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Hyro the Hero Interview: Pits Where There Shouldn’t Be

Photo by Mark Adriane

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Let’s get it out of the way: in the critical sphere, rap rock has a bad connotation. Rarely, if ever, do artists tastefully combine the two genres, or even produce something that touches the spirit of both. Enter Houston’s Hyron Fenton, who goes by Hyro the Hero. Following a series of mixtapes, his 2011 debut album Birth, School, Work, Death was a revelation, blending punk and post-hardcore with rap, featuring contributions from some of Fenton’s biggest influences, namely At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta’s Paul Hijonos. Last year, he finally followed up his debut with the more rap-oriented Flagged Channel. His mixture of styles lands him on tours with bands like P.O.D. and festivals like the Rockstar Energy Drink Disrupt Festival, which comes to Tinely Park’s Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre on Friday, and the Vans Warped Tour. But his loyalty to black music and culture nabbed him a spot on this year’s Afropunk lineup, too. 

Last month, over the phone, Fenton (who now lives in L.A.) spoke to being the outlier at many shows and festivals and how the history of his across-the-board influences helped him navigate the terrain. He also shared some wisdom about the contemporary music landscape and its increasingly blending notions of genre. Read below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: It’s been a year since Flagged Channel came out. How has your relationship with the album changed over then?

Hyron Fenton: It’s more of a live feel with the album now because now I’m performing it. I feel it on a different level. I get to push the energy a little bit more. When I’m in the studio, I try to capture that vibe, but it’s nothing like being on the stage.

SILY: It was a few years between that and your debut.

HF: Yeah, it was a whole learning process. I was just trying to get myself together, learn my craft a little more. I got into rap a little bit more, learned structure, different choruses.

SILY: Is your background more in rap or rock?

HF: I come from a hip hop background. Growing up, I was listening to Tupac, 50 Cent, Cam’ron, Eminem--one of my favorite rappers ever. I was the guy who flipped the channel. I started listening to Nickelback and shit like that, and thought, “Okay, this is rock.” And then there’s deeper than that. I got into At The Drive-In, Rancid, and Bad Brains. A little bit more punk rock. I was learning my roots: The Judgement Night soundtrack.

SILY: Were you influenced a lot by the Houston rap scene?

HF: Oh yeah, man, the Houston rap scene is what got me. My sister used to rap with DJ Screw, who was the man in Houston. He died. She knew him before he blew up. To see him start a movement and turn into a whole thing. In Houston, we were kind of snobby about our music--all we would listen to was Houston music. But I decided to venture out a little bit. I started rappin’, and when I rapped I would scream all the time because I would listen to Tupac and try to imitate him. He wasn’t really screaming, but I thought it was so I would scream. I think that’s what helped me out in rock.

SILY: When was the point where you realized you wanted to combine rap and rock?

HF: It was when my ex-girlfriend in high school left me and I got real mad. So I wanted to make a song about it. I didn’t want to rap, because I couldn’t get the emotion out of it, so I took a rock song and I sampled it. I was screaming on that, and it took off from there. I put it up on Myspace.

SILY: Is it still up, or did it get lost when Myspace lost a bunch of data?

HF: I can’t find it! I think I deleted it. I put that one up and a song called “Punk Rock” where I sampled a Soulja Boy beat and sped it up. I was saying, “I’d rather be a punk rocker than a hip hopper, ‘cause y’all just doin’ the ringtone shit.” I was dissing a lot of people back then. [laughs]

SILY: Were you ever into other bands that combined rap and rock, like the Beastie Boys or Rage Against the Machine?

HF: Oh yeah, man. Limp Bizkit. Especially when it came out when they had a song with Method Man, and Eminem had a song with Kid Rock. I saw it becoming cool in a sense. I saw how much respect rock had for rap, but I didn’t see it the other way around so much. Rap was kind of scared of guitars, so it was cool how they blended it.

SILY: I’ve talked to friends who only listened to rap and then the Jay-Z/Linkin Park mashup came out, which turned them on to rock.

HF: They did it right! Jay-Z has such a cool voice, so they really nailed the chill hip hop vibe with it. The music with Linkin Park is so good and respectable. It blended it perfectly.

SILY: Do you feel like you’ve established your own sound beyond your influences?

HF: Yeah, I think I’ve got my own sound going. I’m always compared to Rage no matter what, but the way I rap is a little different. I put in more words. The way Zack [de la Rocha] did it, with little small sentences that were so powerful. That’s a hard thing to do. I got a lot of stuff to say, which is why I rap a little fast and make my words poetic. What they did was so special, though, so it’s cool to get compared to them.

SILY: Looking at the types of shows you’re playing, you’re with a lot of pure rock bands.

HF: The cool thing about me is I can do rap, I can do metal, I can do punk. They can put me in anything. My music blends all categories.

SILY: When you go to the Disrupt Festival versus something like Afropunk, do you cater to what the crowd is gonna want to hear?

HF: I used to do that, but I felt like that didn’t work for me. Now I just do my own thing. I’ve turned some places into pits that shouldn’t have pits. Especially Afropunk--I can’t wait to bring my vibe there. Same energy I bring everywhere.

SILY: Have you gained a lot of new fans at festivals where you’re the genre outlier?

HF: Oh yeah, man, especially in this day and age. Back then, it was a little different. People were a little bit wary of it. Now, everybody is into everything. If you look at rap shows, they’re trying to be like punk rockers with mosh pits. It’s really no different.

SILY: Trap has mosh pits, but then there’s also emo rock rap like Lil Peep.

HF: XXX[Tentacion], Lil Uzi [Vert], and all them. They’re doing stuff I was doing when I was young. [laughs] I was just a little ahead of my time.

SILY: The rise of the Internet really allowed that to happen.

HF: It’s a gift and a curse. It’s open for everybody, so everybody thinks they’re a rapper and they can do music. The special feel of it has gone. Truly talented people don’t get heard. It’s just if someone makes an ear candy song. At the same time, people are able to express themselves and it makes everybody work harder to get heard.

SILY: And people who previously didn’t have an in or money can get heard.

HF: I was like, “Damn, man, I didn’t have these opportunities when I was young.” I had a crew, but I didn’t have YouTube or Instagram. It’s a gift right now. 

SILY: Do you feel like you have to anticipate trends or what people are going to be doing so you can stand out?

HF: I just do my own thing. I don’t pay attention too much. I listen to music, and it inspires me, but as far as the waves go, I’m a little too old to know what’s up. By the time I hear a song, I’m like, “Oh, it’s a big song?” People got dances to it and everything, and I’m already late on it. [laughs]

SILY: How do you listen to music these days?

HF: Spotify playlists. I love YouTube. I like looking at old live shows. If you look at my Instagram stories, I call it homework. Looking at live shows from Queen, Bob Marley.

SILY: Have you heard anything lately that’s blown your mind?

HF: Lately, I’ve been into this band from Flint, Michigan, King 810. The song “Alpha & Omega”. It’s real dark and heavy. I don’t know if it’s old, but I jam that album. [Editor’s note: It’s from 2016.]

SILY: Are you a big metal fan?

HF: Oh yeah, I’m into metal. More punk rock, but I fall into metal because I love the metal sound. But I couldn’t tell you any new metal bands. I’m into old school metal. If you look at lineups, the old school cats still headlining.

SILY: I saw the Slayer farewell tour at the venue you’re playing here.

HF: Oh man. For throwback Thursday, I was gonna post a picture I had with Kerry King. It’s from back in 2012.

SILY: Sounds like I need to follow you on Instagram!

HF: I have tons of cool stuff there, especially with the lyrics I spit. I’m not political--I leave that up to everyone else. Everybody’s super political online and “woke”--I just like to be fun. [laughs]

SILY: Changing gears--does Houston still feel like home?

HF: Oh yeah, I was just there with some homies for 4-5 days. Went out to the club, partied hip hop style with bottles and stuff--shit I don’t normally do, but it was fun--I ain’t gon’ lie.

SILY: My girlfriend has family near Houston in Humble, and we go to the rodeo every year.

HF: The rodeo is fun, man! I haven’t been to it in a while. I remember when Destiny’s Child did shows there before they were super famous.

SILY: Increasingly, they’re booking a lot besides country. This past year, Cardi B broke the attendance record, before first Los Tigres del Norte and then George Strait broke it again.

HF: That’s crazy! They’ve been booking all kinds of acts now. And even if you look at country--look at Lil Nas X. Hip hop goin’ country. There’s another song going viral right now, a young black kid doing country with a trap kind of vibe.

SILY: Do you like “Old Town Road”?

HF: I love it. I hope he got another one, because it’s so good. It’s kind of hard to top it. [Editors note: Yes, it is.]

SILY: I loved Billy Ray Cyrus’s post-Billboard charts “Is this country enough for you now?” flex?

HF: [laughs] I get it. They probably looked at it and thought, “You’re making a parody of country.” But he’s really sticking with it.

Country already had some hip hop aspects to it, like Florida Georgia Line. I’m from Texas, so I know a little bit about old country, like “Mama Tried”. It’s cool to see the hip hop aspect of it.

SILY: Why did you change your name from Hyro Da Hero to Hyro The Hero?

HF: “D-A” was a little too hard--I always had to spell it out. People just said “The” anyway. So I thought I’d change it. Maybe some Mandela Effect type of way. But I didn’t realize I had so much stuff that said “Da,” so it messed up my merchandise. [laughs]

SILY: It’s probably really valuable!

HF: Yeah, and I have a lot of it.

SILY: Do you have any new music you’re thinking about or recording?

HF: I’ve been working on some dope stuff. I can’t really speak on it, but when people say it’s kind of hard to do the next album--this one might give Flagged Channel a run for its money. Some of these songs, I’m just so excited to do live.

SILY: Are you going to do any of them on upcoming shows?

HF: No, we haven’t learned them yet. A lot of them I don’t even know if they’ll make the album. I have a few for sure with some really cool people. Artists like me--I’m a rapper slash rocker, so I can move around with different bands and musicians and have an all-star cast.

SILY: And introduce people who haven’t met or worked with each other.

HF: Exactly. That’s what’s so dope about it.