HYRO THE HERO // From Hip Hop To Rock And EDM, Our Hero Is ‘Bound For Glory’

Houston-hailing rapper Hyro The Hero can be easily summed up by a menagerie of alliterative words; hybrid, heavy, hard-working – you name it, and chances are they’ll perfectly stick to the tenured rap rocker.

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An artist who has performed in the past alongside Wu-Tang Clan and Deftones, and taken festival stages by storm at Warped Tour and Soundwave, Hyro The Hero, aka Hyron Louis Fenton Jr., has consistently balanced social commentary with bombastic flair and a sharp creative vision since first releasing his 2007 mixtape Gangsta Rock under the name Hyro Da Hero. And while his brand new album, the impending Bound For Glory due out September 15, may detail the highs and lows that he’s traversed to arrive at this stage of his memorable career, the road to an album laden with high-profile collabs, nods to vintage martial arts movies, and more stemmed from organic evolution, as Fenton Jr. revealed recently over a Zoom chat with HysteriaMag.com from his current home in France.

“I started Bound For Glory about two years ago. Music takes a long time for some reason” Fenton Jr. says, grinning. “It felt fast though. I went to see my man Matt Good, who’s an amazing producer. So I got with him, and when that happened – our minds just connected so quickly. He comes from a band called From First to Last with Skrillex and stuff like that, and it’s almost like we’ve included all that stuff within the album. He’s got a hip hop background and everything, so once we got in there, we connected and we made six or seven songs in like two weeks.

“It was all happening, and everything was just like: woah, that’s awesome! Then: boom! COVID happened and kind of slowed a lot of stuff down. But in that timeframe I was able to make some songs and create some features and things like that, and it was epic from that point on. It just kind of formed itself into a cohesive album naturally.”

If a name like Skrillex surprises you for an album in the rap rock universe that also boasts features from Spencer Charnas from Ice Nine Kills or Chad Gray of Mudvayne and HELLYEAH fame, one needs only to cast their eye to Bound For Glory’s penultimate track Legendary, which boasts a feature from Artreyu’s Brandon Saller in a Skrillex-worthy remix courtesy of SNAILS.

“I had to have a remix too,” says Hyro, “because I’ve been dabbling in EDM now, shout out to Black Tiger Sex Machine, SNAILS and Crankdat. And it’s been cool to see my voice on EDM songs and stuff, so it’s almost fitting to have that style of remix on the album too, you know?

“An artist like me, I come from hip hop but I have the rock voice and I love EDM. I even sing sometimes even though I don’t know how to sing! But I sound like I know how to sing, so that’s cool.”

With 12 new tunes ready to pounce on Bound For Glory, following his 2022 Kids Against the Monsters EP, the inevitable pause that the pandemic years put on the Hyro The Hero journey ultimately presented some unexpected silver linings, particularly when it came time to line up some incredible features for his recent sonic output.

“I had songs ready,” says Fenton Jr., touching on his creative status when the pandemic hit. “But it basically got better through the pandemic because people were at home, so it was easier for me to reach out for features and stuff. 

“I got to push some of the songs out and had people be like: what you working on Hyro, I wanna be a part of that. Some didn’t make the album, you know, like for Kids Against The Monsters, I got Corey Taylor and I got Chad Gray from Mudvayne, and David Draiman on some of those songs. It’s like: wow, this is epic, you know? And it’s the respect I built up as an artist that was able to get me these things. And also, big help from the homies, Ben Bruce from Asking Alexandria, all this kind of stuff, he really had a lot of help in it too. I sit back now and I’m like: how the hell has this happened?!”

You can think you have a path, you go down it and think this is the way it’s supposed to be because somebody else did it like that. No! It’s gotta be your path. Even if you think it’s supposed to go on way – boom, you get sidelined or something like that.
[ Hyro The Hero ]

Alongside its glittering features and glossy production, Bound For Glory also finds Hyro The Hero pulling zero punches thematically, with the rapper baring his soul into both his difficulties and his drive in his pursuit of the titular glory. 

“I would say my whole thing is: go down your path,” Hyro says. “You can think you have a path, you go down it and think this is the way it’s supposed to be because somebody else did it like that. No! It’s gotta be your path. Even if you think it’s supposed to go on way – boom, you get sidelined or something like that.

“It’s like with the pandemic, I was supposed to be on this big major tour and it stopped me. Now I haven’t toured in a while. But look, I was able to do some other things, and now I’ve got a tour with Nothing More soon, I can’t wait to do that. And I’m talking to you in Australia right now, that’s awesome! 

“It’s not always the path that you may wanna go with. But it’s your path, and you gotta just keep going down that road. Keep working hard at whatever your goal is, whatever your dream is. That’s basically the concept of my album full on. And you’re living it with me, you see what I’m doing right now. We all in this together trying to reach down this path.”

Part of Hyro The Hero’s path towards the release of Bound For Glory has also featured a string of singles, including a memorable nod to a childhood favourite movie in the music video for recent single Sho Nuff.

“It was one of those things where I imagined a long time ago making something in that vein or something similar,” he says. “Even when I made that song, me and Matt Good were sitting there and I heard the music and I was just like: let’s do a song based on The Last Dragon, because that character showed up in the movie, he was just so confident and, you know, so crazy, so cool. Some people like the hero. Like I’m Hyro The Hero – but I like the villains in the movie too!

“That song became Sho Nuff and then I moved to France,” Hyro says, musing on creating the Sho Nuff music video. “Coming out here, I was able to create this concept and show it to the homie and he just did an excellent job because the movie theatre scene in The Last Dragon is one of my favourites when he walks in. And we were able to create that and fit it into the clip, and I got some people from the city to come make it happen. It was all excellent, I loved it!”

Also flexing a metallic cover of the 1996 Busta Rhymes track Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check and stylistic nods to the likes of Beastie Boys, Bound For Glory extends from classic hip hop nods to EDM flavours and beyond, emerging with a pastiche of future-facing nostalgia. But Hyro The Hero as a project has always been one steeped in diverse influences, stemming from Fenton Jr.’s own formative years discovering music.

“Tupac Shakur,” he says without hesitation when talk turns to his gateway musical artists. “I’m from Houston, so you mix in Pimp C, DJ Screw and Lil’ Keke. In Houston, we had our own little thing, Lil’ Flip as well, I could sit here and name everybody. All of that inspiration within hip hop inspired me. And then I was the kid who decided to change the radio station, and I heard this rock and roll, and I’m like: oh my god! I like how they express themselves, you know? So I heard radio rock and all these different things like that. And I’m like: okay, boom. Then I found out about the “cool” rock, what people call cool not the mainstream rock. And that’s how I got into stuff like Bad Brains and Fishbowl and some brothers doing it, At The Drive-In and all these cool bands.  

“And I was watching MTV all the time too back then, so you’d see Rage Against The Machine and Deftones, all those things—not knowing I would eventually end up in this world!”

With an upcoming tour alongside alt rockers Nothing More in North America (which, as Hyro revealed won’t include Taylor Switft-level production, despite his long-term dream to add pyrotechnics to his live show), plenty of memories are still yet to be made as the Hyro The Hero adventure continues. And armed a stacked career to date, involving appearances and work alongside some of his own childhood heroes, some of Hyro’s key “pinch me” moments also extend down under, including the time Fred Durst rocked up to his Soundwave sideshow and jumped up onstage. And what better way to encapsulate his incredible trajectory than with his current favourite song from his brand new upcoming album – none other than Bound For Glory’s title track. 

“Bound For Glory is definitely a standout for me,” says Hyro. “It’s fire, and it also tells a story, basically my whole story within a song. It’s so cool, and you can bounce to it. I really love that one. And I think that’s the one that will bring in more people who don’t know who I am yet, and that’s so cool.”

Bound For Glory is out now via Better Noise Music.