A positive outcome that arises from something unplanned or unintentional is often referred to as a happy accident. The best type of experience, where excitement and exploration join forces, The Yagas is the direct result of such events.
A relatively new band, The Yagas, came together without premeditation in 2023 when long-time husband and wife Renn Hawkey and Vera Farmiga found themselves involved in a musical workshop. Casual, the two went into it without pretense. Still, they suddenly found themselves invigorated to write music with Drummer Jason Bowman, Guitarist Mark Visconti, and Bassist Mike Davis, thus forming The Yagas.
The true definition of a happy accident, Renn Hawkey’s veteran experience (previously a vital part of Deadsy), joined with the theatrical talents of esteemed Actress Vera Farmiga, makes The Yagas quite compelling. Add to it some darkly unique and emotionally riveting music, and you have a band that deserves broader attention.
Recently, putting out their debut album Midnight Minuet on April 25th, The Yagas could have one of the more compelling Heavy Rock albums of 2025. Feeling inspired and ready to keep the fire burning, Renn Hawkey recently sat down to talk about the work put in The Yagas, working closely with his wife, the potential of this new project, plus more.
Cryptic Rock – You have been involved in music and entertainment for some time now. Your former band, when you worked in Deadsy, you guys built a reputation and a following. You have continued to work in music, film, and more. Before we dive into the new band, how would you describe your journey in music and entertainment?
Renn Hawkey – When Deadsy came out, it came out at an interesting time. It was Post-Grunge, and they were trying to find the new genre, which was Nu-Metal. We were lumped into that scene. In retrospect, that was Nu-Metal. At the time, it didn’t feel like we were making sense to be put in that box.
I’ve always felt I was fighting to earn an audience. Even bringing it up to right now. What we’re doing with this band, if you listen to it in its entirety, I don’t know what box one would put that in. It’s very genre-blending, as was Deadsy.
I’ve had a really atypical musical journey where we’ve had die-hard fans in Deadsy and then people who just didn’t quite know what to think of it or make of it. I’ve just had a very strange journey with music.
I did Deadsy when I could. I eventually moved back to New York, and the rest of the band is in Los Angeles. I did it when I was available, and when everybody else was available. It’s been smatterings over the last twenty-five years of being able to make music when I had the time.
I also started a family, so I took a bit of time away from it. Now that my kids are a bit older, they’re fourteen and sixteen; it’s now occupying all of my time. It’s all I think about. It’s really refreshing to be getting back into it and being able to focus entirely on it. Obviously, I have other things going on in life, and so does everybody else in the band.
It’s such a creative outlet for me, and for everybody else. We’re all having a great time doing it. That’s been the journey for me. It’s been interesting. I haven’t been doing what Deftones are doing, touring for thirty-plus years. I’ve just had a very different journey.
Cryptic Rock – It sounds interesting. To your point about Deadsy, when the band came out and was starting to pick up traction in the early 2000s, a lot of people were lumping you guys into the same box as Orgy who was also breaking big at the time.
Renn Hawkey – Well, one thing was we shared a producer with Josh Abraham. Interestingly, what happened was that we were a band first. Jay Gordon, who’s the singer of Orgy, was our bass player in Deadsy originally. Then he went off and did his own thing. We had already recorded an album. We had been tossed around a little bit between record labels, and we had a hard time getting the album out around the time when we recorded it. By the time our album came out, Orgy had already gone and made a record and put the record out. The comparisons were made.
There weren’t a lot of other heavy bands at the time that were implementing electronic sounds and keyboards. I think that, maybe very generically, you could make the comparison. If you get down to the real nuts and bolts of it, there isn’t a real sonic connection between the two.
Cryptic Rock – You are right, there were not a lot of bands doing that at the time. What you did with Deadsy and with Jay and Orgy, there was a lot of bands that came thereafter that followed suit. It is interesting to see what happened thereafter.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah. Nine Inch Nails, which is more Industrial leaning. That’s heavy with keyboards; very generically. Of course, Marilyn Manson escaped the Nu-metal banner. He just exists in his own genre. I suppose you would call it more of an Industrial Goth thing. Yet, you could have gone to a show back in the day at the festival, and you could have seen Manson on stage and Korn. Perhaps we’ll see that more often. He appears to be rebranding himself and making a big comeback. He’s out touring and selling out.
Cryptic Rock – It is true. You have your new band, The Yagas. You mentioned that you have more time for music now that your kids are older, and that’s understandable. When you have kids, you want to be there for them, and this requires a significant amount of time. How did this all come about that you compiled The Yagas?
Renn Hawkey – I had been doing another album with Deadsy. We would do an album, take three years in between, and do another album. I was working on one with the guys. Started in 2018, and then COVID happened. It got to be so difficult. I’m in New York. I have so many other things going on in my life. The timing was right for me.
Everyone in the band met at a place called the Woodstock Rock Academy. Woodstock Rock Academy is owned by our drummer, Jason Bowman. It’s a music school for kids. We all had kids in the program, and this amazing clubhouse where kids can go unsupervised. There are all these practice rooms, and you can go in and just kind of jam. There is the main room where everyone has their song assignments, and they must execute them. They have ten weeks to rehearse, and then they will showcase them in front of their parents. It’s a really awesome, cool thing where you’re sitting in the parking lot for three hours waiting. The kids are in there having a blast, and you’re asking yourself, “Why didn’t I have this as a kid?” It’s an amazing thing to be able to give your children that environment.
It turns out that they have an adult program, and somebody, one of the kids, signed me up for it as a joke. I said, “Oh, perfect. I’ll do it.” My wife, Vera, said, “I’ll do it with you.” That’s where we met Mark Visconti, who also had his son, Ben, in the Rock Academy. Jason, who’s the teacher, also participates in the adult program. The natural selection, we all just discovered one another in the adult program. As I said, the timing was right for me to dive into something new.
Jason said, “Hey, why don’t we try writing some new songs together? Some new material.” The first song we did was called “I Am.” I thought that for a group of guys who are just getting together and writing a song, this is a really interesting and dynamic song. This doesn’t feel like people just getting together and jamming. From there, we went, and within a month, we had written four songs. They came together very quickly. Then we started to take it very seriously. We had written twelve songs and then decided to go to the studio to track them.
I produced it. We visited Dreamland Studios, located in and around the Woodstock area. The goal was to record six songs in two days. We had tracked twelve. There’s a certain alchemy and an energy that we felt just doesn’t happen that often when you get together and jam with people.
We’re taking it seriously, nurturing it, and we’re very excited about it. We now have the album recorded, and it was released on April 25th. We’re already like, “We’ve got twenty-five other songs we’ve got to record.” It’s pretty wild. For a bunch of people who get together on the weekends for three hours on a Sunday, there’s a high volume of really good songs coming out of it. It’s really exciting.
I don’t know if we’re going to be able to tour the way other bands get to because everybody’s got careers. We’re doing the best we can through social media and YouTube, and so forth, to utilize the resources at our disposal to create videos. We’ve made some very cool videos. Being in the film and television world, we have access to some truly great and talented people who are excited to help us out and willing to work for peanuts to help get this project off the ground. We’re very proud of those videos. They’re all very homegrown.
We don’t have a label. We don’t have anybody pushing this thing along other than us. It’s a DIY project. I’m really proud of how far we’ve come with very limited resources.
Cryptic Rock – It is very fascinating to hear how it all came together. Who would expect a band to come together out of that, right?
Renn Hawkey – Yeah. We all have very different musical influences, too. Jason and Mark are much more Metal-leaning than I am. I’m more a dark, Goth Nu-Wave guy who also loves The Beatles, Roxy Music, and Gary Newman.
I’m the keyboard player. I bring a very different thing than the other guys do. Sometimes, when you mix these things together, really great stuff comes out of it.
Cryptic Rock – As you mentioned, listening to The Yagas, you are not sure what box they fit into. Sometimes, you do not need to put something in a box. There is a darkness to it. You could hear that it has a Gothic feel to it. It is very atmospheric, and the vocals fit excellently with it. It all meshes really well together.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah. What’s interesting about that is that Vera, my wife, who’s the singer, had never sung before. She discovered her love of heavy music through the songs assigned to her by Jason in the Adult Rock Academy. What she brings to it is so new and fresh for me. She’s not a typical front person.
Her musical influences are very different. She grew up in the Ukrainian community. She didn’t even speak English until she was seven. She grew up singing Slavic Folk songs. In her twenties, she was into the White Stripes and Radiohead. Nothing against them at all, it’s very different than what I was listening to. It’s interesting to me what she brings to it and how it works.
It’s this blend of Carpathian Folk melodies with Electro, Synth, and Jazz-Metal. I guess that’s the box I would put it in. I’m not sure if there’s a genre for that, but there is now.
Cryptic Rock – (Laughs). There you go! It is also interesting to hear how Vera was not always singing. That makes it even more exciting, knowing. You can hear a rawness in her voice. That type of energy and rawness resonates with many people when it comes to music.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah. She would not describe herself as a singer. She would describe herself as a storyteller. That’s the freshness that she brings to it and the rawness. That’s what people respond to. There are so many polished singers out there. Evanescence live, it’s unbelievable how she’s doing what she’s doing up there.
What Vera brings to this is a different rawness. There is a storytelling aspect where she is somehow able to convey this level of emotion. That I think is more important. She’s got a set of lungs on her, too. She’s got a very powerful voice. For someone who has not been doing this her entire life, it was wild to witness.
We’ve been together for twenty-one years. It wasn’t until two or three years ago that Jason had given her the first assignment. It was “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden, and then “Duality” by Slipknot. To watch her do that was just absolutely mind-blowing. She just opened her mouth, and it came out. That’s where she’s developed her love of heavy music.
Cryptic Rock – You can feel the emotion in it. Midnight Minuet is a very emotional record. It takes you on a journey, which is exciting and fun. Where did some of the themes for these songs come from? They are captivating.
Renn Hawkey – Well, thank you. I think Vera’s the person to ask. I’m one of these brain types who hear the lyrics, but I don’t pay attention to them. They become one of the instruments to me. I’ve never been entirely focused on lyrics, but I know the emotion and the feeling that’s being expressed in them all lyrically. I try to do the same with melody and with the instrumentation.
To me, it’s dark, but there’s a lot of love as well. All different kinds of love. There’s abundant love. There’s grief, which is the absence or the death of love. There’s unrequited love. That’s the theme I feel when I listen to it or when I play it.
Cryptic Rock – Interesting. You can feel everything, and it takes you on a journey. As we discussed, it is challenging to determine where to place the Yagas. Truthfully, the band has a very European sound. Some might be interested in The Yagas because you and Vera are involved, but the big surprise comes when listening to the music. Nothing is better than being surprised.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah, absolutely. As a music lover myself, I love discovery. I don’t like to be told. I never liked it when someone marketed something to me. Even when Nirvana came out, I was like, “Okay. I get it. It’s cool. It’s too hot for me to touch right now. I can’t go near that.” I didn’t do a deep dive underwater until after he passed. Arcade Fire felt like that, too, for me, but I ended up just absolutely loving it. There have been a lot of bands like that.
I miss the days of going to record stores and thumbing through vinyl, seven-inch records, and what just came out this week. That doesn’t exist anymore. There’s a lot of great music out there, and you’ve got to mine for it. I hope that people stumble upon our album and discover it. I think people will like it. I think it makes sense as an album, even though the songs are very different from one another.
Cryptic Rock – It certainly does. What is even more remarkable about it is that they are different. That makes for an interesting record. Even though they are different, the record flow is very seamless to listen to.
To your point, what you are saying about music is very accurate. Something is exciting about going to the record store. It was picking up cassette singles that had two tracks on them, or a remix on one side or the other. That is all gone.
Renn Hawkey – B sides, man.
Cryptic Rock – Yeah. Now, with the convenience of the internet. It is terrific, but it is also easy to get lost in the online shuffle. There is just so much material out there that it can be overwhelming. Like you said, you have to search for things. You can miss out on something many times because it is hard to find it all.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah. It is said that fifty thousand songs are uploaded to Spotify every day.
Cryptic Rock – That is hard to wrap your brain around.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah. I’m sure there’s a lot of great stuff out there that you and I have never heard.
Cryptic Rock – 100% true.
Renn Hawkey – We just did a show with Eugene Hütz from Gogol Bordello. He has a label called Casa Gogol. He’s got five or six bands on it. Maybe he did a showcase at Bowery Ballroom. He’s a friend, and he invited us to perform our set. We do a song with him, actually. He and I produced together.
He’s got amazing bands that need to be heard. He has a band of his own, that’s on the label, called Puzzled Panther. It’s one of the best energetic live acts I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s got another act called Grace Bergere, who’s the darker version of Phoebe Bridgers. It’s this Americana vibe to it, and it’s just so heavy. What’s cool about it is that her record is amazing, but then the experience of her live show feels so different.
It’s often asked, “How do you make a living from making music?” Despite all the reasons why one should not make music, people can’t help but continue creating it. It’s who we are. It’s our right as human beings. It’s the one thing that every culture has. It’s the one thing that connects every human being. We all have a divine right to it, either as creators or listeners. It’s a weird fucking time, but I don’t think anything can really stop people from creating it and making it. This is an interesting time and space to be releasing music, and you just hope that it finds an audience, whether it’s my record or any of these other records.
Cryptic Rock – Like you said, it is not about monetary gain. You want to make a living with your music and art, but it is not your main priority.
Renn Hawkey – Yeah, certainly. You don’t want to be hemorrhaging money making a record. You want to be able to at least make enough to justify doing it. You don’t want to get a line of credit out on your house and risk the well-being of your family. There are a lot of reasons not to do it, but there are so many more reasons to do it.
Cryptic Rock – Agreed. You told the story about how this project came together. We spoke about your history, Deadsy, and everything you have done. Would you say this project has less pressure on you because it happened by accident, and it is flowing naturally? Would you say that is making the creativity more exciting?
Renn Hawkey – Creatively, this is much more liberating and exciting for me. In Deadsy, I loved everything I did in that band, but Elijah is a very creative guy with strong opinions. Often, I felt like I had parameters to fit into a specific mold. Whereas now, I can do whatever the fuck I want.
That’s an interesting thing, too. Everybody shows up and we do our things; the drummer, the bass player, the guitar player. That’s what you get. There’s not – I wrote this song, and everyone played these parts. There’s none of that. These are just our songs. For that reason, it’s great.
I do have a ton of internal pressure because I’m basically the label, and I’m doing a lot of the day-to-day stuff. I feel a responsibility to ensure that I’m doing the best I can for the band to get the music out and be heard. It feels great not to have a label that you’re just indebted to for the rest of eternity. Even just having somebody tell you what to do creatively.
Of course, there’s the money side of it. We’re doing what we can with what we have. For that reason, I’m just really proud of it.
Cryptic Rock – People need to hear it; they will be excited by what they find.
Renn Hawkey – Thanks. I hope they check out the videos, because that’s another aspect of what we do. Vera directed the second video, too. She and I produce everything.
Cryptic Rock – Outstanding. People work with their spouses every day, whether it be running a small business or doing this or that. You are working directly creatively with your wife. What is it like working with her?
Renn Hawkey – It’s great. She and I, well, we make kids together really well. It made sense to try some other things together. We’ve produced film and television stuff together. She directed and starred in a film called Higher Ground, for which I composed the music and served as producer. We work really well together. A lot of passion and a lot of opinions, but it’s okay. We’re both fire signs; we don’t extinguish one another. We ignite each other even more.
We also have some real estate projects that we’re working on. We’ve worked on some residential projects together. We also have a commercial project, it’s a historic preservation project that we’ve been working on together for several years. We’re used to it.
The more time that we get to spend together, the better. Especially given her career as an actor, there are large chunks of time when she’s away. That’s hard. That’s as hard on a family. We do our best to mitigate that. She comes home, flying back from Europe on weekends, just to put in twelve hours with the kids and me. It’s a lot of extra work, but we’re really committed to this thing that we’ve built together, whether it’s family, music, film stuff, all the things that make us who we are. It works. I couldn’t have done this with any of my ex-girlfriends, that’s for sure. It’s one of these things that works.
Cryptic Rock – It’s a testament to your strong relationship and your strong family bond.
Renn Hawkey – When you find that person, when it works, spend as much time as you can with each other. Life is just too short, too precious.
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