When Flagpole asked me to interview the notorious cannon-mouths of Music Hates You regarding the general topic of "heavy" music both in Athens and at large, I figured that it would be an interesting experience, largely because I knew nothing about the men in the band: vocalist-guitarist Noah Ray, guitarist Zaxx Hembree, bassist Forest Hetland and drummer Patrick Ferguson.

The band has been around town since late 2001, though, and last year released the album Send More Paramedics, won the 2006 Flagpole Athens Music Award in the Punk/Hardcore category and, according to the loose calculations of the Flagpole music department, played at least 23 shows in local clubs and many more at house parties since this time last year, well more than any other local band.

What I learned throughout our talk, however, is that I actually knew much more about the members of the group than I thought I did, based solely on what I might've gleaned from having seen them perform. If you ask Music Hates You - and for one night I did nothing but - a great band is one that performs music simply because it has to, which sounds the way it does by some inner workings of psyches and not necessarily because it wants to get famous. It'll be made up of musicians who make you feel something, regardless of what they actually sound like.

Even if you hate 'em.

Flagpole
What is it like for you guys to be in a heavy band in Athens, a town not commonly known for things outside of pop-rock and indie-rock?

Noah Ray
It's actually kind of fun. We get to be the big buzzkill to everybody.

Flagpole
What do you mean by that?

Noah Ray
I mean that heavy music in general, if you don't like it, you don't like it. It has been a real uphill battle for us, with a name like Music Hates You in a predominately music town. It's kind of like Nashville; everybody's in a band and everybody loves their music and all that, so people have been offended by our name and by our actions and all the screaming, but I question why this town has never been known for heavy music. It's always had heavy music. When I was 14 years old, I was going to see Waylaid, and Magneto after that...

Patrick Ferguson
Bar-B-Q Killers.

Noah Ray
...and Bar-B-Q Killers, Feltch...

Patrick Ferguson
Porn Orchard.

Noah Ray
...just tons and tons of bands that were not nice people. I mean, nobody is ever gonna be more snide and offensive than Laura Carter [of Bar-B-Q Killers fame, not to be confused with the Elf Power/ Orange Twin Laura Carter] was. I really don't understand why it's such an obscure, abstract idea to have a heavy band in this town, because traditionally, outside of the "top three" of R.E.M., B-52's and Pylon, there have always been very snarling, spiteful bands here.

Patrick Ferguson
When I moved here, it was one of those lulls when there were not a lot of bands in Athens. I moved here right after Green by R.E.M. came out [around 1988], and there were like six bands in town that were playing regularly. One of them was Dreams So Real, and that was really what the college crowd went to see, but the other bands were Porn Orchard, the end of the Bar-B-Q Killers, the beginning of Feltch, Jarvik 8, Damage Report...

Noah Ray
Jarvik 8 was brutal.

Patrick Ferguson
Yeah, those were all real heavy bands. Loot & Booty was a band at the time that was, like, pirate metal! I think the real issue is that it's a college town, and metal is not "college" music. Metal is working-class music. I was fortunate enough to come here as a college student, but I dropped out pretty quick and joined Five Eight, toured with them for eight years.
The other thing about being in a heavy metal band in Athens, GA, is that now it feels like a community because there are the Rat Babies, Bird Flu, American Cheeseburger, The Dumps, so we're everywhere now, and we're the people who have jobs. That's the thing about Music Hates You and The Dumps, and all those other bands, is we have jobs, and a lot of the kids who are in these other bands, it's not a matter of life and death to them - it's a fuckin' hobby. To me, our music is sincere and it's real, and it's about the thousand petty humiliations you have to endure because you have to go to work every day. If you're an art student, maybe you don't connect with that. You know, to me that's what I feel in common with a band like Bird Flu or The Dumps. They're mad, just because... well it's not necessarily about anger, sometimes it's just about roaring at the world because you've got a huge dick or something.

Flagpole
Well, what is it about for you guys? I guess there's not really so much to be earned in the sense that you physically earn money from doing music; there's not really that here. What do you guys get out of doing it? Why bother?

Patrick Ferguson
Man, I tried to stop playing music after I left Five Eight. I thought my head was gonna explode, you know? But this is what I do. Somebody asked me the other day, "What do you do for a living?" I said, "I'm a drummer in a real heavy band, but I hope that if I work at it and really practice and really, really try, then maybe one day I'll be a computer technician."

Flagpole
What do you think the general state of the punk and metal scene here in Athens is? Do you feel like it's strong?

Zaxx Hembree
I feel like it's growing a lot.

Forest Hetland
Strongly growing.

Patrick Ferguson
I think that it's still about house parties to a certain extent. It bothers me that all the best houses for house parties have been busted up and have gone away. The thing that made the B-52's a world-famous band was that they came out of the house-party scene in Athens, GA, and moved to New York City and became the biggest thing since sliced bread. R.E.M. was the same way. They played parties.
You go to a house party now and there's some band. It's not going to be some Dave Matthews- or John Mayer-style band, it's a metal band or a hard punk band or whatever. What do those guys in Bird Flu call themselves?

Zaxx Hembree
Power-violence.

Patrick Ferguson
A power-violence band. That's what's in the house parties, and that to me is the scene. Everything else is commerce. Everything else is something they use to sell beer. That's all well and good, but there's a healthy rock scene, a hard rock scene, here.

Flagpole
Do you feel cohesion with the other bands in this scene?

Noah Ray
Not totally. Some of them.

Zaxx Hembree
The Dumps.

Noah Ray
I think there's a lack of total unity. People that like Bird Flu might not like us, or vice-versa. There are all kinds of bands out there. It's very compartmentalized. There might be like 30 people who will go see each style of music, but won't go see anything else, and that kinda sucks. For me, if you do it loud and you have a distortion pedal, I'll be there if I can. I don't really care for genre types or anything, I care to see people up there who aren't worried about scales and tuning; they just wanna do it. That's important to me.
I like technical stuff also, but the main thing to me that's important in going to see a live band, is that, just like a movie, there's some suspension of disbelief. You go and see them, and they believe it, and so they kind of suck you in. Metal is really good at that. Punk is really good at that. Twee-pop, to me, is not so much good at that. It's more people who seem very disinterested in what they're even doing. I don't know how that communicates to a crowd, but it does on its own level that I don't understand, I guess.
I'd like to see more unity [in punk and metal], because we're all the same, we have all the same patches and torn jeans, and work boots or whatever. It just seems like people are too stuck in their one little sub-genre that they like.

Flagpole
I noticed an attitude at certain places I used to go that don't exist anymore - I've only lived here for three years - that indicated that some of the people weren't going to be friends with me because I had long hair, or because I'm wearing a denim vest with a backpatch of the wrong band.

Patrick Ferguson
I think it's silly, and Noah's said to me before, quoting Frank Zappa, "If you don't think we're all wearing uniforms, you're kidding yourself." The bottom line is, we all have to go to work together, we all have a lot of the same issues we're facing day to day, and any kind of ghetto-ization of music is just an extension of consumerism.
It's just bullshit, and to me it's silly. "My friends are really special and we're better than your friends," that's ridiculous. We all stink in the same places, we all go to the same fuckin' places to work our jobs, and it's just life on life's terms.

Flagpole
One thing I like so much about American Cheeseburger is that the members clearly have this sort of punk aesthetic, but at the same time, they have these guitar solos. They're not, like, Yngwie Malmsteen guitar solos, but they're guitar solos that indicate to me that the dude playing them is not doing it so much to make fun of guitar solos. They're automatically alienating themselves from some sect of what could potentially be their core audience intentionally, and I think that's the kind of thing I'd like to see more of.

Patrick Ferguson
There's definitely a weird sort of snobbery that needs to go away. It's tired.

Flagpole
Well, here's sort of a different gear: is there anything you'd like to see change about the club scene specifically here in town? How about Zaxx, with a mouthful of pork?

Zaxx Hembree
[Chews hurriedly, grumbling]

Flagpole
Sorry, I wanted to hear how you'd sound with a mouthful of pork.

Patrick Ferguson
I was talking to Hugo Burnham from Gang of Four when they were here, and he was telling me about this warehouse in Leeds where Gang of Four and the Mekons and a bunch of other Leeds punk bands in the early '80s had a huge space they co-owned. They all went in together and they bought a P.A. and had shows there. I guess "the place that cannot be named" is one of those kind of places, and if we had our choice, I guess we would just always play at that place: "The Secret Secret."
I dig that scene, I think it's awesome. When Five Eight used to play the 40 Watt, we'd play to enough people to get our rent paid for the month, but I don't see Athens being that kind of scene for us [now], or maybe ever again. There's no point in crying about the fact that Athens has changed, because it will continue to change. I dig those shows that we play down at "that place."

Flagpole
It seems that a lot of heavy bands in Athens tend to have this kind of irreverent attitude, and I was wondering if you guys had any ideas about what it means for a band to "take itself seriously," and how much of that is too much.

Noah Ray
We've all talked about this a lot, because people get scared when you become careerists. It's hard to define what careerism is. It's important to take your band seriously, though. It's important for the three of us who are married. I have an 11-year-old child. If I'm at band practice, fuckin' shit needs to get done. If I'm gonna go on the road and travel to Bumfuck, Wherever, spending money out of my pocket and coming back without any, and all that shit, I've gotta mean it. Everybody here has to mean it. I believe in rock and roll. I believe in rock and roll more than I believe in politics, or organized religion, or whatever.

Flagpole
Why?

Noah Ray
Because it's honest.

Patrick Ferguson
At its best, it's honest.

Flagpole
What's the real distinction right there?

Patrick Ferguson
Well when you talk about this distinction between careerism and not, it reminds me of [Flagpole columnist] Gordon Lamb. One of his favorite pejorative terms for a band is "careerist," and I'm sometimes unclear, as Noah is, about what he means by that. What I think he means is bands that mold their shape and sound around this idea of what it's going to take for a major label to pull them in and make them a major-label band. That, to me, is inherently dishonest, shaping your sound for the perception of some A&R guy.
So, at its best, rock and roll is a pure expression of what the guys in that band really believe sounds best, as opposed to what they think is going to get them signed. At its worst, rock and roll is a commodity created to be marketed, and I think that's what Gordon means when he says "careerist," and of course I'm putting words in his mouth.

Flagpole
I'm sure he would enjoy that.

Patrick Ferguson
At the same time, rock and roll should be irreverent. When bands come out and state these political positions, or talk about global warming... the Dead Milkmen had a hilarious "political" song that went, "Apartheid is bad, recycling is good." A lot of bands adopt these ridiculously easy positions on political issues and people act like it's controversial, or somehow they're taking a stand.
For us, Music Hates You isn't about these larger global issues, except in as much as they affect us on a day-to-day basis. Noah writes about work or the relationships he has with people around him, and that to me is honest. For us to write a song about global warming, I mean, you know, it doesn't affect me. I mean, I would love to buy a fuckin' Prius to cut down on global warming, but you know what, man? I don't make enough money. I have to drive a V8 pickup because that's what I got. It's 30 years old and it gets me from Point A to Point B.
But if you want to talk about irreverence, this band has been nearly crucified for spray-painting the wall of the hallowed 40 Watt Club five years ago. It was this huge fucking deal, and I was like, "Sorry, I didn't realize we were slaughtering your sacred cow."

Flagpole
I noticed that one of your guitar cabs has spray-painted on it "You Have Failed as an Audience." Tell me a little bit more about that.

Noah Ray
Well it's one of our songs, but song aside, it's an idea in and of itself. I can guarantee you we're going to give you something, and it's gonna be 100 percent. We think of Black Flag now, and we think of their relevance to the whole of what they did and what music has become because of what they did, but I don't really think it has much to do with them. I think it has a lot to do with the people who were able to be a part of it and perpetuate it. The people not onstage, who were just there to commune with people who felt the same way. I guess you could come up with reasons, but I don't really fuckin' care. I scream because I want to scream. It's loud because I like loud.
We do heavy music because it's what I appreciate, there's no big scheme or reason for it. From when I was a kid, everything's gotta be loud, in your face, it's gotta pull no punches, and to a certain extent it's gotta make fun of its crowd. It's gotta point to the guy out there and say, "I got your number," because they're doing the same thing to you. "You have failed as an audience" is saying, "it's up to you." We'll do our part, what are you gonna do? People have to take responsibility for their own lives and their own involvement. We don't ask. We're not asking permission, we don't care if nobody ever comes to our shows ever again, we'll still do it. That's because it's important to us.

Flagpole
So it's not necessarily to harass the audience, but it is to bait them a little bit.

Patrick Ferguson
Well, not even that. It's to remind them that it's their show, too. Noah makes an incredibly important point, which is that Black Flag didn't change the world. Black Flag put on a show and the people who came changed music. There's this thing we saw on YouTube the other day, this English deejay group called Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip. The bridge to this song they had went something like, "The Beatles? Just a band. Led Zeppelin? Just a band. Nirvana? Just a band." We're just a band. What the audience does with that is their business.
There are kids who come to every show we play, and they believe in what they do, and we believe in what we do, and we all get together and throw beer and mosh, and we've succeeded. If someone stands there and they walk away and say, "Gosh, I was expecting something different," then that's their business.

Forest Hetland
I used to live in Nashville, where half the people who go to see a show are industry people, and the other half are generally people who want to be industry people, and when they go see a show, it's the arms crossed, analyzing every little thing like "American Idol." If you're one of the bands that goes up there and gives it all your heart, and they still stand their with their arms crossed, that's the failure. They just wasted that moment, that moment that you just tried to share with them, [they] threw it away.

Flagpole
A band certainly has a responsibility to give the crowd something. It's not all on the crowd to give a shit because they paid money. How do you balance having an almost adversarial relationship with the crowd versus having a communal relationship with your crowd?

Noah Ray
You're talking about a crowd that has made their life based around calling people on their bullshit. Everybody there has accepted this spot in life where they're gonna go, "I don't need cable TV, cable TV sucks," or whatever, or "I don't trust George Bush, I don't this and I don't that," so I feel that for me to get up onstage and say, "Fuck you, you have failed as an audience," that's my responsibility.

Flagpole
Let's say you think of a band, any band, and you go to one of their shows and it's crazy. Everybody's pumping their fists, going nuts and it's amazing. And then you go see the same band three months later, or two weeks later, and there are a bunch of people there barely paying attention with their arms crossed. What is that?

Patrick Ferguson
I think that there's an alchemy that happens when the band and the audience are on the same wavelength and the band perceives where the audience is at... you get a fingernail under that crack and just rip the lid off. Suddenly you're all in the same mindspace, which is like, "let's trash this place."
We've also played for crowds who were just nodding their heads and kind of into it, but you know what? If that's where you're at and you just wanna come see us and have a beer and nod your head, that's your business. For us, all great friendships have an element of competitiveness. We want to incite the audience to have the best night they can possibly have, and have a good time, and we're out there to do the same thing.

Forest Hetland
Not to imply that we play a perfect show every time...

Patrick Ferguson
I play a perfect show every time. I don't know what you're talking about.

Forest Hetland
...but we still try to give something, and when someone sees something and they didn't quite get it, but they can come away from it saying, "you guys, you were really into it, and whatever you were saying, I believe it all the way," that's a pretty important element of it.

Patrick Ferguson
I hate to go see a big, heavy, loud band and suddenly catch them sort of looking at themselves in the mirror. That drives me insane, because it's like they're just going through the motions of providing what they perceive to be a rock-and-roll spectacle. The guy up there doing a windmill because he thinks that's what the crowd wants, that's a failure as a band. If you're up there posing and going through the motions, you've failed as a band, and if you're in the audience standing there with your hands in your pockets - you pay your money, you buy your beer - and get half drunk and then leave, then you've failed on your half of the deal. Ideally, the rest of our lives would be played for audiences that care, and we'll give them a sincere show and be exactly who we are.
A friend of mine went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers last year, and he told me that you could see from back in the crowd by the looks on their faces that those guys hated each other. They probably ride in four different tour buses, but they're making a ton of money, so that's what they do. The day we do that, just sneak up behind me and shoot me in the back of the head. I had to leave Five Eight to preserve the friendships I had with those guys, and we're still really close. We were getting to a point, though, where it wasn't fun, and we weren't playing shows that mattered to us, we were playing shows because we had to do it to pay the rent, because we were professionals at that point. To go forward from there would've made us enemies, and I'm really glad I left the band and that we're still friends.
I want to be friends with these guys for the rest of my life. The "you have failed as an audience" thing is a bit of a jibe at the audience, but it's also a reminder to us that if we don't give them 100 percent, then we've failed with our end of it.

Last week, Part I of this conversation with members of local heavyweight act Music Hates You - vocalist-guitarist Noah Ray, guitarist Zaxx Hembree, bassist Forest Hetland and drummer Patrick Ferguson - covered questions of the Athens scene, where heavy bands fit into our town's musical pantheon and the relationship between performers and their audience. Missed out? No worries: it's available here.

Flagpole
What makes a great heavy band?

Zaxx Hembree
What I look for in a band, is if I go to a show and after the first 10 minutes I feel like I'm gonna throw up, that makes me feel great. If I can look into someone's eyes when they're playing and know that that's a vicious motherfucker, I am totally in tune with them and that's the right fucking band. Does that make sense?

Flagpole
It doesn't have a lot to do with what they sound like, but what you're saying is at that point they're probably going to be sounding good.

Zaxx Hembree
That doesn't really matter to me.

Noah Ray
I don't think it's relevant, what a heavy band sounds like; not as much as the way they present it. It's more important to me to see people who mean it.

Zaxx Hembree
There's no type of metal that I hate.

Forest Hetland
I believe in a 95-4-1 perspective. Ninety-five percent of any genre, any couch, any window is crap. Four percent is something you'll listen to again.

Zaxx Hembree
Couch?

Forest Hetland
Any brand of couch, or a brand of food, or a restaurant, or anything. Ninety-five percent of restaurants suck. Four percent you'll go back and eat at again. One percent you'll try your best to eat at every day. Music is like that, and those are the bands you really care about. Maybe they did nothing original, but they did it with all their heart, and everyone believed them, and everyone was on the same page.

Flagpole
What's to be said of songcraft, though? There's a degree to which songcraft has been diluted in the past, maybe, 15 years or so, as amps have gotten louder and tones have gotten heavier. I've noticed, especially in this decade, that a lot of times I see a band and all the members seem concerned with is how loud and heavy they sound, and they're not actually interested in whether their songs are anything memorable.

Forest Hetland
But there are still exceptions.

Flagpole
Well, right. Converge is a great example of the one-percent band. It still has awesome riffs while being heavy as hell. I can remember things that these guys do. I saw them a few months ago at the 40 Watt with Mastodon, and I loved Mastodon that night, but Converge knocked Mastodon off the stage because every note seemed memorable. It seems to me in hindsight, 15 or 20 years ago, that there was a reverence for riffs and songs where every note counted that doesn't seem to be as strong these days.

Patrick Ferguson
I consider the first wave of metal to be like the MC5, Cream, later the beginnings of AC/DC and all that, and those guys were coming out of the '50s and '60s songwriting paradigm that was basically verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ bridge/ verse/ chorus. Then, there was this sort of second wave of metal where there was a real possibility that just about no matter how off the charts you were, with the exception of Venom, that you were gonna actually break through and be a commercial success. So they hung on to that sort of pop idea of the verse and the chorus and hooks and all that.
Then there was a ton of super-successful metal in the late '80s like Poison and Ratt, but you always had this bubbling underground of bands like Motörhead, King Diamond, Slayer, S.O.D. Those guys still wrote songs. You can still remember the chorus of "Angel of Death."
There's a lot of doom and black metal right now that is intentionally atonal or anti-pop structure. I'm not really qualified to comment on that because Music Hates You - and I know I'll probably get strangled for this as soon as you turn off that tape deck - we write pop songs in the sense of having verses and choruses and bridges. But there's a kind of no-wave, anti-music thing that happens with bands like Sunn O))) and Boris, and they're deconstructing loud music to the point where it's just tones and the songs, more like weird symphonies.

Forest Hetland
And that can be valuable at times. It's art. It's still art, it's just not pop or rock and roll. I don't think that's bad or good, it just is.

Flagpole
Bands that are on "Headbanger's Ball" on MTV2 these days, bands like Lamb of God or Chimaera, it's almost like they're just producing tones, too, or might as well be. I can't remember a single riff I've ever heard from a Lamb of God song, even though I've listened to a whole album, because all I hear is guitar heaviness.

Patrick Ferguson
Part of that is mastering. Everything's mastered super loud right now. You go into this room and some guy says, "How do you want to master this?" And most bands are saying the same thing: "Everything louder than everything else." You get this really hot mix that doesn't much convey any melody, and I think there's an innate desire for melody in people who love music.
There are also people, though, who just love to tap into that brain frequency of rage, and for them, the harder it is and the more atonal it is, the better. Again, I'm not making a value judgment here. The kids are going to see Lamb of God and a lot of people love them, but are Lamb of God good? One of the things I learned from Pavement, who I fucking hate, is that just because I think something sucks doesn't mean it's bad. There were people around the band I was in the time that Pavement was popular who loved Pavement, who seemed to live and die to drink piss out of Stephen Malkmus' boot, and I actually thought the guy was a fraud.
But I learned at some point that I was missing something. There was something about Pavement that was good, that moved a nation of picky eaters and bed-wetters. There's something about Lamb of God that people connect with, and I fully support them as a band.

Forest Hetland
That connection is so vital, too, because if you have a high-school kid who's not familiar with, say, Led Zeppelin, and they hear Lamb of God and they connect to it, then that's where they are in their life, right now. That's valuable. For me, a lot of droney bands, I don't like. But the first time I saw Harvey Milk, I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that they knew what they were doing, and they weren't just doing a loud droney show for the sake of it. There was something else behind it, something I didn't see until I listened to some of their albums.

Patrick Ferguson
There's a band [Harvey Milk] that writes from an exceptionally honest place.

Forest Hetland
And they're true songwriters. They write songs that may not have a specific pattern, but they're a complete song.

Flagpole
We could easily have a whole conversation about Harvey Milk. That band comes from nowhere and exists everywhere all at once.

Noah Ray
And it's a totally different take on writing songs in general. They don't seem to feel responsible for making every note 10 million times louder than the last one. As far as songcraft goes, game over. Fucking give it up if you want to try to outdo those guys.

Flagpole
I've wondered how much of their otherworldliness is due to their location. Being from kind of a remote place and time where there wasn't a huge scene, they didn't have a lot of buddy bands, they didn't really have any prospects of getting bigger, they didn't tour, perhaps all that made them feel kind of free to make music as they saw and see fit.

Patrick Ferguson
There were a bunch of guys just like there are now who worked at the Gyro Wrap and Five Star, and worked in bars, and they would go see every Harvey Milk show, but it's true that they never enjoyed the kind of following that some other bands who were playing at the time did. I guess they were free to develop in their own hermetically sealed world.
I would've liked to see Harvey Milk break through maybe at least like someone like Jucifer who tour all the time and have a Relapse [Records] deal, but at the same time, there's something to be said for the obscurity of true greatness. Harvey Milk was never going to be booming out of the frat house like Nirvana because they were working their own genre.

Noah Ray
They've got plenty of songs where you never hear a distorted note or any growling or whatever. I honestly think Harvey Milk are what they are because those guys are just fucking crazy, and that music's maybe the way they deal with it. You could've put them anywhere with any instruments and they would've written songs that way because it's who they are.

Patrick Ferguson
If they had lived in Paris in 1930, they'd be brooding painters. If they'd lived in London in the '20s, they'd have been Dadaists. Those guys live far outside of the mainstream, artistically.

Noah Ray
All that said, personally, I cannot stand that type of songwriting. I love hooks.

Flagpole
They know how to do that, too, though, is the thing.

Noah Ray
They do that, but it's hell to get to it. You could go through a whole album and every minute is different than the last. The thing that draws me into Harvey Milk, though, is that I believe it. Every time Creston [Spiers] opens his mouth, every time they change movements, I don't believe it's something that they sat there deliberating about how to make it "fucked up" or whatever. I just believe them.
I can almost see what you're getting at about Converge and Mastodon, and I have no allegiance to either band whatsoever, but Converge got up onstage and it seemed like that guy could come off that stage and beat your ass at any time. You were transfixed by the atmosphere they created. Mastodon was kinda just playing their songs, which is fine. I have a lot of respect for that, too. Hats off and respect to them. I couldn't play any measure of any of their songs if I practiced it for the rest of my life, but at no point in their performance did I feel endangered.
Heavy music, at its best, makes me feel totally endangered. Black Flag is another example. Songcraft? Where? In a way, no note counted, none of 'em. But Black Flag counted. Part of that was that band, part of it was that scene, part of it was that time period. A heavy band is brilliant when the people up there have taken it so seriously simply because that's just who the fuck they are.

Flagpole
Any band in Athens, or anywhere else I've ever lived where people seem to care about it on any level - even if it's just 12 people who care about it - the reason that that happens is that people see something honest in what the band is doing.

Zaxx Hembree
It's like that every time I see The Dumps. Every time I see Jason [Richardson], the drummer, kick his hi-hat and roll his eyes back in his head, I feel that.

Patrick Ferguson
Now that you've said that, he's never going to do it again.

Noah Ray
There are a lot of bands who nobody gives a shit about in this town who can do that. Like I said, I've got a kid so I don't get out to every show that I want to, but that band Hot New Mexicans? I saw them six months or so ago, and dude, the guy's drum set was such a piece of fucking shit that he spent the whole set literally chasing it around. It was fucking incredible. Sold, man.
Every chance I can feel like I'm not neglecting my duties as a father, I will go see that band, I will buy whatever they've got.
Why? Because they were totally themselves and did not give a fuck about what anybody thought about it.

Forest Hetland
Sometimes I feel that way about John Denver.

Flagpole
One of the first times that I saw American Cheeseburger, it was some house show and I got knocked down right in front of James, the vocalist. He was in his berserker rage, and where most people might lend a hand to help hoist me up, he literally kicked me. I thought that was awesome.

Forest Hetland
Certainly no pretense.

Noah Ray
In that regard, David Yow [of Scratch Acid and The Jesus Lizard] was the king. He wasn't going to be nice, because that wasn't his job.

Zaxx Hembree
I can remember shows we've played where fights have broken out between us in the band, or with members of the audience.

Noah Ray
Zaxx and I, New Year's Eve two years ago, somebody mistakenly gave us a bottle of tequila about an hour before we were supposed to go on and...

Patrick Ferguson
They got into it like three dogs in a bag of garbage.

Noah Ray
...yeah, and these two guys never stopped playing.

Zaxx Hembree
I hit him with a guitar.

Noah Ray
But that's part of it, y'know?

Two things happen simultaneously at this point: Forest chimes in, saying we have to end the interview because the establishment we've burrowed ourselves into is closing up, and my tape runs out. We continue talking about various things for a bit longer, and I walk out feeling certain of one thing - not just about so-called "heavy" music, but rock and roll in general in a relatively remote, but not artistically dry, town like Athens: as long as there are suffocating summers and a service industry, it will always exist, whether anyone cares or not.

Up in Marietta, the Darkside's showcasing metal and punk bands for Atlantis, so if you like bands dark and angry, head there. Don't miss Athens' Music Hates You because one: it's a good band name, and two: its visceral metal will make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about Athensbands. $40 festival wristband (call for price without wristband).

Flagpole
Magazine - 28 June 2006
Review of Live Show at Caledonia Lounge
Music Hates You

Early Friday night at AthFest was frustrating in a few ways. The rain put a damper on the outside shows, several clubs were already off schedule even before the first bands performances, and Id forgotten how annoying large crowds can be. All that changed when Music Hates You hit the stage at the Caledonia Lounge. The crowd mulled around talking and facing in many different directions until

Noah Ray
(vocals, guitar) said, Can you kill these stage lights? At that point, the place went dark and the band turned on two giant work lights, effectively illuminating the audience. Shortly thereafter, the roar of the first notes hit. It was clear that Music Hates You had not come to AthFest to mess around. Song after song of brutal metal followed, but the amazing thing was that the audience, which packed the club full and which was (surprisingly) a roughly equal mix of men and women, didnt head for the doors. They kept their eyes on the stage, taking it all in and cheering loudly between songs. There are few bands whose shows actually feel dangerous, like something might happen at any moment. Music Hates You is one of those bands. [Will Brooks]

6 June 2006

Review of 'Send More Paramedics'

The funny thing is, I really didn't think that bands like this existed anymore. Music Hates You hails from Athens, GA and "Send More Paramedics" is their self-released debut album, which reminds me of a style that kind of rose in the mid-90's in the wake of grunge and Helmet. Like Stompbox, for example, who I've covered in the past. They seem to take that kind of a general vibe and get a little more unhinged with the vocals while tossing a dirtier kind of rock 'n' roll energy into the mix to give the tunes more kick. They're probably not going for anything in particular, this is likely just the sound that comes out when these cats plug in and get down to business, but whatever the case I like what I'm hearing.

Flagpole Magazine - 31 May 2006
Review of 'Send More Paramedics'
-by Gordon Lamb

It's been a long time coming, but the debut album from Athens' Music Hates You is worth the wait. Blurring the lines between metal, punk and hardcore, Music Hates You has crafted a more than decent album with only a few missteps. Although this type of music (i.e. incredibly loud, guttural and viciously angry) has yet to be embraced by the Athens hipster set, Music Hates You has no pretensions about desiring or expecting such acceptance.

The live favorite "How Do I Get Him The Fuck Out Of My Living Room?" starts the album off, and it grinds back and forth with the band dropping in and out of both melody and harmony. This track, as well as a couple of others on the album, utilizes the loud/quiet formula done best by Nirvana (although Music Hates You has clearly absorbed more Slayer than Kurt Cobain's beloved Pixies).

From this point, there's no let up in the band's playing. Music Hates You becomes heavily melodic and catchy even when buried underneath layers of unbelievably heavy guitars. The title track is easily the best, most distinctive track on the album. With

Noah Ray
's from-the-gut vocals, sounding more like a threat than an anguished revery, and the band's full-on driving rhythm, the song sounds more like it's going to run you over rather than invite you along for the ride.

There are a couple of things about this album that bother me, but they don't concern the music. First, the artwork makes it difficult to determine which songs are which in the middle part of the album (is the song called "Here Goat" or is it two different songs?). The lack of a lyric sheet is pretty frustrating, also, because any listener would want to know what the hell is going on when the passion is raised so high in the vocals, but it sadly all gets lost.

Music Hates You simply rocks, and doesn't rock simply. A mountain of thought was put into this album and the band plays with an intensity not easily faked. This is the music you hear coming from teenagers' cars in the parking lots of fast-food restaurants and rural high schools. Say what you want, but rock and roll has always, thank God, been for the kids.

Flagpole Magazine - 31 May 2006
Send More Paramedics-
The Injurious Habits of Music Hates You
-Will Brooks

Music Hates You has been around Athens for several years, but the band has made a mark bigger than most in its genre. Not since Jucifer has a local band this loud, aggressive and heavy attracted a decent-sized following. And though several recordings have made their way around town, the group's newest effort, Send More Paramedics [see a review on p. 23], marks a serious "real" debut of sorts for the self-proclaimed dirt-metal band.

Music Hates You is performing this week at Tasty World to celebrate the release of the new album, but also to raise awareness and money for the West Memphis Three (three currently imprisoned Arkansas men who in 1993 were convicted as teenagers and imprisoned for the mutilation and murder of three Memphis eight-year-old boys). The situation, involving claims of serious mishandling of the case by the state, has been investigated by the documentaries Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2, and proceeds from this week's multi-band benefit show go towards the West Memphis Three defense fund.

Recently,

Noah Ray
(vocals/ guitars),

Forest Hetland
(bass), Zaxx Hembre (guitar) and

Patrick Ferguson
(drums) shared a few thoughts with Flagpole on the band and what life's been like:

Flagpole
You play a lot of house shows. What do you get out of them, as opposed to a club show?

Noah Ray
Clubs have club rules; house parties are our rules.

Forest Hetland
The amount of distance just a six-inch high stage can spread between artist and audience is amazing and obscene.

Patrick Ferguson
I don't know if you saw our show at the Human Rights Festival, but there were 200 or so kids there who are too young to get into clubs. We love to play for that crowd and places that are 18 and up, or 21 and up might as well be on the other side of the Berlin Wall for them.

Zaxx Hembre
Kids don't have any fear of people looking at them, what their girlfriend thinks or what someone thinks of their hair.

Flagpole
Why the need for a lack of a line between band and audience?

Patrick Ferguson
The relationship we want with our audience is more like lion tamer and lion, matador and bull, thermal updraft and buzzard. We don't play music because we think we're special and different from a thousand other losers out there. We play music because we think playing music is special and it's an honor for us to be the reason that people gather in some broke-dick old slumhouse on a Friday night to drink beer, hang out, get in fights and blow off some steam. Jim Stacy once told us, as we were standing in the Star Bar one Saturday night, he made this big, sweeping gesture that took in all the tattooed girls and redneck metal cowboys, and short, tall, fat, skinny, crazy, sad, giddy, stoned and otherwise bent people and said, "We're all normal here. All of us. Normal. Here." We gather in the name of that.

Noah Ray
Amen.

Flagpole
When you were first getting started, I remember there being some tension between your band and what some might call "the establishment" of Athens:

Flagpole
, certain clubs, etc. How or why did that come about and how or why has it eased?

Noah Ray
We spray-painted some shit. People freaked out. Works every time.

Forest Hetland
How/ why has the 'tension' eased? When did that happen, did I miss a memo? When you're in an atmosphere where a lot of people seem to just pat themselves on the back, we'd rather say, "That was cool. What's next?"

Flagpole
You wrote [on your website] that Send More Paramedics is "revenge for 2005." What happened that made this past year suck so badly?

Patrick Ferguson
Just trying to get the record finished was a battle against Georgia Power, the price of gasoline, various landlords, a bunch of crap jobsƒ We paid for every penny of this record out of our pockets, so it was food snatched out of the mouths of our families and bills that went unpaid and friendships that got bruised or broken because we "borrowed" so much equipment.
Not that I am complaining, because we got this amazing record out of it. I wouldn't change a thing about the record. I think it's fantastic.

Flagpole
The sound of the record is cleaner than I would have expected. It's as if you spent a lot of time making sure it was "right," and scraped off a bit of the sloppiness that sometimes comes across in live performances (for better or worse) - was that an intentional effort?

Noah Ray
We're not sloppy, it's just that sometimes we have to anticipate the timing that you're aware of hearing while being flogged and flung around the room. If you weren't doing that, then you fucked up, not me.

Patrick Ferguson
[Producer] Andy Baker did a fantastic job at helping us shape where we were headed with the sounds that we had to work with. He's got a fantastic set of ears and his advice is always good. I think that the record gets the songs across with a razor sharp efficiency.

Flagpole
What are some of the worst injuries from Music Hates You shows?

Patrick Ferguson
I think that our worst happened while we were playingƒ it was the beating Noah and Zaxx gave each other on New Year's while Forest and I played "All You Ever Think About is Me Me Me." I don't recall if they were both bleeding afterwards or if it was all of one guy's blood on both of them, but I know Zaxx's guitar got smashed.

Flagpole
Finally: why so angry?

Noah Ray
Because it's louder.

Forest Hetland
Who's not angry? If you say that you're not angry at something, then I'm angry at that.

Southeastern Performer Magazine
by Mike Misiak
January 2006

For years, Kindercore and the like kept Athens pump full of bitterly ironic twee pop-influenced indie rock. Two years after Kindercore's collapse, Athens venues are still mostly booking the tried and true local flavors while those bringing more dissonant sounds to the table have to make up their own gigs as they go along. Twee-pop, folk-rock and singer/songwriter-oriented music are all still having their day in the sun and many don't seem to want to see this situation change. Nevertheless, the scene is in fact changing with bands like Cinemechanica, Coulier and We Versus the Shark making the sort of noise that has previously largely been confined to such techno-industrial nightmare cities as Boston and D.C.

One integral part of this sort of music's slow and steady revolution is an increased emphasis on house parties. Venue bookers may get cold feet when it comes to supporting abrasive and experimental music or angry metal-core, but these genres make for the perfect liquor-fueled blow-outs. Harder than hard Athens band Music Hates You has found that this format is the best possible avenue for their music. "You're less likely to get punched in the face when you're in the studio," notes drummer Patrick Hates You (who, along with his band mates, dropped his surname in favor of the Ramones-style "Hates You," unintentionally awkward as it may seem). "I think it's important to make the distinction between that being a bad thing and being something that we expect. A live show is a free-for-all. It's not like we draw a line between audience and performer where it's like ïyou stand there and watch us.' A lot of times that [approach] takes the form of a giant, swirling mosh pit or people jumping off the speakers. It's important that it's a participatory experience."

However, as the band puts the finishing touches on Send More Paramedics, they are confident that those familiar with their live show will enjoy the record for what it is. Furthermore, Music Hates You feels that the album will be an excellent representation of their sound. "I feel like this record is going to blow up," says Patrick. "I think it's a fantastic record. The songs just get better and better the more we poke at them. We go out and play shows in places like Spartanburg, South Carolina, and there are these amazing kids who fucking live for metal and live for our music. And that's what we want to connect with and I think they're waiting for the album as much as we are."

While Music Hates You is getting booked in more clubs these days, they remember to keep the spontaneity of their most out-of-control shows going at proper venues. Patrick describes the notion of touring with the band as "a dream come true," and the other members are equally enthusiastic about supporting Send More Paramedics out on the road. If their scattered extra-regional shows thus far have been of any indication, Music Hates You will likely pick up scores of new fans at each stop.

Creative Loafing
Musicians gang up again
Indomitable Gang of Four reunites, rerecords, reminisces
By Tony Ware

(excerpted) Hugo Burnham: Right now, there's a band in Athens called Music Hates You that I think is fucking great, but they're a vicious metal band that doesn't subscribe to the art-student vibe.

Weekend concert guide
-Andy Stokes
Metrospirit 28 Sept 2005

When hard music is good, your ears are ringing when you wake up several hours later. When it’s great, you feel sore all over, like you’ve been in a car wreck or you’ve had the flu. When it’s superior, it damages your spinal fluid and threatens to cause total nervous system shutdown. What range of your hearing you’re ultimately damaging doesn’t really seem to matter at the time. Actually, when you’re staring down a band like Athens’ Music Hates You, it’s like coming face-to-face with a grizzly. You know you’re going to get batted around, but if you can escape at all, you’ll call yourself fortunate.

Hard without actually being hardcore, Music Hates You ruffles feathers in a very similar manner as groups like The Bronx and Pantera. Because Music Hates You’s members are naturally rough-hewn, it just translates through the tunes. If they were a polka quartet, they’d be the hardest one out there.

Music Hates You loves when fans participate, get angry
By Steven Uhles
Augusta Chronicle 28 Sept 2005

There's a lot of love for Music Hates You.

The willfully aggressive Athens, Ga., act has garnered a growing fan base by refusing to compromise its hard, heavy and absolutely in-your-face aesthetic.

Patrick Ferguson
, who performs under the Ramones-esque moniker Patrick Hates You, said the band's gripping, grating guitar-based tunes are not about finding the perfect pairing of words and music but about offering up a visceral aural experience.

"There was a decision, made some point early in the band's development, where the idea of playing correctly was abandoned," he said. "Other bands play music; we play the experience. I mean, we're definitely not trying to play jazz here."

Mr. Ferguson said the band's shows are akin to lab experiments in sonic stylings of aggression.

"It's an attempt to bring a group of people as close to rage, as close to their breaking point, as we can," he said. "There's an intent, in our playing, to channel all our aggression into noise. Live performance needs an element of risk and that's what we're all about."

Music Hates You sees its shows as being successful when they become participatory. The audience is egged on and, when required, insulted. Mr. Ferguson said the current high-water mark is the band's last Augusta appearance.

"I don't know how we could improve on that," he said. "I mean, there were people there with sniper eyes. Everything that had happed to people that day was pulverized in a hail of volume and draft beer. I mean, Music Hates You is never going to buy me a SUV and a nice house, but I don't care. It's not what this music is about."

Lokal Loudness
-Stoney

MUSIC HATES YOU...YOU'VE BEEN WARNED - Stoney 9/21/05
Augusta has experienced it's share of hard-hitting in your face bands. Whether within or visiting, Augusta's metal traditions are long and widely varied. With such a long standing tradition one has to wonder what it takes to impress a crowd that has seemingly seen it all. Then along comes a band that makes you realize, "maybe there's more to it then I thought". Such a band is Athen's bonecrushers MUSIC HATES YOU. Even the name sounds more brutal than the average bitch slapping band name. Despite the "aura of darkness" I spoke to the guys, and even had a little fun!

LL - First off, does music REALLY hate me?
MHY: Yep. Don't take it personally. We're all victims.

LL - In prepping for this interview, I checked out your websites "bio". It didn't really help. Is this is a fair summation or just an effort to preserve a sense of band mystery and mystique?
MHY: I don't think anyone needs to know much more about us besides we're the ones who put the ringing in their ears and the broken glass under their nails. You don't really want us emoting our past all over you, do you? really? Who's gonna clean that up?

LL - Can you really be best described as "what Rocky Balboa's head feels like"?
MHY: Yes and no. You could say a lot more words and still fail, or you could just say that. Talking about what music sounds like is like painting a picture of how meatloaf tastes. I could say "Oh, it's a cross between Slayer and Culture Club" and you wouldn't be any closer to knowing what the band really sounds like. Plus, Rocky Balboa's head has served with honor. It's taken a beating and it's been drenched in a slurry of blood, spit and sweat while still protecting the soft gray stuff in the middle. How can you improve on that?

LL - Seriously guys, what can the casual listener expect when confronted by MUSIC HATES YOU live?
MHY: There's a term some engineers use: Sound Pressure. You should feel Music Hates You pressing against your chest. You should feel it trying to bore its way into your head. We are not entertainment. We are an emotional emetic... we are here so that you can bring your rage, your sins, your sadness, your fear, your disappointment at the life you ended up with, and lay it out on the floor to be ground into dust by the sheer volume and violence of what we do.

LL - On first listen, you guys don't sound like what listeners are used to from Athens bands. Is there a "heavy" music scene just waiting to be discovered in Athens?
MHY: Oh, hell yeah. There are dozens of heavy bands in Athens, these days. Brown Frown and Polemic are two bands we play with all the time. Teenage Meth Lab practice down the hall from us, as do Knife Trade and the zombie version of Another Broken Vehicle. We've had a couple of dry years in Athens where most Athens bands had songs containing poorly played brass instruments and musicians in zany pants. It's time someone flushed that bowl, since it wasn't terribly interesting to start with!

LL - Speaking of heavy, heard some preview tracks from the new cd, when can the public expect to be blistered by this soon to be released platter?
MHY: We hope to get it out this fall/winter. We have some work in front of us before it hits the streets. We also have some people listening to it to decide if they want to put it out for us. I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that.

LL - And the road... going o.k. for you guys?
MHY: Every time we leave town we rediscover that people love this band, so yeah, touring has been fantastic. I mean, gas costs a fortune, our van is a fascinating gamble every time we load it up, we don't get to leave town half as often as we'd like and we still have day jobs, but we love hitting the road, believe me.

LL - You gotta be excited about coming back to Augusta! Looking forward to hanging out at the Soul Bar again?
MHY: We love the Soul Bar. I have known Coco and Didier for something like twelve years. The Soul Bar is an island of cool. I love coming back there, and I have for the many, many years I have been touring and playing music.

LL - So what is the most important thing Augustans should know when getting ready for your show at the Soul Bar?
MHY: Bring earplugs if you're delicate. Bring a helmet if you're not.

> LL - O.k., few quickies and we're outta here...

LL - What's hot in the bands cd player right NOW!?!?
MHY: I am listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Take Them on on Your Own" at least twice a day and the latest Meatjack CD a lot. Noah is giving heavy spins to Jesus Lizard's "Goat" and Eye Hate God's "Confederacy of Ruined Lives."

LL - Band you've most enjoyed sharing the stage with?
MHY: Brown Frown brings all the hot hoochies. How could you argue with that?

LL - The single most important thing to have on the road is...?
MHY: I toured non-stop for something like ten years. Always bring your own pillow and a plastic bag to put wet clothes in.

LL - Worst food to eat BEFORE going onstage?
MHY: Anything, really. You need to be hungry to play well. You get up there all fat and happy and you're gonna play like it doesn't matter. It matters. You gotta sing for your supper.

LL - O.K. guys, thanks a bunch and we'll see ya September 29th at the Soul Bar! (with 88MPH and Three the Hard Way!)
MHY: Our pleasure, Stoney. Any time.

Flagpole Magazine- Threats and Promises
Music Hates You
-Gordon Lamb

The Walls Will Melt: ... For the uninitiated, let me just say this: Music Hates You is brutal. These guys are seriously one of the heaviest bands to ever call our town home. They perform a devastating blend of metal and hardcore that reveals not only a pretty thorough knowledge of each, but a passion for both. If you wanna try me on this one, catch the band's next show at Tasty World on Friday, June 3 at the Community Chaos reunion show.

-

Flagpole
.com, June 1, 2005

Athensmusic.net
Music Hates You
-McKenna Mackie

"There is nothing moderate about this band." - Drummer

Patrick Ferguson
from the band's weblog.

Music Hates You is the band you have been looking for all your life... if you like it raw and real. These local underground purveyors of dirt and distortion have no plans to rest until they rip a gaping hole in the local/regional wall that seems to hold so many other great Athens bands from extending their audience outside the local lines.

The unyielding entity of Music Hates You is built of

Noah Ray
(guitar/vocals),

Zaxx Hembree
(guitar),

Forest Hetland
III (bass) and newest brother and ex-Five-Eight member,

Patrick Ferguson
(drums). The assumed pre-requisite in this band is that defiance of the musical stereotype comes oh-so natural.

"Music hates us, music hates the tone-deaf, music hates the hook, music hates the arrangement / We all have to live with it, because we all love Music / It's true, Music hates some more than others, but that's just opinion also / Music hates the living, Music hates the dead, the deaf, the regular Joe, the mutes, the opera singer, the gun-shy, the trigger-happy, the egomaniac and the shower singer / You still love it / You can't ever possess it, you only get a taste." - from "You Have Failed as an Audience/A Beginners Guide"

Call it desperation or divine determination, either way their live show is relentless. (This comes from a peek at the new lineup during a show in Montgomery, AL). The music demonstrates qualities unforgiving to a lackluster audience and displays honesty, humor, and conviction for who they are and of their place in front of a crowd.

Music Hates You is four to the floor. Unmercifully sharing between one another what they do best with the rhythm, the beat, and the beatings they provide. A la metal, dirty, and rough. It's not uncommon to see Ray's head bash into the microphone following solitary punches to the face, strings break without flush, a floor coated with wood chips, screaming, bleeding, pounding, and calling out to all who will listen and accompany.

"Life is what happens while your making plans," Ray notes. "The one thing we strive for more than all else is honesty."

No bullshit runs aboard this tight ship. Ray demonstrates a leadership to his kinsmen and equals like some have never seen. The 'yes, captain!' look in his bandmates' eyes glints during times of preparation. Then, when the music starts, they all become one, internally locked into their own bond. Even their physical selves move in unison at times without pretense or plan. They are the song when sung.

Hembree can be often be heard screaming the lyrics without a microphone to the crowd and band alongside Ray. Music Hates You's conviction runs rampant throughout the duration of the set.

"We're a huge burning fire for 45 minutes," explains Ray. "We're people. This is not just a band. It's us. It's who we are. We are the art."

The songwriting of Music Hates You is of dire importance. It ruptures intestinal meters to such a degree that it makes for fevered chills and cathartic swaying simultaneously. They traffic their share of metal hybrid with a layout of wild compositions crafted with a nearly unbearable amount of lyrical madness and frantic allusions. Guitar feedback growls angrily at the lack of reassurance one might find towards this kind of music that offers no hype or hypocrisy.

So they begin again as they've been. Soon they will play their brand of Musical Truth as the ambassadors of dirt metal. Music Hates You puts on live shows bereft of all the fixin's of rock-n-roll scenester bullshit. They make time count. They make it their own. They won't let listeners leave and barely let them breathe. Their songs fold into each other and then bombastically halt... on a dime. Tools and tonsils. Drool... and a mouthful's worth.

Music Hates You intentionally cuts their way through the ugliest and raucous canals of their own experience. Now it is bequeathed to the listener. If not sweat, then sway. If not hate, then pray away from the norm of rock with a band that crosses the existing banal terrain into a new era of Music.

After all, Music hates you. Doesn't it? (middle finger inserted)

-Athensmusic.net, Jan 21, 2005

Flagpole Magazine- ABC Pick
Music Hates You, Polemic, Victor-Charlie
-Deirdre Sugiuchi

Vocalist and guitarist Noah Ray of local metal band Music Hates You has no explanation for the rage that drives him. "Some people are on fire," he says. "There is no 'real' reason, just convenient targets. I spare none." He is so devoted to current project Music Hates You, Ray denies involvement in any other band. "This is the alpha and omega of everything I have worked toward." Describing the heated grindcore he and fellow members Zaxx Hembre (guitar), Forest Hetland III (bass) and Patrick Ferguson (drums) spew out, he says: "It's dirt metal, straight from the red mud of Georgia's junkyards. We are dismantling 45 years of what rock has built."

The band - for all intents and purposes reborn six months ago with the exit of drummer Greg Carlson and the entrance of Ferguson - retains the name bequeathed by Carlson. "It's about the agony of trying to make a mark," says Ray, "of capturing the essence of what propels you into song." Driven by their frustrations, the bandmembers channel energy into Music Hates You, leaving casualties along the way. Ferguson has kept a tally: "Destroyed: One 22" Sabian Heavy Ride Cymbal. One 15" Peavey 'black widow' PA speaker. One Marshall input jack. Two 15' guitar cables. Six oak ProMark 2B drum sticks. That's in two and a half practices. Wounded, but healable (maybe): One Marshall JCM900 (in hospital), one guitar (same).

Frustrated with your lot in life? Seeking an outlet for your outrage? Saddened by the recent loss of Dimebag Darrell? Music Hates You will launch you into a frenzied release with fellow ragers Polemic and Victor Charlie. Check out the band's new website, courtesy of Patrick Ferguson, at www.musichatesyou.com, and make sure you check out the MP3s. Don't like the sound? Well, Music Hates You hates you too!


-Flagpole Magazine, Jan 19, 2005

Threats and Promises
-Gordon Lamb

Actually, Music Likes Me Just Fine: In an exciting development, drummer Patrick Ferguson has decided to start doing time behind the kit again. Ferguson, who originally shot to popularity in the Athens music scene via his several years with Five Eight, has recently been blowing minds as DJ YellaDog over at the Go Bar where he features hip hop from around the world with a concentration on African hip hop. At one time Ferguson was, seriously, about the hardest hitting drummer in town and regularly kept local beat-makers in awe. Anyway, he's joined one of Athens' more harder-rocking acts Music Hates You, which is led by another Athens long-timer, guitar monster Noah Ray. Ferguson's debut with the band takes place on Monday, Jan. 24, over at Tasty World. Also on the bill that night is the always-pleasing Polemic and Victor Charlie. Takes some extra bucks with you that night, as the band will have a slew of new merchandise available, although its two albums are temporarily suspended from availability for reasons unknown and unexplained.

-Flagpole Magazine, Jan 12, 2005

Local hard rock band pummels music scene
By DANIEL MCDONALD
Published , September 17, 2004, 12:00:01 PM EDT

Music Hates You doesn't want to declare war on the Athens music scene. They don't have the time, nor do they care.

"I've got several jobs. I got family, I got these guys (Music Hates You) and I just don't have time to go out and suck ass just to get a blurb in a magazine that means more to them than to anybody else," said Noah Ray, lead singer of the band Music Hates You.

The point of Music Hates You is not to make people angry or to put a frown on the face of the scenesters around town. Music Hates You plays music to serve their own purposes.

"People can think of us what they want. Are we negative? I don't think so. Are we aggressive? Yes. Can you take us negatively? If it serves a use," said Ray. "To me, Music Hates You is all about refusing to be a victim. People that are so pissed off about a name like Music Hates You are just way too used to being a victim. I have no use for people who sit around and be victimized by anything. If you don't like it, come and tell us. I'm not going to hit you."

Music Hates You has been playing together for the last year. They formed when Drummer Greg Carlson received a phone call announcing that the "heavy guys are here." With bassist Forest Hetland and guitarist Zaxx Hembre, Music Hates You has patterned a tight outfit matching the aggressiveness of a wild boar with the sonic pumult of a small nuclear weapon.

"We play until it's at its noisiest point and that's when we go 'That's where it's at. That's what we want to do,'" said Ray. "Truth be told, we've been playing for the last five months to find that one really noisy spot. We finally found it."

Guitarist Zaxx Hembre best describes the band's sound as "the way Rocky Balboa's head feels."

The members of Music Hates You make no bones about the market that this form of music can garner.

"If you're going to make hard music, then you're cutting out most of the people right up front," Ray said. "Most people don't want to be screamed at for 45 minutes. I can understand that."

"If you have a show with 100 people there, and only 10 people come up afterwards and let you know how much they really appreciate it. Then if you have 10 people show up to a gig, then well, you're just weeding out the fluff," bassist Forest Hetland said.

No matter how big the audiences are, or become, the members of Music Hates You will continue to create their music their own way. No matter what anyone has to say about it.

"This is my favorite band," Ray said. "I have been waiting for this band to come along for a long time. And I just happen to be in it.

-The Red and Black, Sept 17, 2004