HÄGÖL is an anti-fascist, queer punk force—they’re also Nicholas Cage fans. HÄGÖL’s music is a chaotic celebration of life, through catchy tunes, activism from the heart, and a playful spirit. HÄGÖL’s every note is a call to action and every performance is a celebration of resistance.

Gimmie delved into members’ experiences growing up in the Korean and Philippines music scenes, their perspectives on colonisation, solidarity with Palestine, along with insights into the local Adelaide/Kaurna Country music community, learning about DIY from the Spiral Objective zine, playing a Village People song, and much more.

Their latest single ‘Dirt’ was released as ‘pay what you want’ but the band encouraged listeners to donate to Pay The Rent, APAN, Olive Kids, or a Mutual Aid Network instead.

HÄGÖL are an “angry anti-fascist keyboard, cat punk, nana loving, jerk destroying, queer, pinko” band; what else would you like to tell us about the band?

DOQ: Pretty much all those. And bicycle-loving, gardening enthusiast, and passive introvert supporters.

AARON: We do this as occupiers on the stolen lands of the Kaurna people – sovereignty has never been ceded. 

We are kind of a pop band with raw punk sensibilities, that wish we could write the next ‘Rock Lobster’. Three of us are the most awkward people you will ever meet and one of us is possibly the most laid back person you will ever meet. Anyone that guesses correctly who gets free entry to our next show…actually scratch that, I think maybe its too obvious.

KELLI: I’d add we’re Nicholas Cage fans.

TATING: We like to play live the Village People’s ‘Food Fight’ more faster and more noisy as much as we can.

What’s the story behind the band name, HÄGÖL? 

DOQ: It’s my awesome cat friend’s name. It’s Korean and it means skull. He was the sweetest cat you would ever meet. He came all the way from Korea to here—just like me! He was rescued from bullies on the street but he was still so kind. He would share meals with pigeons, even they tried to attack him. He is a good mascot for our spirit of sharing and not let the disgusting world take our humanity and kindness.

AARON: The sweetest cat ever! Also, I really like the way it sounds and the way it looks with the umlauts in English and the Hangul characters. Its also fun trying to hear people pronounce it on community radio (shout out to the best ever 3D 93.7FM!!)  

KELLI: I wear the gol character on my shirt

TATING: I knew it was Doq and Aaron’s cat. Its so cool to know its also skull in Korean.

Can you tell us a little about each member?

DOQ: I am a pretty lucky person. I’m friends with animals and nanas. Not good at talking. And, try to be no harm. But if you poke me, I will be your nightmare, like a wriggling worm into your brain ha ha. I like attention but need three days of break after. 

I wanted to play guitar with my first band, but I lost the rock, scissors, paper game. It was a feminist band, from the gay and lesbian activist scene in Seoul. We weren’t included in punk scenes because I thought all the boys were macho scumbags. I was pretty much right. But I realised and learned about how to deal with different opinions after joining the punk scene. I guess we are all tiny, tiny particles after all. Even the scene was surrounded by macho-ness. I never experienced too much discrimination but I could stand up for others. It was convenient to be older and taller than other people in the Korean punk scene back then. 

I really like this interview. I wish somebody makes 3-hours long documentaries about me someday. 

Oh, I still play drums in Hägöl by the way. I am playing with the most perfect people—Aaron! Kelli! Tating! It is such an honour to play with you.

AARON: I sometimes think that I am basically a cliché, privileged white male ‘punk,’ with the classic boring neuroses and self-doubt, and at times (thankfully more rarely the past few years), periods of debilitating anxiety and depression that remind me that reckoning with yourself and doing the work is an ongoing process. 

I am the least interesting member of the band (I’m even vegan!!), and I am constantly so full of gratitude and love that I get to play punk rock with these awesome humans and people seem to enjoy it sometimes. I also love cats, riding a bike, cooking spicy soup, and writing confusingly long sentences. Oh, and I’ve been totally sober for almost 20 years!

KELLI: This band is so much fun. I’m ongoingly stoked that Aaron asked me to come to a super secret rehearsal in the middle of Covid, and I rocked up and Doq was there, and I was instantly in because of that alone. Then Aaron kept writing these super catchy tunes, so here we are now with Tating, which is like the egg in the soup—its the best. But that’s more about the band. 

Me, I don’t come from legit punk background, I’ve played in a bunch of different bands. But I love this scene very much; the folks are unceasingly rad, accepting, weird and challenging, which is exactly perfect. Other than that, I’m a mum and sometimes we do band and family paddle boarding which is a bit cute, really.

TATING: I’m Tating. I like drinking coffee, eating rice and smoking.

How did you first discover music?

DOQ: My first music could be Korean traditional bbong jjak (or trot) because it was my grandma’s favourite. And, I was reading and learning song lyrics before I could write because my grandma loves to learn to write with song lyrics. I can still remember those songs. My first first tape was Seo Taiji, which is Korean Idol; he likes Metallica, and so I listened and I liked it. But I didn’t know how to find other music like them. Because I lived in a country village right next to North Korea and nobody I know cared for this nonsense. My strategy to find new music was to find the original song they covered, or covered by, the band’s friends or enemies, ex-band, new band and girlfriend’s band and so on. I didn’t  have the Internet but I had a magnificent booklet inside tapes which had reviews and gossip and translated lyrics. The journey begins from there like a climbing spreaded spider web. 

AARON: The first music I ever remember really enjoying was a taped copy of The Muppets Movie soundtrack. I kind of really enjoyed novelty songs. I remember one of the first CD singles I ever had was Big Audio Dynamite ‘The Globe’. At the time, I was just excited by the goofy samples and stuff it kind of sounded like a cartoon to me maybe. 

The first punk I heard, was The Offspring or Green Day on the radio. I think what appealed to me was that it was kind of heavy and loud but still peppy. I started deep diving from there. There were super cheap samplers from Fat Wreck and Epitaph all around the place, and it just kept going. I would read street press and the liner notes of anything I could get my hands on. I videoed a punk documentary off ABC or something and watched it obsessively. I learned about bands like The Slits and tried to copy Steve Jones’ swears…ha ha—that was my early teen blueprint.

The local council library had CDs. I would look through them as often as I could and borrow anything that appeared to be even slightly related to punk; or that I had heard/read someone mention. I remember coming home with a Clash CD from the library being so excited because they were supposed to be the big inspiration for Rancid – but i kinda hated it at first. I also remember the first time I heard DEVO it was a cassette copy of Oh, No! It’s DEVO from the library and it burrowed into my brain forever.

KELLI: I grew up listening to my Dad’s records and tapes, the usual stuff like Credence, Queen, Stones, and Willie Nelson. The first song I remember getting proper obsessed with was ‘Under Pressure’ with Bowie and Queen—I still love that song, it’s a perfect song. 

My grandma played piano, and she’d talk a lot about that, even though she didn’t play much once I was alive because of arthritis in her hands, and she was pretty deaf. But she got me into playing; I could see in her that buzz and joy and the making sense of things that I felt with music.

TATING: I grow up in Samar Island, where there is no punk community or any subculture. I remember during that time, FM stations were only available every Sunday. Few houses has television, and you can easily tell who’s TV is on, because people in the village will gather there to watch a show. But there is plenty of traditional bands that plays waray-waray music. I think I learned to play guitar just from watching others. Its a common thing in our town. Even now, people still prefer acoustic guitar, rather than karaoke to singalong, during gatherings or drinking sessions. I’m also lucky to have relatives and friends that can bring me cassette tapes, when they come back from big towns. I discovered punk culture and community when I moved to Manila in 2003.

What’s a band or an album that had a really big impact on you and what do you appreciate about them/it?

DOQ: Bikini Kill opened my eyes and bombed my brain. How I discovered them was pretty lame (because of a fight with Courtney Love ha ha), it was even after they broke up. I thought I was never gonna see their gig in my life. But hey, they came to Adelaide last year! Whaaat??? How lucky I am! I wanted Hägöl to play opening for them so badly but strongly against it at the same time because I was frozen by the fact I am gonna see Bikini Kill. I am shivering just thinking about it now. I might have had a heart attack if we played. It was a fantastic show and I cried a little. 

They are the reason I got into punk and the reason I am in a band. They are the reason that I am, how I am, now. Not only their music but also their attitude (how they said they are not musicians, they are activists), that always fight for women’s and girl’s rights amongst male-dominated ‘free spirited artists and musicians’. I think the fight still continues against those guys who want me to list songs when I say I like that band too.

AARON: For me, it was Propagandhi’s Less Talk More Rock. That album really helped to start shaping my worldview and give words to the fear and sickness I started to feel as a kid growing up and participating in a violent, racist, sexist and aggressively homophobic community. I mean, I was definitely incredibly privileged in all ways, but that feeling of suburban/semi-rural “Australian” society where it just felt like things were going to snap at any point and masculinity was constantly being judged and questioned. This record helped me to start to reckon with my complicity and participation in a fucked world, especially as a white man, who was taught racism and sexism from a young age—it’s been a constant learning thing since then. 

They were also an important gateway to a scene—thanks to the Spiral Objective Propagandhi show in ’96, with a bunch of local DIY punk and hardcore bands. It was really eye-opening; I’d been to all-ages ‘punk’ shows before, but this was the first time it felt like a real DIY community—there were zines, vegan food, and record distro. The Spiral Objective zine, distro, and shows were where I learned about DIY, activism, and the punk community. Finding less mainstream punk and hardcore—anarcho, d-beat, grind, crust—it was like a whole new world opening up. It literally changed the course of my life. But I still really like a lot of pop punk, too!

KELLI: A Laughing Death in Meatspace by Tropical Fuck Storm—it’s a fairly recent album for this question, but it’s the record I got into heavily after my daughter was born, and it brought me back to music in a way. If I could do anything musically, I’d want to do that. I love everything about it: the lyrics are both hard-hitting and absurd, the gang vocals are exactly what I dream of—snarky, whiny, with attitude-filled fems against the male lead—the guitars are wild, the drums sometimes feel like a guitar, and the bass holds it all together.’

TATING: Disrupt – Unrest LP is my all-time favourite. Their music is my definition of crust punk. The lyrics and their critique of society influence me a lot. Experiencing and witnessing police brutality, abuse of power, the violence of the corrupt government, colonisation, and the historical background of our society—it’s not impossible for me to have a radical perspective. Disrupt is my gateway to the anarcho/d-beat/crust punk community, which makes me more firm in what I stand for.

How did the band first get started? You’re been around since 2021-2022ish, right?

DOQ: Yeah. Aaron and I wanted to form a band. We were writing songs and jamming just the two of us for a while. We called Aaron’s old bandmate, Kellie (Näh, STP), to join. After our first recording, we thought it would be fun to have a guitar, so we called Jared (Apteria and hundreds of other bands) for live performances. After Jared moved to Melbourne, we paid millions of dollars to hire Tating (Repugnant).

AARON: We were coming up with ideas and song bones all through the COVID lockdowns, and the first show was early 2021, I think. After our first recording, we asked Jarrad from the Rancid cover band Roots Radishes to join us; then he left to play with much better bands (like Jalang and Persecutor!).

KELLI: I answered that already! But I will add that the millions of dollars were worth it.

TATING: Yes, I got rich since I joined the band last year.

The band is from Kaurna Country/Adelaide; how’s living their influence your music? What’s the music community like there?

DOQ: It sux, but I don’t really go out much to shows when we’re not playing. However, there are many, many good bands I enjoy. I like how everyone is not stuck with a ‘genre.’ Juliette Seizure, Munch, Church Moms, Demon Pig, Mortal Ambition, Soria Moria… You should definitely come check it out.

AARON: Being here has definitely shaped the sound in a way. There is really no cohesive ‘punk’ scene that shares a particular sound or aesthetic, which allows for a bit more freedom for unique music to develop. The punx keep leaving for Naarm, so the only sounds that seem to persist and develop are the off-kilter oddballs. That being said, there are really great bands going at the moment, and it definitely feels like a community of relatively like-minded freaks. My current faves are probably TGRX and BAG. TGRX has a lyric that goes something like, ‘Big hat is a wizard, yes!’ and I love that so much for some reason.

Probably the most interesting music in the punk scene here comes from the amazing solo noise/synth projects, and we play the same shows together: amamanitaaxaxaamamanitaaxaxaxanaxglassseer, anoname, Slayer Organa, Shuriken Cell, and EMSTE— all making such awesome, challenging sounds. The Metro Hotel is probably the most supportive venue in the punk scene. It’s always a treat to play there, and they are always open to booking shows with less well-known bands.

We have traditionally always had a very strong hardcore scene in Tartanya, with some amazing quality bands, super positivity, and scary dancing. Stressed are probably my favourite from that scene at the moment; such a great band.

But honestly, the best reason to come here is to go to the beach, or if you visit in the weeks leading up to Christmas, you can experience Volcano Jesus and the creepy truck driver along the Karrawirra Parri light display. It is truly bizarre.

KELLI: There are heaps of different music communities and scenes going on here, they don’t always mix well. But yeah, what Aaron said about the noise/punx DIY thing, I reckon it’s rad. 

TATING: I think my music calmed down a bit when I moved here. I spent 20 years of my life in Manila, and it’s the punk community that is the reason I stay in the middle of pollution, traffic, rude people, and a dog-eat-dog society. Adelaide is way more peaceful and has a smaller punk community; I guess there is a correlation between the two. The advantage of a smaller community is that you almost know and are friends with each other. I like playing shows with Demon Pig and Mortal Ambition. Most of the shows happening lately are at Hotel Metro, Cranker, Ancient World, and Cumberland Hotel. Check out our new band with Aaron, Yawa Politika, and Femiscura Chainmaille for some punk jewellery.

In August you released your first single ‘Dirt’ off your upcoming split release with South Korean band 1234-DAH!; what’s the song about? How did the split come about?

DOQ: The song is about how the whole system has gotten dirtier and dirtier with capitalism, as we all know. Open your eyes; survive your little heart from dirt. That was actually longer than the lyric itself, haha.

1234-Dah! is an awesome band; we had a chance to watch them when Aaron and I visited Korea. I like their simple rock ’n’ roll style of punk. Nothing like our music, but it strangely fits together with us, so I asked them to do a split with us. They recently released a new album, so check it out online.

AARON: Yeh, we aren’t about giving particularly sophisticated takes on anything in our songs. The chorus is “dirt system fuck,” haha. It is really a song that, for me, is more about just screaming, feeling angry, powerless, and complicit in the ongoing horror—the genocide we see being perpetrated specifically by the IDF in Gaza. But it’s also about our own inextricable participation in the ongoing process of colonisation everywhere and the occupying capitalist machine. The machine that criminalises children, the machine that rips families apart, the machine that destroys lands and cultures, the machine that rewards house hoarders and landlords while others are sleeping in the cold; where inequality is weaponised to stoke racism and division; where men are assaulting and killing women so often most people barely blink; the machine that encourages safe white folks to feel like they need to have an opinion on people’s gender and sexuality but not genocide; the machine that is murdering children.

Meanwhile, we are sitting around writing goofy songs and cuddling with cats. So, yeh, dirt system fuuucckkk!!!! That one is not really about communicating anything to anyone; it is just catharsis. Which is why we released it specifically tied to the causes we want to support and the things we want people to learn about to join us in our anger and keep helping in any way we can.

And the split—we have a few songs ready to go (one of them has a bass line that totally rips off Rudimentary Peni!!!). It’s just getting things together with 1234-Dah! to release… maybe early next year.

KELLI: The song came to Tating, and I pretty much formed it, even with the super catchy keyboard line. My contribution was the artwork—a lino cut of a Palestinian scarab beetle and watermelon vines. I’m fairly new to the lino cut thing; it was fun to do, and they were all super patient with me while I tried to get it happening.

TATING: ‘Dirt’ is one of the songs we first recorded with me on guitar. It was a trial and a learning experience for me on how to join or fit into the sound. It was a challenge because the trio had already established the drum-bass-keyboard setup on HÄGÖL’s first EP. But it turns out great, I think, thanks to King for the great recording and mixing. I am looking forward to the split with 1234-DAH!

You’ve released the single as ‘pay what you want’ but encouraged people to donate to Pay The Rent, APAN, Olive Kids, or a Mutual Aid Network; what motivated you to link your music release to these causes, and how do you see the relationship between your music and activism?

DOQ: We wanted to contribute to make it a little bit less suffering. Even it is nothing at least we are standing where we think it’s right and remind people think about it one more time.

AARON: We don’t really take ourselves or the music too seriously, but what we do take seriously is the obligation and responsibility we have to use any type of platform—not just as a band, but in everything we do. We definitely make missteps and could always do better, and we want to make some small way to encourage people to not feel paralysed by the isolation, confusion, and fear this system creates. We are just goofballs trying our best. But we can’t let our comfort make us complacent. We need to keep talking about the ongoing process of colonisation and our complicity in it as settlers on stolen land. We are directly benefiting from the structures of colonisation, the systems that incarcerate and dispossess Indigenous people.

We are currently witnessing a genocide in Gaza and attacks across the region perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Forces, and we are all responsible for our government’s tacit support and inaction. We do try to reach outside the “bubble” where we can actually have conversations and share, learn, and get angry together. We are regularly reminded that we actually do need to keep talking about Gaza and colonisation globally as occupiers of stolen land ourselves—because in the general white pub scene, these things are still often so far off the radar.

We need to all try to collectively come together and understand we are all struggling under a dehumanising system and to support each other, wherever we have the capacity, to share our (stolen) wealth, listen to community leaders, raise other voices, take all the opportunities we are so privileged to have to learn, call out injustice, make mistakes, correct ourselves where we need to, and share in every way we can, in every action we take.

KELLI: We’ve got a platform sitting right on top of stolen land, we must continually point out the platform, the privilege and the stolen land.

TATING: My motivation is decolonisation because what is happening in Palestine reminds me of my ancestors’ suffering under colonisation. We are witnessing how the superpowers send their billions of dollars and advanced military technology to crush the resistance of a small village. My ancestors also fought to defend our land, culture, way of life, beliefs, ancestral wisdom, knowledge, family, and community. But after 400 years of massacre, we ended up worshiping the god of the colonisers.

I’m in solidarity with the Palestinian people because I know how it feels to lose connection to the land and to your ancestors. As an individual, these donations, boycotts, protests, art, music, and willingness to learn new strategies are the best I can do. Activism happens every day, in every choice and decision I make. I would say music has a significant contribution to me. The ideas and points of view I learn through music serve as my lens for looking at social or political issues happening now and in my personal daily struggles. Music is a powerful media.

What’s been one of the best or worst shows you’ve ever played?

DOQ: One of the best show was at Metro with Ceschi. There’s no such thing as the worst show with these Three Musketeers!

AARON: Probably the best was our first and only (so far!!) show in Naarm—we got to play with Jalang and Punter, two of my all-time favourite bands. And yeh, the Ceschi show was just one of the most outrageously magical nights; that was such a random occurrence. There were very few people there, but so much electricity. I’d honestly never heard of Ceschi before we got asked to play, but I am a huge fan now.

The worst? Ah… every show is an honour and privilege, of course!

KELLI: Yeah, Ceschi for sure! We did a DIY park show with a bunch of the bands from the scene, Punx Alive, and I remember that day as one of my lifetime favourite shows. My worst was not with this band.

TATING: No worst show also. But the best show for now I think is with Buddhatta (Japan) in the Cumby. I just remember many friends went that night.

What’s your favourite thing that you’ve been listening to/reading/or watching lately?

DOQ: Pussy Willows, ‘Cattails’ by Gordon Lightfoot; I listen to this song from time to time secretly. I’m reading Rebel Girl and Why Fish Don’t Exist at the moment at the same time, just because I can. And my Bible: Sugoiyo Masaru-san by Usta Kyoske.

AARON: Just finished the ’90s volume of Orstralia and really enjoyed it! Your book, Conversations with Punx, just arrived in the mail, so I am super excited to read that next! My daily listen is ‘Love Today’ by Mika because it’s my wake-up alarm. ‘Cantina Band’ from Star Wars is the backup—both excellent ways to wake up.

There’s so much great new stuff on regular rotation: Vampire—‘What Seems Forever Can Be Broken,’ the Jalang/Unsanitary Napkin split, Lothario—‘Hogtied,’ Barkaa—‘Big Tidda,’ and the new Billiam has been all over community radio here, and it’s rad. I get kind of obsessed with one thing and just run it incessantly—probably Golden Dystopian Age the most at the moment because Enzyme just played here. And Punter—I love everything they’ve done—but that song ‘A Minute’s Silence’ just nails things so well; I listen to it often.

In terms of watching, aside from old Simpsons or Futurama to get to sleep, I recently watched The Substance and enjoyed it a bunch. Great practical effects, and the last 30 minutes of that film are probably my favourite part in any film so far this year.

KELLI: Dok is the best. I’ve been listening to that new Barkaa record, Brittany Howard’s latest one, and the Kim Dracula record—see, no punk cred at all. The book I just finished was José Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. Again, no cred. I read a lot, but I dunno that much of it is that cool. I’m watching Mr. Bean with my kid.

TATING: I been listening lately to Screams from the Cage by Rat Cage (UK). I just know them when they play the Metro last year. Since then its always now in my playlist. And Santau by Jalang (Naarm)

What’s next for HÄGÖL?

DOQ: Tour with 1234-Dah! maybe.. we have been playing with a variety of different bands, not just the punks. Its’ always an adventure what show comes next and who will call us to play. We will keep playing as long as we are young and beautiful as now. And our future will be bright.

AARON: There are so many things we want to do that we will probably never get around to. Would love to make a goofy music video and maybe do some songs with a super obnoxious X-Ray Spex saxophone sound, and definitely always keen to play other places… but probably the next few things will be more moderately attended shows at the Metro ahhaaha. 

KELLI: Our future will be bright and at the Metro

TATING: Looking forward to the 1234-Dah! split, and more tours.

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