Belgium always has had a rich tradition of excellent female fronted metal bands. Some of you will still remember ACID, AZYLYA and NIGHTQUEEN. Active bands like CATHUBODUA, BLEEDSKIN, ELUSION and SKEPTICAL MINDS regularly check in with new material or do live shows. And behold, there’s a new band to look out for: PAINTED SCARS from Ghent! Their refreshing debut EP “Kintsugi” will be out on August 17th. We are pleased to acquaint you with their dynamic front woman, Jassy Blue, also known as ‘Hyacien’.

Interview by: Henk van Nieuwenhoven

HALESTORM
Jassy or Hyacien, what do you prefer to be called?
“Hello there! No, that’s okay. Jassy Blue is perfect.”

In the intro to this interview I mentioned the rich tradition of Belgian female fronted metal bands. Do you know any of them?
“From what I know, Belgium is a really difficult country for such bands, especially female fronted hard rock bands. There are a lot, but it’s not easy to climb to that level where everyone knows who you are or what music you’re playing. Me, I listen a lot to Halestorm. I’m a huge fan and she (Lzzy Hale) is a big inspiration to me. Pretty Reckless (Taylor Momsen) is also a nice hard rock band that I like.”PAINTED SCARS is a relatively young band, formed in April 2023. Were you there from the beginning?
“Yes! I was even there before it all started (little laugh).”

SCARFEST
Your first single “Life And Alive” came out only three months after the formation and was followed by your own mini festival “Scarfest” in August 2023. Exactly one year later, there will be a second edition following the release of your first EP “Kintsugi”. Who will be playing there this year?
“Correct! Last year we wanted to perform as fast as we could, cause we’re actually all impatient bastards. So we had the brilliant idea to make our own festival ‘SCARFEST’. First we laughed with the name, but it’s rolling really nice over your tongue, so… The line up for this year is: Such Great Heights, Next Deed, White Heat, Promise Down, WildHeart, PAINTED SCARS (us) and SPËËLT (coverband for the afterparty).”

“Kintsugi” will be out on August 17th. The EP contains six excellent hard rock songs, including the bonus track “Life And Alive”. Who’s responsible for the music and lyrics?
“I’m responsible for the lyrics and the melody. Sometimes the rest of the band adds a little bit here and there. The music is mostly written by the two guitarists in the band (Yannick Rottiers and Kevin De Brauwer). “Knock Knock” for example was written by Yannick and “Freedom” was written by Kevin. I come up with a melody and lyrics. After that, our drummer Bram Vermeir creates his own drum parts, same for the bass guitarist Jens Van Geel. So actually it’s all a mix from all of us. Some have bigger parts in some songs than others, etc. We all feel it, and we all have the same mindset: “if it sounds nice, it’s nice!” We can do whatever we want. It just has to give the people a good feeling.”

“You know, we live on such a beautiful planet, but such ugly world.”

– Jassy ‘Hyacien’ Blue –

“Kintsugi” opens with “Glow In The Dark” that has a nice pounding rhythm and some great vocals, and not to forget an excellent guitar solo. However, I find the chorus a bit falling short. It takes the speed out of the song. But mind you, that is just my humble opinion.
“Hehe, I can understand your opinion here and it’s okay to feel like this. “Glow In The Dark” has this powerful beginning which is really nice to start a show with. We come on stage, the drummer plays his 4 notes and BOOM! THIS IS PAINTED SCARS! The first impression is the most important one. Show them what you’ve got. “Glow In The Dark” is actually the favorite of our guitarist Yannick. He likes the flow of it and of course the solo he can play (kill on stage).”

KNOCK KNOCK
The next track “Won’t Give Up” more than makes up for that with its high energy tempo. The lyrics suggest it’s an autobiographical song with Kevin saying: “You are lame / You are dumb / You are not enough / You’ll end up alone ha ha ha ha / You’re fucking ugly / You can’t sing / You can’t play / Why do you even bother / You piece of shit!” Did somebody really tell you all this?
“Yes, unfortunately… But not only to me. There are some others in the band who went through the same words in the past. The song is about whatever comes on your path, you have to remind yourself to just never give up. For me personally, it’s about the combination of being sick my whole life and because of that not being able to do the things I want, and that sometimes had thes awful consequences. You know, we live on such a beautiful planet, but such ugly world.”

Then we have “Knock Knock”. I’ve read the lyrics and I’m afraid to ask, but I need to satisfy my curiosity. What’s it about?
“Haha no problem! I’m glad you’ve asked and I’m happy to tell you. “Knock Knock” (who’s there) is about me being an overdramatic, sentimental bitch sometimes. It’s about all those feelings we have that take over control without you wanting it. Imagine my head and that my head has a door. Feelings like: stress, happiness, rage, anger, sadness… are all people. All with their own faces. Happiness is a person with a smiley face of course, anger a person with mad eyebrows, etc. From one situation to another there is always someone knocking on that door. If I can choose, I like to open that door for miss happiness, miss don’t care, or miss serenity… But sometimes you don’t have the choice and the other feelings come in anyway, while I’m doing everything in my power to keep them out. It’s a song about me laughing with my own demons and the best way to do that is making a “knock knock” (who’s there) joke about it. ‘Cause, why not?” 😛BADASS
“Liquid Gold” is the one you made a video for. A really nice up-tempo hard rock song. What made you decide to release this one as the first single?
““Liquid Gold” is our third single, but indeed the first video we made. We decided to give “Liquid Gold” a video because it was the easiest and the least expensive to make a video for. And we really, really, really wanted a video for one of our songs! In addition, we’ve asked all our friends and family to join to make this video a thing. It was so nice to create something like this with all the people you love and have it now forever flying in the world of AI.”

After what sounds like a party song, “Freedom”, it is PAINTED SCARS’ very first single ever, “Life And Alive”, that closes the EP. Personally, I think this is the best one on the EP with a fantastic bass break. What is your favourite from “Kintsugi”?
““Life And Alive” is indeed a great song! It’s also one of my favorites, so high five! 😊 Although “Knock Knock” is my favorite on the EP. I just love to perform this song on stage. It has a nice storyline and I enjoy every part of it. It’s badass, it’s cool, it’s really catchy and the crowd can sing along really fast!”

Last one already, will we see PAINTED SCARS soon on the Dutch and Belgian podiums?
“I hope so! We are ready to conquer the world !”😊 ■