BITCH HAWK
One of pop’s most prolific writers has turned his hand to metal
“i Was unemployed after school. I didn’t know what to do. I just needed to spend my time better than sitting in an office.” For many of us, that’s when we slide into nine-to-fives. Patrik Berger didn’t. Armed with a punk rock attitude and a head full of noise, he grafted his way into studio work, rubbing shoulders with pop songwriters. Then he became one.
Having written for Charli XCX, Icona Pop, Lana Del Rey and more, he’s A Big Deal. But he wanted something more. “I’d done a lot of pop music, but I got frustrated,” he admits. “So I was like, ‘I just need to put a band together and play some gnarly hardcore!’” Thus, two years ago, Bitch Hawk was born.
In 2018 alone, the Swedish four-piece shat out two albums. Their most recent, Joy, is an arse-clenching ride across the hardcore highway, stopping off at black metal and sludge for toilet breaks. It’s a callous nest of songs, like Minor Threat covering Bathory – and there’s already stuff hatching for album number three.
“We originally wanted only doomy, slow material [for the next album],” says Patrik. “It’d be nice to have a few slowburners to play live. But then we wrote three amazing, black metal, grindcore songs, so that’s what’s gonna happen!”
Both Bitch Hawk’s recordings and ravenous live shows are dirtily DIY, the antithesis of Patrik’s chart-bothering day job. He wants to keep it that way.
“I want to keep it raw and simple,” he says. “I don’t think we’ll add keyboards or synthesisers. I don’t want to add any after-effects. Except… noise, maybe.”
Noise is all right by us.
JOY IS OUT NOW VIA ADRIAN