Ex-Allusondrugs guitarist Damian Hughes launches Hypnosister: "I call it space rock!"

Ex-Allusondrugs guitarist Damian Hughes has launched a brand new, brain melting space rock project Hypnosister, and it's here to stand out. You can stream Hypnosister’s debut single and lyric video ‘Bother’ right here exclusively on Upset. Hi, Damian! What have you been up to since you left Allusondrugs? I started creating Hypnosister right away. I write music constantly, making songs at home, collaborating with other artists and writing on the road. I haven't stopped touring, even though I left Allusondrugs, I can't stay off the road for very long because touring is part of who I am, it's in my blood. What's the story behind Hypnosister? I've been completely absorbed by music as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would soak up any music I could find. When I was a toddler, my mum would play Nirvana and Sex Pistols records, and that sound remains deeply engrained in me to this day. I would listen to my uncle's music collection (Beethoven and Jean Michael Jarre) and my Grandad's music collection (The Beatles and The Monkees). I would even put on video games just for the music, not playing, just listening for hours. I was obsessed with music; I lived in it. I always had an urge to create but had no idea how or where to channel it until I started playing guitar and writing songs at age 11. At that point everything made sense, and it was clear that my purpose in life was to make music. I realised early on that I didn't fit in with other people. I grew up in Castleford, a dismal ex-mining town in the north of England. It's a place doesn't really nurture creativity or new ideas, people there generally feel beaten down and apathetic since the Tory government left it to rot in the 80s after it decimated the coal mining industry. So I didn't have many friends in school and was bullied a lot, which just pushed me deeper into music. It wasn't until I learned about Chromesthesia (a condition where people experience sound also as colour and shape) that I understood the depth of why I was so deeply obsessed with music, I was experiencing it in ways that other people couldn't. It made it so easy for me to get into the weirdest and wildest corners of music and draw from artists like Aphex Twin, Cardiacs, My Bloody Valentine, Captain Beefheart and Swans. Music isn't just a listening thing for me; it runs much deeper. The creation of it works on many levels, sound, colour, texture, shape and emotion. Hypnosister contains elements of everything from guitar pop to IDM music; I call it space rock!