We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hang Him To the Scales. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hang Him below.

Alright, Hang Him thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Like many other indie bands, we started off as a regular weekend hobby, practicing once a week while everyone else worked full-time, except for Yena, who is currently pursuing her doctorate degree.

After spending a year hiding away in our $180/month rehearsal studio, we started playing live shows around mid-2022. Being an all-Asian band somehow makes us we stood out from the NYC indie music scene. So far, we have performed at various venues in NYC and beyond including two sold-out shows. We have also been selected for indie music festivals such as the New Colossus Festival 2023, Moonvibez MusicFest 2023, and Bacchanalia Festival 2022. Recently, we released our first official EP-Poutine this May.

We may not consider ourselves professional or exceptionally talented musicians, but the great amount of love and support we have received has made us realize that we could be on the stage, sharing our music with others. While we don’t know where our musical journey will lead us, we hope that one day our music will be discovered by more indie music fans and that we will have the opportunity to play larger gigs, and even go on tour.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Nihao(hi), we are Hang Him to the Scales, an indie Asian dreampop/shoegaze band from Brooklyn, New York.

When COVID hit New York City hard in 2020, Loto (vocalist/guitarist/songwriter) found himself confined to his small apartment day and night. For about 3 months, he stayed up late until the early AMs, spacing out, writing lyrics and songs, accompanied by the buzz of cicadas. It was a period filled with uncertainty and depression. Loto has never been a very talkative person, and at times, his moody feelings would become overwhelming.

Eventually, he reached a breaking point and decided to form a band as a way to escape or simply keep himself occupied. Luckily, he found like-minded friends who boarded the train to oblivion together. November 2021, the band was fully established, consisting of Loto on vocals/guitar, Anzur on lead guitar, Shangguan on keyboards, Will on drums, and Yena on bass. Drawing inspiration from dream-pop and shoegaze, we try to illustrate our vivid dreams, fantasies, complex moods, and internal struggles in our music, while also exploring the sonic possibilities of alternative rock.

We just released our first official EP-Poutine back in May. Featuring a cheesy breakup song “Honey, I Want My Money Back”, a midnight-cravings song “Poutine”, a quite moody song “Hold”, etc. Our EP is available on all streaming platforms, feel free to check out our EP if you are into indie rock, dreampop, and shoegaze stuff. Thanks!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This January, we had the honor of playing with a famous Chinese indie band called Schoolgirl Byebye. Since we live in New York, we took on the main role of booking and planning the shows, which was quite a task. Originally, we had planned to do two intimate no-stage shows in an art studio space. Unfortunately, two weeks before the shows, when all the tickets were sold out, we were informed by the building management that we could not use the space due to noise control and fire safety issues.

Of course, we panicked and had no clue what to do. For about a week, we reached out to every potential venue that could accommodate us on such short notice. Fortunately, a venue we had played at before called NORD-New Old Rock Deli came to our rescue. The venue manager, named John, was very kind and made changes to their already planned activities so that we could have the place booked back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. We really appreciate his help. The night before the first show, both bands stayed at the venue until the early hours of the morning setting up the stage.

Then comes the second part of the story. On the first day of the first show (Saturday), we arrived early to complete the stage setup and get ready for the sound check. We didn’t expect that the sound guy would be late for over an hour. It was a chaotic and unforgettable scene. On the stage, there were a bunch of people trying to figure out the sound system on their own while more than 50 people were already waiting for the show to begin. Thank goodness, a good friend of ours named Jesse came to see our show, and he happened to be a professional sound engineer. He stepped in to help set up the sound system until the sound guy finally arrived for the night.

On the second day (Sunday), the situation improved a bit. Obviously, the sound guy from Saturday was not asked to come back. We had a sound guy who arrived early and got things done quickly. So we thought, “Alright, tonight is going to be a good night!” But things got weird again. Five minutes after the show began, the sound guys somehow got into an argument with the manager and left for the night. We were left with our eyes wide open, wondering what had just happened. Luckily, our friend Jesse also came to the second show because, according to him, “I had a feeling…” and he was right. Thankfully, none of the audience noticed what happened, and Jesse quickly took control of the mixer and saved the night!

Aside from the sound guy situations, both nights went great. We really enjoyed the overall experience. We became good friends with the other band, Schoolgirl Byebye, as we shared a rehearsal space and solved problems together. We drew a big crowd of indie music lovers, including fans traveling from London. We also co-wrote a song named “You” and performed it as an encore for the two nights. It was our first time collaborating with another artist, so it was something new and super exciting for us. We hope we will be able to release the song soon.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There is only one simple goal that has been driving us along our music journey – to be heard. There is no doubt that we want to gain more exposure and be discovered by more indie music lovers who vibe with us. We treasure every single opportunity of being on stage. We believe that playing live is one of the best ways to connect with audiences and be discovered. If someone could assist us with our online song marketing, that would be even better! Anyway, at the moment, one particular goal we can think of is being able to play at a venue named Baby’s Alright, located in Brooklyn, New York. In our opinion, it is one of the best venues for the NYC indie music scene. Many bands we love have performed there before. Hopefully, we will be able to be a part of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/hhtts
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hhtts_band
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hhttsnyc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2yxrCTEkl-JghWc0yyvViA
• Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1q4lI6ejtwR0qMXWR0z0A4?si=6ruMXEQTRzCKExjlviOzAA
• Tiktok: tiktok.com/@hanghimtothescales

Image Credits
Norino Shi Ningyi Jiang