Hermano Premiere Full Hellfest 2016 Set Video From Clisson, France
This Friday, Hermano release their live album captured at Hellfest 2016, Clisson, France (review here), through Ripple Music. The full video of the set — what if this was 20 years ago would almost certainly be released as a DVD — premieres below, beamed from 10 years ago this summer straight to your eyeballs with urgent, dynamic and, yes, sometimes very fun heavy rock and roll.
Hermano maybe isn’t the least likely of projects, but it’s not far off. With the songwriting of bassist Dandy Brown (Orquesta del Desierto, The Fizz Fuzz, etc.) at their root, the band flourishes from what guitarists Mike Callahan (Disengage) and David Angstrom (Luna Sol, Supafuzz), drummer Chris Leathers and inimitable (though plenty out there try) vocalist John Garcia (Kyuss, solo, Slo Burn, Unida, etc.), and given everybody’s involvement in other bands, Hermano isn’t and probably won’t ever be anybody’s main band.
Sad story? Maybe, until you watch the video. I was fortunate enough a couple weeks back to sit in on a video chat with the band organized by Rich Piva (Rich & Turbo’s Heavy Half-Hour) and Sean Patrick Brooks (The Heavy Underground Farm Report), and most of what was said was that Hermano endures because they’re all friends in real life, because they care about each other and understand they share something special between them. Watching the video, this rings unmistakably true. The rarity of their doing so (they were at Hellfest again in 2025), then, becomes part of the appeal. That is to say, if they’re onstage reveling in the joy of being among friends doing something they love — and by all recorded multimedia accounts that’s how it went at Hellfest 2016 — that energy comes through in the music itself. The ‘least likeliness’ makes it all the more a thing to appreciate, both for the band and the audience in France, clapping along in that massive Hellfest tent that was a rite of passage for a generation of killer acts summer-touring Europe.
I will gladly argue that Hermano should do another album. Their last was 2007’s …Into the Exam Room (discussed here), and when it came out, I thought it was doing things in a style of desert rock that was utterly its own. They sounded like a band with more — much more — to say. That was 19 years ago, and the closest to a studio release they’ve gotten is 2024’s When the Moon Was High… EP (review here), collecting unreleased archival tracks and a couple live songs, including ones from this set. It made a lot of sense for Hellfest 2025, but was not the strident studio return one might’ve hoped for.
The lesson there is simple. It’ll happen if it happens. That’s not to say it wouldn’t take a push to make a new Hermano record, but neither does it make any sense for a band who’ve existed intermittently to suddenly sit down and bang something out just to produce content. If the record doesn’t write itself, maybe it doesn’t need to be written, and honestly, given Hermano‘s three-for-three studio LP standard, I wouldn’t want them to produce something without their particular soul just to have a new release. It’s rare enough that, with the EP, the Hellfest return and this live album released a decade after it was captured delivering on the character of the band in a way not even their prior live album, 2005’s Live at W2, could do, partly because being a little more grown up, perhaps they’re more able to value what they have together for its intermittent nature. Not that they wouldn’t be themselves if they were a full-time band, but I think if you listen to Clisson, France and for sure if you watch the video below, you get a sense of just how deep these friendships go, and the heart in the music mirrors that.
Video credits follow in the blue text, as cut and pasted from the video page.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Hermano, Clisson, France full set video premiere
HERMANO – Live at Hellfest, Clisson, France, June 18, 2016
Ripple Music 2026
Order the official LP + CD from our friends at Ripple Music:
https://ripplemusic.bigcartel.com/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
Tracks
1. Left Side Bleeding
2. The Bottle
3. Cowboys Suck
4. 5 to 5
5. Senor Moreno’s Plan
6. My Boy
7. Love
8. Is this OK?
9. Alone Jeffe
10. Kentucky
11. Manager’s Special
12. Angry American
Produced by Hermano
Recorded at Hellfest, Clisson, France, June 18, 2016
Live engineer Michael Kuhna
Video recording Sombrero & Co.
Video editing Larry Treadway at gotreadgo
Mixed and Mastered by Jason Groves at Sneak Attack Recordings in Lexington, KY
Legal: David W. Prasse, P.C.
Booking:Yerry Stetter K2 AGENCY
Cover Art and LP Label Image: Lane Speas at Amplified Designs
Graphic Design: Mark Aceves
Hermano:
John Garcia, Voice
David Angstrom, Guitar
Mike Callahan, Guitar
Dandy Brown, Bass
Chris Leathers, Drums
Very cool. I only started getting into the scene when they were wrapping up that chapter of the band in 2007 so didn’t get to see them live back then. I Dig the different vibe they bring, and yeah, really hope the stars align where they bring us a new album if they are so inclined. And Glad for the recent re-issues, it was difficult to properly fill in that part of my library.