Feature Band: HAZE

“So Tom, a man once so swift, on your knees handcuffed at the wrist. Sweating like the pig you are, I dug your grave, hope the blade falls hard” – Tom Dooley

HAZE is the lead singer for the band which bears her name, and after many times asking her real name, I gave up … it didn’t matter.

SLUG: Okay, so Haze, this is your real name right?

HAZE: Alright, next question.

SLUG: Okay, how long has the band been together? Well tell me about the band first of all. 

HAZE: The band. Well, we actually met through a producer. I was working with a punk producer for a while and my brother’s entertainment attorney. He got this young kid in who basically came into his office and he was doing Korn demos at the time. I heard the demos and I really liked them, so I wanted to meet the guy. I played him some material that was basically piano and vocals, really rough stuff, and I talked to him about what I wanted to do. He said he had basically the right players in mind for me. He was not kidding. We got together in a rehearsal room and started jamming and it was honestly the easiest session I had in my life, because I didn’t have to pull anything out of them cause they were right there with their vision. I had a really enjoyable time.

SLUG: So it wasn’t a record company decision or anything. It was something you wanted to do, it wasn’t a product thing.

HAZE: No, it was purely artistic. We just got together and did it. It became a little more corporate when I went to South by Southwest and I thought, I’m going to pop in my tape to the alternative listening panel. Then I’m sitting listening to the critics on the CD’s and the various demo tapes that were in there and there was this full female bashing. They hated female artists. It was all major labels too, sitting on that panel and they were saying “I hate chick singers.” They were just being totally obnoxious, so I stood up and pulled my tape out of the box. Then all of a sudden I heard the beginning of “Tom Dooley,” my humming. I thought “shit, I’m so screwed.” So I sat back down, what the hell, if they hate it I don’t give a shit. So basically I was shocked, they actually liked it a lot and they picked it as the best alternative tape they’d heard through the whole conference. To this day, I hate everyone on that panel even though they liked my tape. I don’t respect any of them.

SLUG: So, these were all big name labels …

HAZE: Yeah, I just couldn’t believe what they were saying about other tapes. It was just this bash session.

SLUG: You didn’t sign with anyone though?

HAZE: No, what happened was then with major labels it takes so long to do anything. So this indie label, Mutiny Records, called me too. Their whole thing was you want to do it now so let’s do something right now. So, they took my demos and we pressed them. We didn’t go back to the studio. I didn’t want to go back in, ‘cause we did that on feeling and even if I recut those songs the moment was there. I didn’t want to have to redo the moment. None of us really wanted to. I didn’t want to have this whole strategy type of thing. I just wanted to put out music. So we did it and some of the labels are still into it and I still get calls and stuff which is cool.

When I came home from SXSW, a kind of really great thing happened. I started doing the internet, online. I got online and I just started posting. So I got tons of emails back from people that want free tapes. I’ve given out 5 to 6,000 free tapes. And through that I’ve done a lot of email on my press and America Online has been so supportive.

SLUG: Why “Tom Dooley”?

HAZE: For the longest time, I wanted to do that song. It was a song my mom used to sing when she was a kid. When I was little she would sing it and it was so morbid! You are singing about someone getting hurt; I mean this guy’s on death row, he stabbed his girlfriend to death. But yet they sang it so happily it was a camp song. I thought, well, it’s a dark song. I want to do this song the way I feel it. Nobody got it, nobody got the vision at all. I would play them the Kingston Trio version. And it’s really hokey and it’s really happy and it’s a banjo kind of. When I hooked up with my band what I did was I put down a drum loop and I sang over it. They didn’t hear the original. I did it in the dark fashion that I think it is. They dug it. It trips a lot of people out how I think about “Tom Dooley.”

SLUG: Did you rewrite any of the lyrics?

HAZE: I rewrote all the verses, I changed the storyline completely. I didn’t want to stab the girl and the truth is it was too much like OJ Simpson, and I didn’t want to do that. The story is, he took his girlfriend up and stabbed her to death. It’s basically about how he was a war hero, this guy, and his name was Tom Dooley. His girlfriend started dating a Yankee soldier so he took her up to the mountains and he stabbed her to death. The song was written when he was on death row. It’s a crazy story. He got hung.

SLUG: So, when are you going to do a full length?

HAZE: Probably in January when everyone gets back. Everyone is going to different places for the Christmas holiday, so when the band all gets back we wanted to. The problem is we want to also start doing some college shows, somewhere we’re going to fit it in, and then do a full length.

SLUG: What’s your musical background?

HAZE: My dad was a sax player, and he really got me into music. As soon as I could talk I was singing because he was a musician so he would always play the piano around our house. I would start humming along as he was playing so he started me up taking vocal training when I was really young.

I did some commercial stuff. I did a car commercial. I don’t know if it was aired anywhere besides Los Angeles, I’m not sure. I’m definitely into doing stuff for film and I’m definitely really into musical theater a lot. Musical theater was one of my backgrounds when I was growing up.

SLUG: But when you’re writing the piano is your main instrument?

HAZE: Yeah, but a lot of it I’ll write in my head too. I’ll just write, I mean I’ll just put it on my Dictaphone or I’ll just record it somehow. And what I’ll do is I’ll sing it to my band and they’ll start jamming around it or doing a riff around it. That’s really how the three songs on the CD, “God,” “Tom Dooley” and “Free” were done with the melody first. Some are not. Some are done music first, definitely. But those three were really done melody first that song God Wish You Were Here. That song is my favorite from the writing part of it. Because everything I was thinking and doing I just wrote down and I never changed a lyric in that song. That song to me is special because it was so free flowing. 

In that one, I just basically sang it to the band and they started doing this cool riff behind it and that’s how that one came about. How our songs come out anyway is fine with me. Sometimes they’ll be silly in rehearsal and I’ll tape everything. Cause I mean, you never know. One of our songs has a Bugs Bunny type of feel to it now. It’s totally Bugs Bunny—it’s cartoonish. Because they were being obnoxious and I recorded it and they can’t write lyrics over that. I don’t know. I wrote a serious song over it. So that’s what I love about writing with them, is that I don’t want to be structured because we’re not structured. If we become structured and we start analyzing everything then I think our songs will lose some of that feeling. It’s cool when everyone just does their own thing—as long as we’re all on the same key.

SLUG: What female vocalists influenced you when you were growing up?

HAZE: Oh my god, Pat Benatar was my first idol. It was my first concert that I ever saw. I also really like Linda Ronstadt and Janis Joplin. Considering who influences me now, I would say I’m a major die-hard Tori Amos fan. I love Concrete Blonde. I just love that band. And my drummer loves your magazine! I said SLUG and he was oh, I love that magazine. He was really excited.

SLUG: Who is he?

HAZE: Mark Destiny.

SLUG: How does he know about the magazine?

HAZE: He’s really into it. He’s really into the underground, into cool things. I love that kind of stuff too.

Read more from the SLUG Archives here:
Gang Of Four
Dragmules