“Our motto is ‘weed and riffs and amps and weed,’” declares Hashtronaut guitarist Robb Park, outlining this Denver, Colorado band’s highest (pun intended) priorities – as if their amusing name wasn’t evidence enough.
But don’t be fooled by this stoner levity: their gigs pack a more vicious edge than your average pothead groove merchants, as anyone who saw them at London’s Desertfest can attest.
“We’ve heard it a lot,” says Robb. “People are like, ‘I saw you’re called Hashtronaut and I thought you’d be a joke band – but you’re not at all, you’re dead serious!’”
They’re serious about their intake, too. In Denver, recreational marijuana use is legal for people 21 and over.
“We have a giant container that we fill with joints, and usually we’ve all eaten, like, 100 to 200 milligrams of edibles before we get onstage… You can never have too much!” Robb says with a chuckle.
However, while song titles apparently allude to bad drug experiences, these are often mischievously metaphorical.
“A lot of our songs aren’t even necessarily about weed,” Robb says. “Cough It Up, for example, is about being addicted to buying guitar equipment!”
Gear acquisition is feasibly Hashtronaut’s greatest vice, with Robb describing the band’s backline as “our fourth member”.
“We bring all these crazy-huge speaker cabinets and a ton of amps, and we make sure it’s very big-sounding,” he explains. “We have our own fuzz pedal called Chronic Titan; we worked with a company called Fowl Sounds for two years to finally land on a fully functional design.”
He continues: “We spend a lot of time and money on gear, we’re huge dorks for tone. I’m always trying new stuff and trying to dial in what I think our perfect guitar tone is like. The next album, I want it to be bigger, louder, heavier, weirder… Everything that makes Hashtronaut, Hashtronaut!”
This article was taken from Metal Hammer issue 415, July 2026, which you can order now. Hastronaut’s latest album, No Return, is out now via Blues Funeral.
