Squawk!

Photo by Brian "Baby Leg" DeRan

Humans beings have said enough. Human beings have made enough music. It's time to let the animals have a voice. They probably want to tell us all kinds of shit. Hatebeak lay down a grinding death-metal churn while their wise beast vocalizes over the top. It's intense—you'd swear that you can make out words in there, or at least get the gist of what this bird is saying. We caught up with the humans of Hatebeak. The bird wouldn't deign to meet with us. VICE: When did you decide to have a bird as your singer? Hatebeak: It all stemmed from an idea I got when I found out that parrots can mimic almost any sound. Then I came up with the name and the concept and found Waldo and off I went. Is this a joke on or a tribute to the kind of music that you play behind the bird? A little of both. I mean, it is satire, but both MRK and I are huge death metal fans.   What is the bird's name? The bird's name is Waldo, named after the mynah bird on Twin Peaks. How do you go about recording the vocals? We pretty much just set Waldo up and let him have at it, then we tweak the music around the vocals a little bit. We do add things like distortion and reverb, but for the most part they are pretty much untouched. Have you ever played live? Waldo doesn't really perform when we want him to, and also the db levels of a live performance would be too much to handle for a bird. Are you animal activists? MRK and I don't really believe in harming animals, and we're definitely pro animal rights, but we don't wave that banner around. There's not too much of a message to our music. What's next for Hatebeak? A CD, and MRK has been trying to grow dreads, and I have one colored contact lens now, so we're hoping to become the next Twizted and get on MTV. Actually, we're planning on doing the CD on Reptilian Records and see where that takes us.