Last week at the 2014 Takedown Festival in Southampton, our very own Laura Herbert was able to grab some time with Hacktivist shredder and samples man Timfy James. They talked local venues, KoRn, Reading and Leeds and a whole lot more, read on for the details…
This is Laura from Rock Sins here at Takedown Festival and I’m here with Timfy James from Hacktivist. How are you man?
TIMFY: You’ve caught me quite sober at this point! I’m a lightweight so!
Oh no! [laughter]. You played last year are you glad to be back?
TIMFY: Definitely, I’d actually got confused with another festival that we did that was terrible and this was the good one so I was dreading it all the way down until we got here and I was like “OH NO IT’S THE GOOD ONE NOT THE SHIT ONE!”
Good to hear! It’s amazing here today. What can we expect from your set later?
TIMFY: Fire, bitches with no clothes on, honestly. We’ve got fire breathing, two of the suicide girls. Cervana Fox with a girl called Rebecca. Cervena is from Milton Keynes where we’re from so yeah that’s cool.
That’s interesting, are you backing the saviour of the Milton Keynes venue that the council wants to close down?
TIMFY: It hasn’t been around that long, it’s been taken over recently, they do really cool shows and some really cool things with it. I’m definitely behind it, we’ve been getting some people to do the petition. You can’t really stop it anyone doing it, 3,000 people cant stop it, if they’re gonna do it they’re gonna do it. I guess in a way it brings people together, so If a new venue opens thinking that’s gonna be the new thing then they’re gonna go to that. Whatever creates a buzz, positive or negative is good in my eyes and if the place does shut down, it is a bit far out of the way to get to but yeah we’re all vouching for the same shit. I mean they’re places we hang out and we’ll be losing out.
Good to hear! Who are you most looking forward to seeing today?
TIMFY: Heart In Hand, I love that band, The Hell, everyone’s been going on about them so I’m gonna go and see those guys. Catch a bit of Yashin, obviously catch the Heart Of A Coward boys. It’s always a bit weird watching them, it’s always someone’s dream to watch your band from another perspective, I never get to do it, not my band but my old band, so it’s quite cool. Watched Aurora earlier, they were sick, female screaming you can’t go wrong with that. I haven’t really looked at the line up!
Well we’ll see how the day goes! You re-issued Elevate is there any plans for a new album?
TIMFY: YEP. That’s it. We’re hoping for this year, it’s difficult. In the two years that we’ve been a band it’s really difficult for us to get up to speed, most bands get a three or four years of being a band before they get what we’ve had to do. In our first year we were at Download, Reading and Leeds and going on tour and stuff. We haven’t really had a lot of time to do and we’re trying to do it as fast as possible. There will be an album. The date is… June 32nd.
I don’t think June goes to the 32nd day!
TIMFY: It does when Hacktivist are here [laughter]
This year is really exciting for you guys as you’re supporting Korn, how did that come about?
TIMFY: Just good agents and stuff really. I think we match quite well with them really. Obviously it’s not the same stuff but we’re kinda like a newish version, I hate to say it but of Linkin Park. We’re in that area of sound so it’ll go well with its but it’s literally just being in the right place at the right time. It’s a dream come true, they are pretty much the reason I play music.
They are what got me into metal!
TIMFY: Exactly, they’re wicked. They’re actually really nice guys, we were hanging out with them at Soundwave festival and I think its more humbling for people like that to be nice and to give you the time of day. Because when they’re normally talking to people they’re like “oh my god can I have your signature blablala”. So they just wanna have a nice normal chat with someone. Backstage and stuff they don’t close themselves away they wanna talk to someone. Even though I was like “oh my god I want your lalalala” [laughter]
That would be me too! So, how did you come to mix grime vocals with metal?
TIMFY: It was an accident. I was recording some of Jays solo stuff, he’s a grime MC, so he never really like even listened to metal or anything. I’d previously just left Heart Of A Coward and I was showing him some of the new stuff and he was just like this is wicked, I wanna get involved with this. So we did Hacktivist the original track, we just uploaded it to Soundcloud, almost to test the waters and it went mad. So we just thought fuck it, lets get a band together and do it.
Interestingly, your genre on Itunes is Hacktivist. Apart from that, what would you class yourself as?
TIMFY: I know that’s cool! I fucking hate this question!
I know! That’s exactly what I thought, no one likes labels.
TIMFY: It’s very hard to describe it, it’s Hacktivist. But I guess I’d say Rage Against the Machine and…I can’t do it. We’ve got a lot of influences and I don’t think we sound like anyone’s that’s ever existed in time so it would be hard, unless I made my own genre right now. It is what it is, we sound just like H. I kinda like that, I like that we have our own category and that iTunes keeps up with that as a category.
You’re returning to Reading this year, on the main stage, how are you preparing for that?
TIMFY: Nappies, full of shit. We’re shitting our pants, like, I think the most people we’ve played infront of is like 16, 000 people in Germany at Rock AM Ring but that was infront of Germans, we don’t really know who they are and might not see them again. But in England you know… I think to be honest I think we’re going full force and we’re gonna do our thing up there but I think its just an amazing thing. That’s gonna go down in history. Download is cool and Soundwave is cool but opening the mainstage and Reading and Leeds festivals is just… If I die after that weekend I’d be like “no let me go, don’t save me, please let me go”, I’d be happy.
It’s an absolutely amazing opportunity! When can we expect a headline tour from you guys?
TIMFY: I don’t know. I guess around the same time as the album, what is it? June 32nd around that time. We’re just taking a little bit of time around the festivals and stuff to make sure we have the album down, otherwise it wont be until next year it comes out and we want it out this year. I’m pretty sure everyone else wants it this year too.
Get your game up!
TIMFY: We have, we’ve got a pretty good game! Give us some time.
You have! Thank you.
As discussed Hacktivist will be supporting KoRn at Brixton Academy in May on KoRn’s only UK show of 2014. They will also be opening the main stage at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2014. Further news from the Hacktivist camp will be brought to our readers whenever we have it.
