In an ever-growing crowd of bass-heavy goth-techno acts, The Haxan Cloak stands out. Sure, the bass is as sweltering and impassive as the best of ’em, and the rhythms frequently recall a candle-lit basement séance, but The Haxan Cloak’s Bobby Krlic ensures that every track is soaked in his own personal intent. He’ll take you through pensive, violin-drawn forests, bludgeon your senses with industrial rhythms, and kick you out of the car in the middle of the night and forcing you to find your way home. But it’s fun! The Haxan Cloak has both widened its scope and sharpened its focus over the past couple years, most fully realized on the recent release of Excavation, and I had a chance to talk with Mr. Krlic about where he came from and where he’s headed.

Okay, let’s start at the beginning… when did The Haxan Cloak begin? Was it always just yourself? At what point did it turn from you trying things out and making music into “The Haxan Cloak”?
Well, I’ve always made music. I played guitar from being about six years-old, and from around twelve onwards I wrote my own songs and played in bands and stuff like that. I made a lot of electronic music as a teenager, and I went on to study music and visual art at university. This really turned me on to thinking conceptually about creating things
which I had never really considered before.

Was it hard making electronic music on your own at first? I feel like, if you want to pick up a guitar and learn it, anyone can do that, but if you hear electronic music and think “I want to make that”, it’s practically impossible to figure out what gear to buy on your own… did you luck into picking up the right hardware and software, or did you have someone guiding you a bit at first?
Oh yeah, it was really hard. I guess I got into DJing first; my parents bought me some turntables and stuff, and then there was a point where I thought, “I want to know how to make the music I’m playing here”, and I remember on the inside cover of one of my LPs (I don’t remember which one) there was a picture of an 808, so I asked my dad what it was and he explained it to me. My mother at the time was friends with a guy who produced music and had a studio in his house, so she took me ’round one day and he showed me Reason and Cubase and he hooked me up with a copy. My parents bought my a second-hand iMac, and then I just kind of experimented and taught myself stuff. It was funny, because in those days we didn’t have YouTube, so there were no tutorials or anything like that, which kind of made it way more exciting and mysterious.

Are you glad you had to figure it out yourself, instead of being guided by a tutorial? Or did it just add hours of trial-and-error to the process?
I mean, it was incredibly frustrating, but I think that’s important. Learning the guitar is frustration, but it’s through those challenges that you feel accomplishment, and most importantly, you feel progression. I’m also incredibly stubborn. If I buy a piece of equipment, I throw the manual away. I like to figure things out the way that I want to use them as much as I can.

So what did your earliest stuff sound like? Was it “techno”, or something a bit off the grid?
Some of it was techno, some of it was just… well, probably completely shit. Haha. I was really into Autechre and Skam and things like that at the time, so I was trying to figure out how they made those rhythms and texures and edits. I went to as many live shows of that kind of music as I could at the time.

Did you have friends into the same sort of music?
Luckily, yeah I did. There was a really tight bunch of us and we all discovered it at the same time. I really vividly remember my friend Rob, he had an older brother, Chris (who I’m still very good friends with to this day). I was at Rob’s house one day and Chris came home with one of his friends and he had the Gantz Graf DVD by Autechre. We came down and were just like, “What the fuck is this?” Totally mind-blowing. So yeah, we all kind of starting researching and bringing different CDs and stuff ’round to each other’s houses to check out. We’d all come out of this scene of playing in punk bands together and stuff like that, so it seemed to make a lot of sense to then listen to Autechre and Russell Haswell and stuff.

Were your friends doing their own electronic projects too, or were you the only one actively making it?
Yeah they were, but I felt like I was the only one who was really taking it seriously.
I was probably quite precocious after I’d been making it for like a year or something. I was already sending demos to labels and I was sixteen/seventeen years-old. I listen back to it now and go, “What was I thinking?”

So at what point did The Haxan Cloak begin?
So that began at university. In my final year, I was conducting some research experiments.
I had the woofer from a speaker, and I was playing sine tones through it while placing different objects on top of the cone, and just looking at what effect different frequencies had on different objects, and then I really started to think about and realise the ‘physicality’ that sound possesses. That got me interested in a lot of deep ‘drone’ music like Om and SunnO))) and things like that. It just gradually progressed from these odd, tonal experiments into me buying a cheap violin and putting it in there, and then a cello, and just really seeing what textures I could exploit out of different instruments.

Did that end up on your first self-released CD-r?
Yeah.

Your follow-up EP pretty prominently works beats and rhythms into your music… was that just another side of what you wanted to do?
Yeah, definitely. I mean at that time, I hadn’t released anything. I knew the record was coming out, but not for a while, and I wanted to experiment with a more electronic kind of take on it. I wanted to kind of immediately have people question the identity of The Haxan Cloak, because they’re both very different-sounding things, but they have common threads (I think).

I noticed that too. So do you play all the violin parts yourself? It certainly sounds like the work of a studied player, and not someone just picking up a violin on a lark…
Ha, well thanks for that! But yeah, they’re played by me, and I taught myself. I listen to a lot of classical music, so I think I had a good idea of what kinds of things I wanted to get from the violin. You know, not like when you first start having lessons and you do “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or something, haha.

I don’t hear much violin on your Tri Angle release… are you done with that, or will it come back? Are there any other instruments you plan on taking up, in order to integrate into The Haxan Cloak?
There’s violin and cello on there, they’re just a lot more subtle to what was going on before. I’m definitely not done with it; I have such a love for strings, and live instruments. I plan on expanding the sounds even more, yeah.

Pardon my ignorance, but does The Haxan Cloak perform live?
Not ignorance at all! Yeah, I play live. It’s me solo most of the time, but I did do some shows early on with my friend Liam from Trencher drumming with me.

Do you integrate live instrumentation, or is it all coming from hardware?
At the moment, it’s all hardware, no computers though! But that will be changing very soon.

Care to reveal what you’ll be changing?
Well, I would like to expand The Haxan Cloak into an ensemble at some point, but I don’t know when that will happen. In the near future I will definitely be playing guitar and violin live, though.

To talk about the new record, Excavation… this one seems more atmospheric and heavier than what you’ve done before. Can we expect more of this, or will the next record sound different?
I’ve only really just begun to think about the possibility of another record. It definitely won’t sound the same, but it will be very heavy. Very, very heavy.

I feel like that sort of dark, foreboding heaviness is shared by other artists like Emptyset and Demdike Stare who are also putting out great records these days… are you familiar with them on a personal level? Is there any sort of camaraderie, or are they just separate people that you are only aware of, just like any other random electronic artist?
There’s definite camaraderie, yeah. Miles from Demdike is great, and I’m friends with Joe and Tom from Raime. Andy Stott, also. If we all play a festival together, it’s great.

Do you listen to their records? Do they affect the music you make, either by being like “I don’t want to do what they are doing exactly” or “their music makes me strive to step my game up”, anything like that?
I listen to their music, yeah, and I think they’re all amazingly talented, wonderful people, but it doesn’t really affect the way I view my own music. I think I used to think like that when I was younger.

Like, you never heard a Demdike or Andy Stott track where you’re like “fuck, I was gonna do something similar but now I can’t because they just did it!”?
I think you have to assure yourself that you have your own voice and your own uniqueness.
I think I’d hear it and go, “Fuck, that’s great. I’m going to do it how Haxan Cloak would do it!” But not in an egotistical way at all, I hope it doesn’t come across like that. What I mean is, well, it’s similar to how sometimes I’ll read about an artist for ages, but not check out their stuff, and I’ll get this really amazing, romantic idea in my head of what the music is going to sound like and then I listen to it, and it doesn’t fulfill what I expected it to. So I think the music I make always tends to fill that void for me, if that makes sense.

That totally makes sense. Do you ever come up with an idea for a track, and then think “this is great, but this isn’t appropriate for The Haxan Cloak?”
Absolutely, all the time. but it’s cool because you’re always learning stuff. Like, there’ll be certain elements of what I made that I can probably take away and work into a Haxan track.

I guess to wrap it up… if you could offer advice for someone who wants to start making electronic music, what would it be? Is there anything in particular they should not do?
Just to remember that music comes from your brain, not from a program. Just because you buy a Jaguar you’re not going to sound like J Mascis, and just because you buy Reaktor it doesn’t mean you’re going to sound like your electronic heroes. My advice would be try and find out how to express yourself and your individuality – and stay away from YouTube tutorials!

If you’re into hardcore at all, Iron Lung require the same detailed introduction
as Infest or Youth Of Today – either you know what they’re all about at
this point or there’s simply no hope for you. I respect that not all readers
of this site are hardcore fanatics though, so let me break it down like this:
if there is a hardcore band to define the ’00s (in the best way possible),
Iron Lung are a strong candidate. They’ve done their share of split 7″s with
small-time grindcore groups, they’ve played Chaos In Tejas more times than
most punks have attended (including a breakfast show!), and they’ve put out
some crushing, meticulously-detailed albums that stand the test of time in
an era of good-yet-disposable hardcore. It will be a sad day that Iron Lung
calls it quits, but I’m convinced it will take the death of one of their members
for that ever to be a reality (and who really knows what future technology
holds – maybe Jon Kortland could get Kranged after his body fails him?).

So you just wrapped up a mammoth tour in support of your new album, White Glove Test. How’d it go? Is
it as brutal on your mental and physical well-being as I’d imagine a two-month tour would be?
Jensen (drums/vocals): Now that we’ve been home a couple days I can definitely feel the mileage.
There is a thing that happens to the body on tour that is somewhat remarkable in that you
really only feel a physical change in the first and last week of any tour. The middle, no
matter how long it may be is mechanical and consistent; dependable. I suppose the same could
be said for the the mental side of all that too. Jon and I have been doing this for long
enough to be able to anticipate any odd behaviors and adjust for them accordingly. Also we
like pretty much the same stuff so there is hardly ever any trouble. I’ve seen a lot bands
completely implode just because one guy wants this amazing canned hummus across town or
someone else hates record shopping when there is free time for it. People have their wants
but mistake them for needs far too often. The group mentality needs to have a little elasticity
to it. As for the trip itself, it was a weird great one. Tulsa, OK was cantankerous, Jackson,
MS was not. Portland, ME punks do it in the ice, Newark, DE’s do it in the dirt. We tried to
hit all the states we’ve never played before. Unfortunately because of bad weather we had to
cancel the Wyoming show which only leaves Alaska and Wyoming left for us to play in the US.
Jon (guitar/vocals): I’d almost say it is more brutal on my mental state when a tour is over. When
the constant movement and rhythm of tour ends, it can be difficult to adjust to the stagnation
of everyday life. A tour sets up a routine, but then there are always these unpredictable
variables. “Will the gear work tonight? Will the crowd break our gear tonight? Will this be the
worst night or the best night of my life?” All that being said, I was really happy that we
were able to do a full US tour by getting in a van and doing it the old fashioned way.

In your experience, is there anything that pretty much every American town has in common when it
comes to shows? Like, is there always one guy in a Void shirt, or Motorhead patch? Does the pit
always rotate counter-clockwise?
Jon: Now, thanks to the internet, there are several people wearing a Void shirt and/or a Motorhead
patch in every American town. As far as the pit goes, I didn’t see much actual rotation. Mostly
just back and forth or lunging forward or no movement at all. On a more positive note, I will
say that every town we went to had someone who was willing and motivated enough to make a show
happen and we all know that is a thankless labor of love.

For as much as I know you guys embrace technology (Bandcamps and Instagrams and all that), it
seems like your tour was booked the old fashioned way, just getting in touch with punks in
small towns and mapping it all out. Do you feel like you’re one of the few hardcore bands still
touring the way you just did?
Jon: I wouldn’t necessarily say we fully embrace technology. On one hand, we have a Bandcamp, and
we are both on Instagram, but on the other hand, we don’t have a Facebook or whatever the
new social network thing is. I guess you could say we are selective about the ways we communicate
in this modern world. The way this tour was booked was actually not that much different from
the way we booked tours when we were just starting out. Some of the same people even booked
our shows or are still involved. We also had to track down contacts for places we had never
been, much the same way we did years ago.
It seems like over the last few years most bands stopped touring North America the way we just
did. The economy of doing a lengthy tour just does not make sense, which is a real shame. The
coastal tour trend has left so many people out, and so many of these forgotten places deserve
more attention. This tour was a bit of an experiment to see if it can still be done, and it can,
but it’s not easy.

After all your years of touring… do you feel like the “old guy” band at this point? Like besides Dropdead,
who don’t really seem to do a lot of recording and new records, Iron Lung seems to me like the
last group to come out of the ’90s power-violence / hardcore-grind scene that is still relevant
and putting out killer records. Was there a point where you were like “oh crap, most of the crowd
was being born when I was at shows moshing” or anything like that? Or do you feel as youthful as
ever and I am totally wrong.
Jensen: I would say that we are on the older end of the age spectrum at most shows, but I prefer not
to think about our mortality in that way. On this tour there were several people that came up to
us saying they had been waiting “forever” to see us, citing that they were 12 when they first heard Sexless
or something. In that way, to these kids, we are a band that has just always been around. In my mind
it has only been a few months since the last tour. The last Spazz show (our second show ever) was
just a couple years back. We do talk about our age a little more these days but only as a side note.
Funny how that happens.
I have always looked to older folks in the scene for inspiration to keep going, and definitely look
to the younger people for the energy needed to carry out whatever ridiculous plans we may hatch. We
are in the perfect middle area for achieving anything we want to do. I also feel that people,
regardless of what interest area, should continue doing the things they love until they are physically
unable to do them anymore. You wanna lipslide the ten-stair handrail? If your knees will sustain you,
rip it! You wanna climb a mountain? You don’t even need legs for that. What are you waiting for?
Jon: Generally, I am the oldest person at any given punk show. This happens a bit less in the Bay Area where
there are a good amount of older punks still actively going to shows, making music, etc. We have been
consistently playing in bands, touring, putting out records, so maybe we sometimes forget about the
fact that we are physically growing older. At this point, I have been doing these things for way more
of my life than not. I will continue to make music as long as I am physically able. I think we both
agree that there would be no need to continue playing in Iron Lung if we were to run out of ideas. I’m
sure there are some that would disagree, but after all these years, I feel like we still have way
more life left as a band.

Regarding that “perfect middle area”…. it seems like Iron Lung can always sell new records, or get
at least 50-100 punks to show up in any town you play. You’re undoubtedly a successful
hardcore band, so do you ever think about getting “bigger”? As a hardcore band that stays DIY,
is it even possible in 2013 to become more popular and bigger than where you’re currently at,
without sacrificing the integrity somehow?
Jon: I think a lot of that has to do with longevity and consistency. I don’t really have any interest in
getting “bigger.” I am concerned with making the kind of music I would want to hear and to play
with bands I want to see. So, I guess that alone would stop any band from becoming a part of
“mainstream culture.” I’m sure there are people who think that putting out a demo or playing a
show out of town is somehow unpunk or some form of selling out. We make music and put out records
for other people to hear and hopefully enjoy. If someone does, great. If someone doesn’t, we don’t
really care. We will continue to do things our way whether anyone else likes it our not.

Going back a bit… how did Iron Lung get started? I know you were both playing in other bands… was the
intention to be a duo from the start, or did it just kind of wind up that way? And how’d you
manage to play Spazz’s last show? That’s like going straight from high school to the major leagues.
Jon: I had been playing in a band called Gob for many years, and around the time that folded, Jensen and I
started playing together. We worked on a project called Kralizec which was basically proto-Iron
Lung with a vocalist. All of the songs were based on Frank Herbert’s Dune series and the 7″
included long sampled segments from the film. We wanted to continue making music, but without
the limitations of such a rigid theme. Iron Lung has always been the two of us, but there have
been a few guest vocalists along the way. One of them was Mike Cheese from Gehenna who played
the last Spazz show with us.
I toured the US with Spazz in 1997 and we had been friends for years before that. Chris had
heard a recording we did and I guess he liked it enough to ask us to play. There was talk of us
doing an LP on Slap A Ham before he stopped doing the label and Max put out three of our records
on 625. It was pretty crazy playing that show, especially with Cheese in the mix. That was our
second show and it was in front of around 700 Spazz fans packed into Gilman with no ins or outs.
It was more like taking the SATs without any pants.

Are you just as psyched on hardcore in 2013 as you were in 1997? If so, what’s your secret?
Jon: Good question. It’s really hard to gauge the enthusiasm I had 16 years ago against how I feel now.
I will say that I definitely love music, whether it be hardcore, noise, chamber music,
whatever, just as much, if not more, than I did back then.
I hear a lot of people, young and old, informed and misinformed, talking about how there are no
new hardcore bands that are any good. Well, the same could be said for 1997 or 1987 for that
matter. I feel like I have consistently found new bands that interest or even inspire me over
the years, so I guess that would be my secret.
Jensen: I am definitely as stoked on hardcore now as I was back then. There is a different breed now but
it still excites me. Luckily there are so many other musical styles to delve into when hardcore
hits a stale point. I have just discovered trap-rap and it is ruling my speakers for now. There
is just as much energy and culture to that as punk, but it offers a completely different and
refreshing balance to my palette. I see people burn out of punk-life all the time and I really
put that down to them just not being creative or motivated enough to explore new things.

I never understood that, people who get super into hardcore, but carve themselves into such a specific niche
of the records and bands they enjoy that they eventually buy them all up, then just stop caring
or following hardcore. Do you think that this is kind of a side effect of people who get really
into the “historical re-enactment” style of hardcore, if you know what I mean?
Jensen: Absolutely. The civil war already happened. Let it go. People get stuck on this trip that no new
musical idea is any good. Tried and tested is so safe… and boring. Hardcore is not about playing it safe
anyway. Every other time we play, some joker yells “Crossed Out cover!”, which is just as clever
as “Freebird” these days. My reply has become almost automatic to this stating that “they broke up
and we are here now… and write better songs.” I love the response that gets from people. It’s
an equal mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. And that is exactly what I want from a crowd. Maybe if
we play a horse race in San Diego, Dallas and I can have a real conversation about song structure
and effect. Ha!
Jon: Also, it seems like a side effect of people who got into hardcore for all the wrong reasons. It’s no
longer limited to people who feel alienated. Now there is all this acceptance with being punk, and
all the information is at everyone’s fingertips.

You mention noise, which I know has always played a role in your label (Satan’s Pimp), other projects, and Iron
Lung too, most prominently with the extra noise LP to be played alongside White Glove Test. Do you view noise
as sort of an extension of hardcore, as far as intensity and ugliness is concerned, or is it
something completely separate?
Jon: For me noise was and is the natural progression from hardcore. It must be the addictive properties of
distortion. I am always intrigued by the endless possibilities of sound. There is nothing more
perfect than how a certain sound can elicit an emotional response.

You’re definitely known for your crowd banter / heckling responses. Was this something you slowly developed
over the years, or were you always down to break the invisible wall between band and audience
and get right into it? Why do you think more hardcore/punk bands don’t banter/joke with the crowd between songs?
Jon: The banter has always been there. I used to say more, but now I just leave it to Jensen.

To the rest of the world, the Pacific Northwest usually isn’t looked upon as a hub for hardcore punk. Are we
just missing out on some great bands, or has it really just been mostly metal-core and straight-
edge hardcore for the past couple decades?
Jon: Within the last few years the northwest has spawned some really excellent bands. Seattle has had
a pretty dismal legacy to live down, but as far as bands and shows recently, I would put it up
against any town in North America and it would probably win.
Jensen: It is sort of a buzz how many great bands there are in the Northwest right now. I think Seattle
has always had interesting bands, but the people in those bands have never been very outgoing or
even interested in letting the rest of the world know about their existence. There are flashes
of coverage. Then there was grunge and all that it contained. I think once that happened, the
people that were not in the big bands excused themselves from the light even further. A truly
underground scene in many respects. I can definitely get with that mindset sometimes. With that
being said, I refuse to ignore the talent here and take strides to make sure other people can’t
ignore it either.

Your graphic design is pretty distinct, from the hand-drawn art and imagery to the fonts that repeatedly
appear on your records. I’ve definitely seen some other bands doing an eerily similar thing…
have you noticed other punk bands kind of copping your artistic style? Is it annoying when that happens?
Jon: Thanks. That is a very important element of the band in my opinion. I’ve seen some blatant rip-offs
of what we do. Some would say this is just the nature of punk. Some would say imitation is the
highest form of flattery. I feel like we are trying to create an identity for what we do and by
no means is what we do without influence. I am informed by what I see in the world and what other
people do. I’d like to think that these influencing ideas go through our filter before the rest
of the world gets to see them though.
Jensen: The art has always been there. I used to draw more, but now I just leave it up Jon.