Vancouver’s Humans talk nudity and murder

Humans

Humans is an electro-pop act feat. Robbie Slade and (Montreal native) Peter Ricq, two fun guys working in “No Fun City,” who happen to sound almost identical on the phone — it took me at least 10 minutes to figure out I was speaking to two people.

During our last three-way conversation (for the Mirror), we discussed their awesome muppet video “Bike Home” and Slade’s one-time summer job as a firefighter in northern B.C. This time, they were lost in Hamilton when I called, and the conversation shifted from their new music to tales of another summer job (on a nude beach) to what to do when encountered by rival Humans.

Lorraine Carpenter: The Traps EP that came out in the spring is your latest release, right?
Humans: Yeah.

LC: Are you working towards a new release soon?
H: We have individual scratch tracks, and we’re going to start getting each other’s input and finishing them soon. Around the end of November/beginning of December, we’re going to produce the album with a pretty important person who shall remain nameless at this time.

We’re also working on a score for a short film by a friend of ours, and we’re writing soundtracks for two more movies next year.

We’re also releasing “Possession” as a single and video [it’s a song from Traps, out Oct. 26 on Hybridity — this is not an official video], and a two-song covers EP. We never do covers, so we just decided to do these two songs and release it for free, maybe in January or February.

LC: What songs are you covering?
H: It’s “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak, with Tristan Orchard from Winnie Cooper singing, and “The Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Springsteen. Both songs sound really different from the originals.

LC: Should we expect something radically different from your previous material?
H: Well, I’ve been writing with Ableton, and we used a lot of the same samples on the first two EPs, but now we’re using all different samples, and we bought some new gear that we’re going to be playing the new stuff on, like an octo-track. So that might make it sound different.
Also, it’ll be more dancey. I don’t want to be one of those bands that gets mellow as we get older.

LC: For real. By the way, what’s with the weird multiple posts of an anti-Mitt Romney article on your Facebook page?
H: Oh yeah, I don’t know who that is — that’s funny. I used to sell beer at Wreck Beach, and I’m super-good bros with all these old-school hippies who are really really bad at the internet. I think it might be one of those guys.

LC: I go to B.C. sometimes. Would you recommended I check this out?
H: Oh yeah! You can buy anything on that beach, and you can tan your dick, too, which is pretty sweet.

LC: I’ll do that. So did you have to be naked to sell beer?
H: I started out not being nude, and then this big, terrifying man named Rocky — he’s cool, he’s kinda shy actually, I shouldn’t talk too much about him — he enforced it. He was like, “Yo man, you’ve gotta be nude if you’re selling here,” and I was like “Okay, sweet.” Before that, I never really got nude there, but after shaming myself publicly every day for a while, I’m totally comfortable being nude now. It was rough, though, ‘cause it’s 400 steps down to the beach, and 400 steps up to get more beer.

LC: Oh, man. Good exercise, I guess.
H: Totally! I was ripped! Then it was a 13-k bike ride home.

LC: Damn. Oh yeah, so I noticed there’s another band called Humans — “weirdo thrash-punk from Indiana.”
H: Oh yeah? We haven’t heard them. There was another one from Australia, and they even ripped off our album art!

LC: Past tense — did they break up?
H: No, we killed a couple of them. It only takes a couple.
And it was weird ’cause while we were killing them, they kept yelling, “You guys are animals!”

LC: Wow. So can the Indiana band expect to be murdered as well?
H: They might be able to beat us up; maybe we’ll leave them be.
Or maybe, if we like their music, we’ll meet up with them and challenge them to a game of dice, and the loser has to change their name. ■

Humans headline a MEG/Indie Montreal showcase with la Bronze and DJ Izi Laterreur at Divan Orange (4234 St-Laurent) on Saturday, Oct. 13, 9:30 p.m., $10