Features Hookworms: ‘We Don’t Leave Gaps Because We Don’t Want To Be Heckled’

Quite literally five minutes before their set at this year’s Constellations Festival, we have a quick chat with two Matts from Hookworms.

How’re you feeling about today’s set?
Matt: He’s on his second beer already!
Matthew: We’re playing in this room that you’re not allowed to drink in, so I’m drinking before we play.

Do you know why you can’t drink in there?
Matthew: It’s a prayer room apparently.
Matt: It looks like a school hall, you know where you used to have assemblies?
Matthew: It’s got a sweet vibe to it. It’s cool. It’s the biggest one too, I think.
Matt: Yeah, it’s 600 capacity or something. It’s pretty big really, so it’s going to look kind of desperate really, when we barely break double figures.

You’re opening up today’s festival, is that correct? How’re you feeling about it?
Matthew: Yeah!
Matt: Probably pretty depressing because no one has turned up yet! [laughs] No one’s gonna go in because everyone will want their first beer.
Matthew: And you can’t drink in there.
Matt: Maybe they’ll watch us through the glass windows.
Matthew: I should’ve brought my mum; she’d have watched us.
Matt: And she doesn’t drink.
Matthew: My mum’s never been drunk, she says.

What have you got prepared in terms of your set? Your songs are quite long…
Matt: We’ve got half an hour, so we’ll play four or five songs. We kind of got pushed around a bit because The Big Pink overran their soundcheck by about an hour, so… that was good. That was fun for us to be running around, thanks to those guys. [laughs] I played with them once at The Cockpit too and that wasn’t such a good experience either. That was the only time I’ve been heckled onstage.
Matthew: We were heckled with we played at Brudenell once! Ever since then…
Matt: We don’t leave any gaps between songs because we don’t want to be heckled.
Matthew: Or hear people shouting at me because it’s quite upsetting.
Matt: So, if we link all the songs together and there’s no noise, it’s always that awkward things where no one knows whether to clap or not.
Matthew: We played a show in London last week and it was a really small venue. You know where at a bigger venue, when you stop playing someone puts music on? Well, at London, we finished and there was just silence. I was just stood there, sweating.
Matt: No one knows whether we’ve actually stopped or not, or whether to clap.
Matthew: It was the first time that we had stopped for half an hour as well. So, when we stopped…
Matt: They just slow clapped.
Matthew: Then, loads of people said, ‘Oh, we really liked it!’ and I was like, ‘Oh, thanks.’
Matt: People came up to buy the records afterwards, and we were like, ‘Well, why did you make us feel like shit?’ …My laces just snapped!
Matthew: That was for shit-talking The Big Pink.
Matt: It’s karma, isn’t it?

What’s it like to be involved with a festival that is based in your hometown of Leeds?
Matthew: It’s nice because I only live five minutes away!
Matt: It’s pretty easy because it’s only a little drive away.

Finally, what’s coming up next for Hookworms?
Matthew: Our LP comes out November 21st.
Matt: We’ve got some here on sale, but the thing comes out officially then.
Matthew: We’re doing a split 7’ with a band from Nottingham who I really like, and then we start recording another record.
Matt: What shows have we got? We’re playing with Peaking Lights and The Men, who have released really good records this year, so we’re pretty excited about that! Then, we’ll record an album and it’s going to have gospel singers on.
Matthew: In between we’ll eat pizza and play Fifa and Skate 3.

Hookworm’s new self-titled EP will be released on 21st November via Gringo Records.