Pandemic Dispatches with Hydraform

Today we're going to check in on Denver metal quartet, Hydraform.

Let's see how it's going for them. Stream their latest album HERE.

1. How are things going where you are? The laws and such.

We’re a band that always likes to say “things could be worse”, so we’re going with that for the time being. All of us in the band have things in our personal lives that we’re struggling with, some related to the pandemic and others not so much. 

One thing that has been universally hard for the four of us is the monotony of waking up every day and knowing that each new day will be just like the one before it for the foreseeable future. 

We just really want to go back to the one thing we truly love, playing shows, but sadly we don’t know when that will be so we’re biding our time by writing new music and staying sharp on some of our older material and unreleased back-catalogue songs. 

2. How long have you been sheltering in place at this time?

Denver began its stay at home order on March 23rd, which was basically a week after getting home from the tour we were on with Exhorder and Overkill, and we've been under some version of "stay at home" or "safer at home" ever since. 

Bars and restaurants here have been closed since before St. Patrick's Day as well, and we still aren't 100% sure when they'll reopen. 

Altogether we're looking at between 50 and 70 days under Stay at Home orders, depending on when you set your marker. 

3. What has been cancelled on you that you were looking forward to?

To be honest we didn't have a lot formally planned after tour, although we had a potential tour offer come up shortly after we got back that since has been postponed indefinitely, and we only just found out that that tour would have been a really good opportunity for us. 

We just all kind of looked at each other, laughed, and said "of course that's the way things worked out" or something to that effect. 

4. How have you been passing the time indoors?

Jay (guitar) and John (bass) both have been working at home, which keeps them busy in a not so fun way, but Matt (drums) and Carter (vocals) have been fun-employed for a little while. 

Stay at home relaxed a little bit, so Carter's been playing a lot of golf, and Matt likes to go on long distance bike rides. 

But there have also been plenty of days where we still got snow in Colorado, and back when that was happening we'd all be playing a lot of video games, watching TV, wasting time on the internet, real unproductive stuff that isn't so good for your mental health. 

Thankfully it's been sunny and warm most of the time here now!

5. Loads of artists have been talking about how they're being creative. When the lockdown is over are ya gonna be ready to hit up the studio?

So we're actually working on building a studio setup at our rehearsal space right now! Our guitarist Jay has a jam room in his basement that has all our gear, and Carter is actually going to school to learn how to become a recording engineer, so we have the right tools, its just a matter of putting everything together and getting things dialed in for recording. 

Right now we're at a place where we can record high quality demos but eventually we'd like to be able to multitrack songs and sort of DIY it in the basement for a little while.

 Of course the goal there is to make it sound like it wasn't recorded in a basement!

We're definitely writing too. We get together once or twice a week to jam and work on ideas, and we're all writing stuff in our own way at home. 

Nobody is really short on ideas, which is a blessing and a curse because it can definitely draw out the writing process to a point where it seems like it'll never end. We're working through it though!

6. What crazy projects have you been considering since you've been in quarantine?

We toyed with the idea of writing a concept album....I think getting the studio put together is as crazy as it gets in the short term though! We have a lot of material that didn't make it to our first record, "Dark Adder" that we want to get out there somehow. 

We also are trying to challenge ourselves to write one or two complete, solid songs every month. But other than that we're just taking care of business! 

We have a new EP that we're getting ready to release in June, and we have a music video coming out to accompany the lead single, so we're trying to figure out how to get as much attention as we can in this weird world where everyone is on the internet all the time but not able to go to shows.