In our next band spotlight, we chat to Dom Smith, drummer in York-based Hypnotic Funeral Drone band, The THING about music and inspirations.

What inspires The THING!?

It’s pure noise, man. There’s no real melody, it’s just we wanted to create this heavy new genre – HYPNOTIC FUNERAL DRONE, and give it to people whether they like it or not?

How different is it to your previous bands?

Both Seep Away (my other project) and TC6 (Kreecha’s other thing) are super heavy, and influenced a lot by thrash and heavy punk and metal acts. This is more bleak, it’s darker, and much more sinister – it’s slower, more guttural and assaults the senses without remorse.

What are your influences? 

Sunn))), death and destruction, as well as drone music in all its forms! This is unlike anything we’ve ever heard, and it’s unlike anything anyone else will have heard either. It’s music with one note throughout designed exclusively to make you shit yourself, cry or sleep. Obviously you have to see a show to figure out which one suits you best! Haha!

What are your plans for the future?

We have a couple of shows, one that we are putting on with a bunch of friends – Little Death Machine from London and Petrol Hoers, and that’s in August of this year, on the 12th at Fulford Arms, which will forever be my favourite venue.

We actually also play The Spread Eagle in York on June 30th, which will be our first ever show. The August one which we are curating will have visuals designed for it, and it’ll be a much more uncomfortable affair for the audience. We actually just got a new live member in, Kiran Tanna who performers as part of Viaperformance, so that’s really exciting. He adds and extra bit of oomph and chaos to whatever the fuck it is we are trying to do with his mental synth work, so stay tuned there…if you dare.

We’re also working on the follow up to our first soundtrack, which will be called ‘Now We Are SixSixSix’.