HISS - Existential Weight & Sonic Catharsis... (Brasil - Screamo/Post-Hardcore - Interview with Herison & Leonardo).

Hello ! Can you introduce yourself and tell us how it all began for you - your encounter with this musical universe, what appealed to you, what fascinated you and what made you want to get into music? 
Herison : For me, it all started in a more chaotic way than conventional. Coming from a working-class family, music was always present as the backdrop to our weekend conversations. My dad listened to a lot of samba, so that was my first contact with music at home. But I had an uncle who was a clubber, haha, and one day he showed up with "The Fat of the Land" by The Prodigy. That blew my mind. It was heavy, aggressive, and at the same time had a pulse that felt like it was moving something inside you. 
That was probably the first time I realized music could be more than just entertainment. A little while later, my dad got cable TV, and I spent hours watching MTV and VH1. 
For a 13-year-old kid, seeing bands like Sepultura, Metallica, Korn, and Slipknot was fascinating. It wasn't just the music, but all the intensity, the aesthetic, and the sense of belonging they conveyed. That made me dream of being part of that world.
From then on, I started looking for bands, learning about heavy music, and discovering new scenes. Over time, the desire to listen turned into the desire to create. Music became a way to express things I couldn't put into words, and many years later, it still is exactly that for me.


 
Tell me about the band... How you met - the current line-up - past experiences - and above all - WHY the need to form THIS band?
Herison : HISS came together much more from Leonardo, the bassist, than from me. At that time, I wasn’t really excited about the idea of having a band anymore. There were too many adult responsibilities, worries, and neuroses taking up space. But I’ve known Leo for practically my whole life, so I accepted the invitation.
In the beginning, the truth is we didn’t really know what we wanted to do. We just knew we wanted to play together again, something that hadn’t happened in about eight years, since our last band, "Eu, Sozinho".
In a way, I consider "Eu, Sozinho" a spiritual predecessor to HISS. That band already had a rawer sound, heavily influenced by emoviolence and classic screamo, with bands like Orchid and Pg.99, but we also liked to experiment and bring in broader influences, like At The Drive-In.When we decided to form HISS, we invited an old friend of ours, Michel Fagner, the drummer, who already had a lot of experience in the local scene. With that, we started out as a trio until the release of our first EP, titled “..And Everything Is Falling Again”. After the release, our friend João Felipe, the guitarist, joined the band for the EP shows, and that’s how we began the journey with this current lineup.
 
Describe your sound and explain why I should listen to YOUR band at all cost ?
Herison : To put it bluntly, HISS is a post-hardcore band, but we’re also a screamo band.
I think the best way to explain our sound is to imagine people in their late 30s to early 40s who have listened to a lot of music, been through different scenes, grown tired of certain formulas, and, after all that, managed to fall in love with music again.
That’s why, even though our roots are in screamo and post-hardcore, we’re not always concerned with staying within the boundaries of those styles. We often end up bringing in references and ideas that don’t necessarily belong to that world.
For us, songwriting is very simple: if a song, during the writing process, can give us back a bit of that feeling we had when we were younger — that genuine excitement of discovering something new — then we’re on the right path.Even when the lyrics deal with difficult subjects or experiences that can be painful for some people, there’s something liberating in the act of creating these songs. Maybe that’s exactly what I’d like someone to find when listening to HISS.


 
Lyrical and musical inspirations/influences ? How important are the lyrics for you ? Are there any specific messages or thoughts you try to develop and share through your lyrics ? 
Herison : Our inspirations come both from the bands we listen to and from what we experience in our day-to-day lives. Anxiety, frustration, and moments of conflict end up becoming part of the sound and the lyrics.
We’re also influenced by newer bands like Frail Body, Dreamwell, and State Faults, as well as the old guard like Daitro and Neil Perry, and bands like Neurosis and Isis. These references run through both the musical and lyrical sides.
Lyrically, there are also influences from contemporary philosophy, like Deleuze and Guattari, and ideas linked to “left-accelerationism” from authors like Mark Fisher, Nick Srnicek, and Alex Williams. At the same time, being from the Global South, there’s a certain more existential and pessimistic tone that also comes through, something that recalls Cioran.
The lyrics are extremely important to us. Many of us ended up getting into all sorts of ideas and topics precisely through other bands’ lyrics — from vegetarianism to philosophy and politics.What we want to work on in the lyrics is building images of failure, saturation, and transformation. The songs deal with bodies becoming heavy and numb, memory dissolving, and thoughts trying to push past language and structures that have already lost their meaning.
Here, error isn’t treated as something external to the system, but as part of it. Within the band’s narrative, that collapse can open space for other forms of existence.

About your latest release ? 
Leonardo : Our second EP was released a few months ago, more specifically at the end of March 2026, and it’s called “This exhaustion is not ours!”.
This second project started a long time ago. Some songs had already begun to be written, but weren’t finished in time for the first EP. So we tried to update them for the new lineup and also reframe them for the present moment. With that in mind, at the end of September 2025 we started focusing on writing, recording, and finding someone to mix and master the EP. All the tracking and pre-production was done by Rafael Vaz at Estúdio Casa Verde (@casaverdeudi), and then we did the mixing/mastering with the renowned Jack Shirley (@_the_atomic_garden_), who produced a lot of the bands we grew up listening to.
After the songs were finished, we got to a part we really enjoy being involved in: the visual identity. If I may say so, it was done with a lot of quality and skill by Luiz Alcamim (@moshdigiart). He’s the artist behind our physical EPs, LPs, t-shirts, long sleeves, buttons, and stickers.
Finally, for the EP release, we wanted to do something visual and decided to make a music video for our single, the song “Everything is just for one last broken circuit”. For that, we worked with a great friend, José Vitor (@zevit_), who did an amazing job and really understood and captured the essence we wanted for this song and the EP.

 
 
Future plans ? 
Herison : I think, initially, our main goal is to play as much as possible and keep pushing this EP. We’ve already played a few shows since the release, but Brazil is a huge country and there are still a lot of places where we’d like to play, meet people, and share the stage with bands we admire, while also discovering new bands. Looking ahead for HISS, I believe we have two big goals. The first is to start working on our first full-length album. It’s still early to set a date, but it would be amazing to get it out next year.
The second is to take the band beyond Brazil. Our most immediate dream would be to do a mini tour through Latin America, a region with an extremely rich and inspiring screamo and post-hardcore scene. Bands like Selfless from Chile, Kyogre from Argentina, and Negrvs from Mexico do work we really admire, and it would be incredible to tour with or even do a split with any of them.
At the end of the day, that’s always what we’ve been after: meeting people, building connections, and taking our music to places we never imagined we could reach. If we can do that, we’ll already be living way beyond what we imagined when we started the band.
 
Your most insane dream with the band would be ?
Herison : I don’t think my biggest dream is to turn HISS into a huge band. I like to think of it becoming one of those bands people discover at exactly the right moment in their life and never forget.
I want to play in places like the Czech Republic, Sarajevo, Santiago, and Bucharest, experience scenes completely different from ours, and share the stage with bands we admire, like Converge, Neurosis, Dreamwell, Gillian Carter, and Ostraca. And maybe one day, start our own DIY label to help other bands exist. Or, on a more personal note, make a zine that really affects people, that causes discomfort, that sparks debates, and that makes someone walk away from it thinking differently.
But, thinking about it more, I think my biggest dream is something else. It’s showing the people around us that the best thing you do in life might not be what pays your bills. It could be a song, a zine, a book, a film, or any other form of creation. If HISS can inspire someone to believe it’s worth making art even after a full day of work and responsibilities, then I think we’ll have already achieved something truly important.

Your BEST & WORST concert - as a band - and why ? 
Leonardo : Picking the best show is a little hard to define. We’ve had great shows in terms of performance, and also great shows because of how the crowd interacted with us. But without a doubt, our best shows were on this new EP’s tour.
Technically speaking, I think we played an excellent show in Santo André - SP, at 74club (@74club). As for crowd interaction, it was the first show for this new EP, in our hometown, Uberlândia - MG. It was at an event called Guilhotina Metal Hardcore (@guilhotinamhc), held at Fabrica5 (@cervejariafabricacinco). In the end, it was the collective’s biggest turnout. We sold out all our merch, and there’s a really different feeling to walking around your city and seeing people wearing your band’s shirts.
As for the worst, I think we all agree: it was the first one with the new lineup. We drove to a nearby city on a rainy day. No one knew us, and the local bands didn’t promote the event. So we ended up playing only for the other bands, with terrible sound where we could barely hear ourselves. A guitar string broke, tons of feedback... The best word for that show was "chaos". And not the kind of chaos we like.

Next live-appearance(s) ?
Leonardo : Our next show is already booked for July 27th, in a city we’ve never played before: Belo Horizonte, the capital of our state. We’re really excited, and we’re also locking in a few more dates for the end of this semester.

Some words on your local scene - bands you're friends with and you'd like to name ? 
Herison : The Uberlândia scene is a bit different from what you find in Brazil’s big cities. Even though it’s the second-largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, it still has the pace of a smaller town. Things happen more spontaneously than consistently. There are very active periods with shows and new bands popping up, and other quieter ones. It’s a scene that reinvents itself all the time.
At the same time, we feel like we’re part of a much larger community. Right now we’re really connected with bands from other cities and states across Brazil, and that’s been essential for HISS.
I’d like to shout out a few bands we admire and who are also great friends of ours: .sodade, Módulo Lunar, Heartlistener, and Enema Noise.

What’s the question you’ve always dreamed of answering but have never been asked? Just a heads-up: I’m also waiting for the answer that goes with it...
Herison : Why make this kind of music? This question has a lot to do with our experiences with some local promoters and the various projects we’ve been part of over the years. The idea that almost every sound related to punk is just thrown together and that anything will work unfortunately still exists in the minds of a lot of promoters, venues, etc., around here.
It becomes really clear when you see more “palatable” genres getting slots, often without even having original material, without trying to build a band identity, without putting in effort to bring something to the table, just playing covers.

Last word is yours.. 
Herison : Thanks for the invite. Keep supporting small bands, going to shows in your city, and creating things.
Hushed, Incessant, Sharp and Shrill.

Credits : 
BAND PHOTOS @sayhellotomarina
LIBVE PHOTOS @nat.raw_