MrRock.net recently spoke to HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE guitarist John Cobbett recently about a number of topics including their latest album, The Locust Years, out now via Cruz Del Sur. A few excerpts from the chat found here follow:

MrRock.net: The Locust Years is very difficult to pigeon-hole into any one category, which is something the media likes to do. Do you think that it’s time to stop categorizing albums, and simply have ‘good’ or ‘bad’ music?

Cobbett: "It’s a shame that everything is categorized these days, but I don’t think it’s all the media’s fault. Labels find these categories very convenient for marketing stuff to niche audiences, who do a fine job of labeling themselves accordingly. The majority of bands now seem to want to play into these categories too, so the whole mess just gets perpetuated. What is a genre? It’s basically a set of rules. People are pretty good at following rules. Bands who break the rules even a little bit get called original. The majority of bands seem very aware of their genre and stick very close to it – their fans usually demand it. If they stray too far they are accused of being “untrue” to their category. In other words, they no longer serve as poster children for the lifestyle marketing embraced by their “rebellious” audience. The only sensible thing to do here is adopt a policy of willful ignorance. Normally I would say that ignorance is a bad thing, but how am I supposed to take this genre bullshit seriously?? So I just ignore it and people have trouble categorizing our music… so what? We don’t fit in, we’re misfits, nothing new there. We’re rebels, man, we make our living shooting pool down by the docks. It’s a horse of a different color, I tell you, a whole different ball game."

As previously reported, Hammers Of Misfortune recently announced the following official line-up: Chewy - drums; Ron Nichols - bass; John Cobbett - guitar; Sigrid Sheie - piano, organ; Patrick Goodwin - voice, guitar; Jesse Quattro - voice, etc.