Norwegian noise-makers HAMMOK have spent the last few years building a reputation through relentless touring, cathartic live shows and a fiercely DIY attitude. After years of hearing that Trees was the festival for them, they finally made their debut in the sweltering afternoon heat and still managed to whip the crowd into a wall of death and a circle pit.

Fresh off stage, we caught up with the band to talk surviving the heatwave, why Trees felt like home, the importance of finding your people, bringing house shows back to Norway and what they’re hoping to take away from an upcoming tour with post-hardcore legends Sparta.

BP :- You just played at trees in the middle of another heatwave how was it for you guys?

Tobias: We got a wall of death I’m happy about that in the midday heat 

Ferdinand: and we got a circle pit too

Tobias: It was really great, we’ve been told to play this festival for 5 years now and people were like it perfect for you so its really nice to finally be here, its really great seeing some people up front singing along to new songs, its so great. Especially playing early as you don’t know if anyone is going to show up early but yeah it was a great energy , yeah I survived, screaming in that heat for so long, my god!

Ferdinand: Before the show we were standing there thinking how the fuck are we gonna do this?

Tobias: I kept spraying myself with water the entire time

BP: Is there a particular moment of your live show that stands out for you?

Tobias: I always really love the start of our set cos its just me yelling and when it all comes in with that first hit, its like OK we’re in. I just yell BANG BANG BANG  and it explodes, thats a very cool one. At festivals you just gotta go for it, we had a great FOH and monitor tech I just do the job , we gotta go! 

BP: Have you played similar festivals in Norway? 

Tobias: Yeah we’re played pretty much a lot of the big festivals In Norway but we don’t really have many festivals like this because here its not all the same music but its all aligned in the same interests, it feels very blended and we played Arctangent a few years ago and its the same all interesting experimental music.

Ferdinand: the alternative scene here can actually be pretty big here but in Norway its really small.

BP: Does a place become your scene because of the people , the music or something else entirely.

Tobias: Definitely the people first, seeing the people know the words to that song in a moment when we’re not from here, we flew in yesterday , that’s when it becomes real for me it gives you such a hope for humanity and a confidence boost, It feels really nice, I write the song and somebody gave a shit enough to  listen back and learn the lyrics, it means we’re kind of aligned. It’s very cool, sometimes very strange but we work with some great people and we’ve found our people, it felt like home. 

BP: Is there a song you really enjoy playing live? 

Ferdinand: Right now its CND , its a good one, right now it changes all the time though but the impact live is really good

Tobias: It has the perfect rhythm for jumping, it’s not like a limp bizkit song but it has something special its full of attitude get some sub drops in there, it feels very powerful and on a day like today a big stage, big sub it was great. 

BP : How excited are you for the tour with Sparta and what do you think you’ll learn from them.

Tobias: I’m curious to see what their audience is like, they’re people who have been in the scene a long time how are they approaching it playing small sweaty clubs in the UK, will their audience like us? how is someone that I view as very influential, how is he on tour? how  does he look after his voice, is he sore every night I’m excited to meet the guy who shapes a lot of what we do and sings “Cut Away” (In that other band) – We spoke with our friend about booking a tour and he was like hey Sparta are booking a huge tour i could pitch it if you like and he pitched it to Jim and he was super down and we were like “Make it happen”

Ferdinand: We’re also playing at Complexity festival and pitchfork festival in London  in November. 

BP – Hows the scene in Norway?

Tobias: It’s pretty small, everythings really well funded so there are lots of quality venues but we don’t have many DIY community type thing venues and those that are there have become a bit gatekeeper so we decided to try do things a little differently and invited friends to house parties and bypassing all the bigger stuff and just showing up and playing – the first one was insane, we sent out video invites saying out loud the persons name and the first one was in our old rehearsal space which was being torn down anyway so by the end this guy was doing pull-ups from the ceiling and pulled it down, it was insane. We’d been packing 60/70 people in and doing things very DIY. 

You can catch HAMMOK on tour in the UK with Sparta this October – tickets are available HERE