The Asian 2023 tour by Danish band HEXIS began a couple of weeks ago in Dili, Timor-Leste, and comes through Cambodia early next week with shows at Oscar’s on the Corner in Phnom Penh on Monday and Atlantis Metal Bar in Siem Reap on Tuesday, before heading off to finish at the end of the month in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and Bishkekj, Kyrgystan. Somewhere in the midst of the Japan/Taiwan leg of the tour vocalist Filip Andersen was able to hastily and sleepily answer some questions.
How did HEXIS form?
Filip: We just started out as the most other bands, wanting to do some music together. We didn’t have any high expectations of touring like crazy or anything like that, all that first came to the table later on. My goal at first was to release our music on vinyl and tour a little around Europe.
What subgenre/s do you align to, and what are your chief influences?
Filip: I guess when we started the band we just tried to do a mix of Hardcore and Black Metal with some Post-Metal and Sludge inspiration here and there. But over the years then we found inspiration in a lot more different genres, like Beatdown, Slam, Deathcore and even Ambient music. I guess the main influences when we started the band were Celeste, Shora and The Psyke Project.
It’s certainly an ambitious, long, and at times tour schedule. What have been the key highlights and lowlights so far? How have you been received in places as different as Timor-Leste, Singapore and Japan?
Filip: This tour has been one of the best we have done. Timor-Leste was super crazy, probably the biggest show we have played so far, with around 3,000 people. Japan was also super cool! We played our first sold out show in Tokyo. Honestly we had so many good shows on this tour that I can’t really pick which have been the best. As for lowlights, we have been pretty lucky so far with no major screw-ups, just the lack of sleep. We are flying most days, often we have to go to the airport at 5 in the morning, or go straight from the venue to the airport – we have to take roughly 55 flights in 10 weeks and at this point then I’m a little tired of security checks. I enjoy touring by van for sure.
This is your second visit to Cambodia I believe. Do you have recollections of last time?
Filip: I remember the show last time being nice, even if I was super hungover from a crazy night out in Vietnam the night before. I’m excited about coming back and see what it’s like over there six years later.
What should audiences in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap expect from the Hexis show?
Filip: A lot of energy and heavy music.
Check out their 2022 album Aeternum here and their website and Facebook page.
Cambodia shows are at Oscar’s on the Corner (Phnom Penh) on Monday 15 at 7 pm and Atlantis Metal Bar (Siem Reap) on Tuesday 16 at 7 pm.
HEXIS banging in Japan. Photos: supplied
One Reply to “A Little Extra on HEXIS”
Comments are closed.