behemoth in a comparative form but ‘Pearl Mystic’ probably paid more heed to the contemporary cosmic haze of Pure X than it did Spacemen 3. It opened up a side to them that hadn’t – and, most interestingly, still really hasn’t – been seen by the band in a live environment. What ‘Pearl Mystic’ did was split the scope and potential of the band wide-open. The ferocious, life-sucking vortex of ‘Preservation’ will strip paint and burn through sound-desks, but in the context of the album it is sandwiched between two of the albums finest but slowest moments: the dense, atmospheric groove of ‘Since We Had Changed’ and the lullaby-like ‘What We Talk About’.
The band has proved that knocking out psych-stompers comes easily to them and of the nine songs on their debut only three really fit into that category. ‘Pearl Mystic’ is a bold record; one that’s spent the year challenging peoples’ perceptions of Hookworms before they even fully had chance to establish one.
“We had absolutely no idea if [‘Pearl Mysic’] was any good,” recalls SS, one of the band’s two guitarists, thinking back to the album’s February release. “I remember doing an interview before it came out and just having no idea of the kind of reception it was likely to get.”
“I was worried too because it had a lot of slow burners on it,” says MJ, keyboardist, singer and producer. “Now that’s fine because most people know us from ‘Pearl Mystic’ and they know that’s how we are, but before a lot of people viewed us as just a rock band, so I was really nervous about the slower songs being on there.”
Some superlative press and hype surrounding the LP soon hit new highs.
“It was sold out before it was even released,” MJ recalls.
“It got a 10/10 on Drowned in Sound and that was when a few realisations started to creep in,” says SS.
“That was the week I went to master the Menace Beach song at Abbey Road,” says MJ of his spin-off band. “The ‘Psych for Sore Eyes’ comp [a limited 7” from Sonic Cathedral that featured exclusive Hookworms track ‘The Correspondent’] came out and got a 9/10 on Drowned in Sound and then ‘Pearl Mystic’ got 10/10, I remember that. So that was pretty frightening.”
Things then got “really weird” and “really intense.”
MJ: “We hadn’t played in a while, so we went out and played in these 200/300 capacity venues and we sold them out and that was really confusing for us because we thought we were maybe overreaching, so that was really surprising.”
The band then followed up ‘Pearl Mystic’ almost instantly with the non-album single ‘Radio Tokyo’ for the Too Pure Singles Club, which again sold out instantly, and it was around then that labels started to really get involved.
“[In 2011] we told them all to go away,” says MJ. “We shut them out, made ‘Pearl Mystic’ and gave it to Gringo. We didn’t even tell Gringo we wanted them to release it; I just emailed them saying, ‘hi, we’ve made this record. I wonder If you’d like to put it out?’ and that was it. So, yeah, I just shut all of that out and I think that helped us. I think some people took it as though we were trying to play the music industry, as some people do and it was just like, ‘no, we’re not bothered’. However, it got to the point where the people talking to us and the things they were saying, we thought we should at least entertain this. It sounded interesting. I was less than enamoured with the music industry at the time and I wasn’t sure how our band would fit in with it all and I didn’t want our band to end, which worried me about engaging with that. We could have signed with a hip buzz label two years ago, released a single and then broken up because we were being made to do things we didn’t want to do. It happens to loads of people and I didn’t want it to happen to us.”
Despite interest and offers from other camps Hookworms signed with Domino Records and their imprint Weird World, home most notable to Washed Out.
“It’s hard to talk about as we can’t say a lot, but there were other labels we talked to before Domino,” says MJ. “Domino is my dream label, so I’m very excited about that and they’re very nice people. It’s a label that releases music for the sake of releasing music, and nothing else. I think with us having that kind of DIY background, there was a realisation that these are good people, they’re not going to screw us over. I don’t doubt any of them, they’re all good people and it’s not just a job to them.”
I ask if remaining DIY during an ever busying year has been a challenge for the band.
“We split all the roles in the band,” says MJ. “Someone does merch, someone else does finances, someone else emails – we all do different things. We’re still self-managed [but] it’s becoming hard. We have a booking agent now, especially for sorting the American shows, as we needed that. My attitude has always been that if it’s something we can do, we should do it ourselves. Our booking just got to the point where we couldn’t do it anymore, we were dealing with a side of the industry that we just didn’t understand. It’s kind of an off-topic analogy but there’s this magazine called Tape-Op which is like an indie recording magazine and they recently published an open letter in the front of the magazine, saying that they had dropped all of their advertising rates because they felt really ashamed and guilty about the way it was negotiated. People would come to them and say we want to put an ad in the magazine and they would say, ‘sure, it’s $, but what you’re then meant to say is, ‘I’ll give you $150’, and then they settle on $200. Now, everyone had $200 in their mind the whole time but it’s just this fucking circus that everyone has to do and they said they felt uncomfortable about that because a lot of their ad-revenue comes from small independent pedal makers and microphone manufacturers and a lot of them didn’t know that they had to go in with this farce, they just got told that price of $300 and paid it, and it was upsetting Tape-Op – they found it unethical and that’s something we struggled to deal with. We played a lot of these festivals for very little money compared to all of these buzz bands who might not actually have all that many people wanting to come and see them but they’re just getting forced onto the bill, getting paid thousands of pounds and we weren’t even breaking even to pay for ourselves to be there. So, that’s why a booking agent came in. I mean, we’re signed to Domino now – we’ve got to accept aspects like that.”
Similarly, any money made has just carried as an extension of the bands ethos, as MJ points out. “All the money means is we have some nicer equipment,” he says. “That’s it. It sounds really sad, but even just being able to have my own microphone is a big deal – it means I’m not licking someone else’s spit but that was a bit of an ostentatious buy for me.”
Of course, the Nottingham based indie label Gringo were sad to see Hookworms move on to Weird World, but SS notes that there’s been no bitterness towards the band’s growth from the DIY world. Of Gringo, MJ says: “I’ve loved that label for years. I’m glad I was able to be part of a record that has helped them be able to put out more great music. I fully support Gringo Records.” And yet Hookworms’ habit of selling out their limited releases is something that doesn’t sit well with them. “Everything we’ve done that’s been a limited edition has ended up going on Ebay or Discogs for a lot of money,” says MJ. “I don’t care about the money, it’s just like if some kid wanted to buy it and couldn’t afford it because they’re being priced out, it’s ridiculous. I’d like to keep our records in print and keep the prices as low as possible. It won’t quite be like Dischord but I want to keep it as cheap as possible.”
Live – where Hookworms’ reputation was forged and where fans are still won – the band have spent the year performing in the Loud And Quiet tent at Beacons Festival (“That was massive and rammed and surreal,” says MJ), playing with Pissed Jeans (a coveted spot due to the Philly band’s insistent on liking everyone they play with) and a trip to New York’s CMJ. “We played a show as soon as we arrived,” says MJ. “We had about 10 minutes there before being driven to the venue and I went outside to buy an orange juice from a vender and it was like, ‘shit, I’m in New York!’ It’s like being in a film. I’d never been, and it’s very overwhelming and simulative.”
“It was around this time I submitted a Wikipedia page for the band but it got turned down, so we can’t be that big,” says SS. “They’re really serious now, it used to be in the old days you could write any old shit on there.”
