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I
sat down with current Seventh Void frontman and former Type O Negative
guitarist Kenny Hickey for a quick chat about past, present and
future...
MM:
So how’s the tour going so far?
KH: Really good, we’re having a great time. The Monster Magnet
guys are great, we’re all the same age and we’ve known each other
for a while – we’re from Brooklyn and they’re not too far away up
in Jersey. We’ve got a black cloud following this band though that
we’ve retained since Type O Negative – we got robbed in Malmo. They
broke into our van, stole my luggage and Matt’s luggage so I’ve been
wearing the same underwear for a week now but I’ve been slowly buying
my clothes back. And I had medicine in there for respiratory problems
and of course the day after my shit got robbed, I got sick so I had to
go to a doctor’s office in Holland and sit in there for a few hours
which wasn’t fun. But aside from all that, the shows have been great,
ha-ha!
MM:
Sounds pretty eventful. How’s the response been to Heaven
is Gone since it was released last year?
KH: The reviews have been great, the press have loved it. In the
States, I don’t think we had a fair shot though. We released it in
North America on Vinnie Paul’s label and did minimal touring. We did a
short run with Static-X which was really great and then a three-week
stint with Lacuna Coil who are good friends of ours from way back, we
brought them over to The States with Type O many years ago so that was
cool, and then we did two weeks with Type O Negative doubling up each
night.
MM:
Was it hard to do double-duty each night with Type O and Seventh Void?
KH: No, it was great fun. Type O for me is an easy gig because
I’ve been doing it for so many years. Seventh Void is the challenging
part, not to mention I’ve got to scream my fucking head off every
night and play guitar! We did it so Seventh Void would go on first then
we’d have a middle band so I’d get a rest and then Type O would
play. But yeah, I had great fun doing it.
MM:
Was it just your commitments to Type O Negative that was the reason for
the long gap between forming the band and the album being released?
KH: It
was a lot of commitments really. We formed the band to fill in the time
between Type O records because it was getting longer and longer,
especially with Peter’s health, so this was to keep me and Johnny
(Kelly, drummer) busy during those times. It was mainly Type O’s
schedule but then when Matt Brown (guitarist) got into the band he has
commitments too because he’s Lou Reed’s sound engineer so he was on
the road a lot too. Whenever we had spare time, we’d go into the
studio and do a bit more until eventually the album was ready.
MM:
Had Peter’s passing not occurred and Type O Negative had carried on,
did you always see the two bands co-existing side by side?
KH: Absolutely. It would have been great and my life would have been
beautiful if that would’ve happened. We’d have always been working
and having fun and we could’ve done it because I would have never quit
either band.
MM:
For fans that come to the shows because of the Type O Negative
connection, what would you say to them is the main difference between
the two bands?
KH: Well musically, we’re very different of course. This is a much
more stripped down, hard-rock band and I was yearning to do that to be
honest. The stuff we did in Type O was brilliant but after 17 years of
playing 12-minute songs with 18 key changes and having this mountain of
gear on stage, I just wanted to plug into a head and go, you know?
That’s the main difference.
MM:
How did the formation of Seventh Void occur? Were you talking to other
people around that time or did it just come from you and Johnny?
KH: It was born strictly out of me and Johnny. I had riffs that were
laying around that I thought we really good and we were basically antsy
because we didn’t have a lot to do. Peter was sick and the band
hadn’t spoken to each other in months and one day me and Johnny just
said to each other, ‘let’s do something’.
MM:
Who’s responsible for the lyrics and the music in Seventh Void?
KH: I’m responsible for all the lyrics and around 90% of the
music. When Matt came in, we creatively clicked together straight away.
Matt and I produced the whole thing and he engineered it so the songs
that we split creatively were the title track ‘Heaven is Gone’ and
‘Closing In’.
MM:
You mentioned the album coming out on Big Vin records. What’s it like
having Vinnie Paul as a label boss?
KH: It’s like having your buddy doing your record, it’s great.
You go to his mansion and there’s all these crazy frigging puppets
hanging from the ceiling and you end up drinking more than you work! His
poor staff are sat there working while we’re going to the club!
Everything he does is great though, from Pantera to Damageplan to
Hellyeah, it’s all good.
MM:
What are the plans for Seventh Void so far in 2011? Any view to coming
back to Europe for a headline tour?
KH: Not yet. After we’re done with this tour next month, we’re
going to go home, rent some studio space and we’re going to work for a
few months and I’ll be torturing poor Matt Brown in the process!
We’ve got a couple of songs written so far with a few more on the
drawing board and hopefully we’ll have the record released by spring
so we can come back and do some festivals.
MM:
I’m sure you answered this question a lot with Type O, but who were
the major bands for you when you were younger and starting out?
KH: That’s easy, Kiss were the no.1 band for me. Alive II was the first record I ever bought and Ace Frehley’s
guitar playing was what made me wanted to start playing. Then there was
Alice Cooper, Queen, Sabbath and Zeppelin really.
MM:
Type O was a band that was often known for having a fairly unique sense
of humour. Given the tongue in cheek nature of songs like ‘Black
No.1’, did it surprise you that all these goth girls latched onto the
song and the band when if they actually listened to the lyrics, they
were actually the subject of the joke in a lot of ways?
KH: Not at all, no. It was designed to get them to come to the
shows! At the time, Peter and I used to go to Limelight in Manhattan and
they had a goth night once a week and he was obsessed
with goth chicks and he would say to me ‘dude, I’ve got to have
these chicks coming to our shows!’ which is why he admired guys like
Danzig and Nick Cave so much. We did the lyrics knowing that they
wouldn’t be listening to what they were really about anyway, so we
knew it would work.
MM:
Was Peter’s passing something that you had seen coming for a while or
was it fairly unexpected?
KH: Well, yes and no. Obviously he’d been ill for a while before
that so there was a time where we knew it was coming for years but oddly
enough, when it actually came, it was a surprise because he’d been
healthy for almost a year. He was doing good and he was geared up for
doing the next record and we were all set to start and he’d just
signed the contract with Napalm records who were going to put out the
last Type O album and right after that is when he had his heart attack.
MM:
Thank you very much Kenny and I hope the show goes well tonight.
KH:
Thanks a lot, no problem.
Interview
by: Adam Grindrod
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