Hinayana is formed in 2014 as a one man project by Casey Hurd. After a quick success of the EP Endless on the same year, Casey decided to make it in to a full band and they released their full length debut “Order Divine” in 2018, they are releasing their new EP Death of a Cosmic on August 28th. It was a pleasure to talk with the man Casey Hurd himself in an exclusive Interview for Metalheads Forever Magazine.
Hello Casey, How are you man, How was your day so far?
I’m good hows it going man.
It’s going good, chilling and spending my day on music,taking care of business, how about yourself man?
Death of the cosmic EP scheduled for 28th August, Can you tell me about the songwriting and production behind it?
Yes so we really wanted to kind of involve the sound of the band from the previous release which was “Order Divine” , we want to take another step in carving out our original sound as a band we want to up the production and we work under a limited budget. This time we wanted to make up the details that we wanted to, we are all pretty satisfied with how it came. As part of production we upgraded all the equipment we were using, we spend more time on the studio, so its sound pretty good than the previous one.
What have you set behind the EP, any concept it has been based on?
Yes, so this EP is basically on the concept how human beings are not treating the earth well and its about the cold concrete modern world that we are kind of building on top of nature of all this and planning and leaving the spirit behind and severing our connection with the nature, you can kind of see that in the album artwork as well, brutal nice trees cutting you know and all the songs are connected along with that concept.
Although you started in 2014 with Endless Demo, as a one man project, in a period of 4 years you come as a full strength band, how did it all happen?
Yeah, I started the band in 2014 all by myself, I didn’t thought people would like what I was doing, I was kind of influenced by other one man projects, I was kind of influenced by the multi instrumental-ism, so what I realized was people are actually digging the music, so I thought better to convert this into a real band you know, we should probably play some shows, it would be really cool to do this live and fully make a full fledge band out of this. I just honestly really don’t know how its going to be, I never really thought anything will come out other than a single demo.
How did Napalm found you guys?
They reached out to us, they have discovered us, I cant really figure how they found our music, they were really excited to work with us and I think it might have been interested with our collaboration with Nature G of the Tengger Cavalry who also was with Napalm Records. So I think it might have something to do with that.
Tell me how successful it had been since 2018’s Order Divine?
Yes that is the album which really got us to our fans now, its kind of thing that allowed us to have a fan base you know, a full length album that is a kind of product, people can really crash on to it, little bit lengthier, but still digestible not a real length album, I think it was just good, kind of give a feel of the ground a little bit. I think its pretty successful for that. I’m pretty happy with how it went and people still like the songs even the kind its moving, we are just trying to improve everything you know, Im happy about the album, I would say its pretty successful.
Honestly speaking you guys have a typical style, a mix of everything I would say, kind a cool for a metal-head?
Yes, I was more of influenced by a lot of European, Northern kind of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian in bands lot more melodic and lot more dynamic that you miss in the US, typical of that you wanted to implement that kind of stuff you know and that’s the kind of stuff that really captivates me, Yes like that, I would like to stay diverse in songwriting and I like to have more faster sound and slower stuff, that’s my kind of stuff and I wanted to have wide range of stuff
What would be some of the great moments?
Yes some of the best moments that has happened so far are honestly breaking out of the regular stuff that like doing job is playing with some of my favorite bands in stage and making friends with them and honestly one of my favorite moments is working with Nature G before he passed away it was really sad, that was one of my favorite moment and I had a lot of respect for him, that was a different level to work with someone so talented. We are really looking forward to work on shows, we have been working with lots of booking agency here in US, we can start touring maybe in next year, let see how this crisis goes, you know, I’m sure that there will be a lot of cool moment ahead for us. Sharing the stage with some of the amazing bands like Wolfheart and others, that’s the big one for me to be honest, Ensiferum and Septicflesh are something huge to share stage with.
Hinayana, emphasizes the true form of Buddhism, into individual salvation through self discipline and meditation, in what context you have had this name?
It’s a little bit different, For us its not representing Buddhism, But I like the meaning of the word, the meaning which is in Buddhism, that is really the lesser vehicle the smaller vehicle you know, Kind of lesser path you know and path of suffering and something up those sorts you know, so it’s a kind of little difference but it changes a little bit of Buddhism and not really Buddhism you know.
Finally do you have a message for the fans?
Yeah Yeah, I want everyone to stay positive and in this time, I want everyone to stay busy and stay positive and hopefully our new EP can help with that you know. Hopefully you all guys will like it.
Thank You Casey for putting up an amazing album, would see you soon
Thanks Man
