HOCICO

1. A new masterpiece „Wrack and Ruin“ is out. Tell me about the reaction from audience and press? What are your plans for this album? Any singles? Maybe a video?

Erk: The reaction has been incredible worldwide and I think the press has supported more or less the same way. Anyways we care for what the fans say and that’s it.The plans for this album are still playing live as much as possible as we’ve been doing it, we’ll release two live records from our last tour and a DVD covering the last and the old tours.

2. Let`s talk about your DVD.......where are you gonna shoot it? When will it be released?

Erk: The idea so far is to compile a double DVD case with a collage of footage from all the past tours including the “Wrack and Ruin” tour, we have a lot of stuff, but let’s see. These things can’t be completely planned, so probably we take one of the DVDs to show a complete live performance and the other one for the footage collage… let’s see. Hocico is the band that gives a lot of concerts around the world all the time.

3. Your tours are quite long and you have to spend most of the time far away from your home, Mexico. When do you find the time to write new stuff? Do you have laptop with you all the time or you have any other opportunities to write music on the road?

Erk: We travel with our laptops anywhere we go so we create some ideas on the road to work on them once we are back at home. I write lyrics all the time but, well, it isn’t easy to find the time while being on tour though we always find a little of it.

4. Do you feel homesickness sometimes? Have you ever thought: „Stop touring! We wanna go home now and will start to live an usual life“?

Erk: Well, to be honest, sometimes this crosses your mind while touring, for certain reasons like stress, exhaustion, but as soon as you are on stage you´ll forget all this and you just want to go on every night.

5. In the music of Hocico there are a lot of classical elements and compositions besides the hard dance beat and screaming vocals. Tell me about your connection with classical music. Is there any connection at all? Or maybe you have even got an education of classical music in the past?

Erk: We haven’t ever had any musical education, well, referring to schools. We had a great education by listening to wide range of different music from Bach to Depeche Mode, from Mozart to Skinny Puppy… from Beethoven to Suicidal Tendencies… many stuff impossible to mention here. All this is reflected in our expression.

6. I have read that one of your biggest influences is Skinny Puppy....last year they released a long-awaited album “Greater Wrong Of The Right”. Let us know about your opinion on it? And tell us about your current top album...

Erk: We like it a lot, but of course we can’t say it is great, we both miss Dwayne there… guess it wasn’t easy for them too. Our current top album is Ministry – Houses of the molé. You like a lot of Goa-Trance and Israeli Psy-Trance. It can be heard also in the music of Hocico.

7. These styles are strongly connected with mushrooms and psychedelic drugs. Do you like only the musical sides in it or you respect the whole thing of this magic cooperation?

Erk: We don’t take any drugs, so we’ve always been just focused on music, actually we don’t go to psy-trance parties. We just care for the music, I think all the drugs involved in that scene make people stupid.

8. As long as I remember Hocico, there has always been two members: Erk and Racso. Are there any ex-members in your past activity? Or are there any plans to get a bigger army under the name of Hocico in the future? Anyway, to tell the truth...your duo has been perfect for all these years.....

Erk: We had a guitar player long ago, we played one show with him, but the concept just didn’t work,… he was in another frequency. We’d like to add a drummer to the live line up, but we haven’t found the right person until now. I think it isn’t easy for someone new to join us because we already have our working scheme, but we are very open to cooperate with new elements in the future. Let`s talk a little about Racso`s side-project Dulce Liquido.

9. In my opinion the music of DL is not too far from the creation of Hocico.....so, why did you decide to form another project? What are the biggest differences behind/between these two names for yourselves?

Erk: Racso just felt like expressing his own way and that’s why he created DL, there’s no other explanation. While working on Hocico we share all the ideas and with DL he just does what he wants.

10. How has been your tour till today? Where has been the best gig and where the worst one? Let us know about your Estonian gig? Was it what you expected? Is there any possibility to see you there again in the future? Or with Dulce Liquido? What do you think about Estonian girls? You know what I mean......;-)

Erk: The tour has been working out pretty well, we just get surprised anywhere we go about the response of the audience. About the best and the worst shows… that’s a hard question since every show has a special thing.. well we’ve had shitty shows when either the PA’s don’t work fine or when the power goes out… there has been some of them… the shows in Estonia have been very special for us since the people are very warm and always open to receive our vibes, we have the feeling that we could play all night long and they would be there to listen. Every time we play in a new place we expect nothing, and I must tell you that the two times we’ve been there we have enjoyed it a lot… The Vana Tallinn is very good! ;-) Estonian girls are pretty hot!!! And of course we would like to come back anytime either as Hocico or DL. The most gigs of your Wrack And Ruin tour are supported by a new act under „Out Of Line“ - Spetsnaz.

11. Did you choose Spetsnaz by yourselves or was it determined by your label? Were you friends with Spetsnaz already before this tour? And what do you think about their old-school EBM in the new form?

Erk: We knew them before touring, from a show they had in Mexico City. It was then when we said it would be cool to have them as a support act for our tour as it happened, actually they signed to OOL a few weeks later. I think they are a band with attitude and that’s what we like. The EBM they play brings nothing new, but they play it just right, we love it, and it makes us remind of the days when we were listening to old bands.

12. Are there any great, but still less-known Industrial/EBM acts coming from the Mexican scene? I`m quite sure that you have an idol status for many new electro bands in Mexico by now....

Erk: There are many Mexican bands coming out in this moment, there are parties and shows all the time. Some new bands I can mention are Kriminal Minds, Acid Trauma, Onirismo Automata, C-lektor, Migra?a, and many more…

Thank you a lot Erk!!!