HUMANS

Please write us if you're feeling inspired or are wondering something about our band. Andrea trys to write everybody back who emails or posts a comment. We would love it if you would subscribe to our blog. Brian and Andrea both have personal my space accounts and you can reach them there as well- just do a search for Andrea Paschal or reach Brian at: http://www.myspace.com/teasley or brian@secrethistoryproductions.com. Thanks for checking the band out.



HUMANS / THESE HANDS ARE THE BROKEN WINGS OF A BIRD



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BIO: Humans is a band that began as Andrea Paschal and Hollis Pilling- two North American girls with a

mutual aspiration to rock. After Paschal’s previous project, an experimental, mostly instrumental band,

Audomobil, disbanded shortly after putting out their impressive debut album, she started looking for a

new musical project.

Paschal confirms, “After Audomobil broke up, I almost moved to New York, but I thought, that that’s what

everyone does and it just seemed to be the easy way out. Plus, I had a home studio here, and lots of

friends here to help with the recordings. I guess I didn’t want to give that up. It seemed a much more

humble beginning to stay here.”------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being that Alabama isn’t the most esteemed of locations in which to move, Paschal was going to have to

find someone who was really into the music itself or was just a possibly a bit insane. After sending Hollis

Pilling, her friend from Vancouver, British Columbia, some initial recordings of a few pieces she had done,

she half-joked with her to move to Alabama to “start a fucking rock band.” Of course, who would be crazy

enough to move from Vancouver to Alabama? Well, luckily a lively redhead from Canada had just the right

abandon to make good on the offer.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon Pilling’s arrival in Alabama, the two immediately started piecing together a vast array of songs,

predominantly written with just piano and guitar. It wasn’t long after that they started to look for

additional band members to flesh everything out. “The songs started out sort of demure because of the

cramped setting we were writing in, but we really wanted them to be rock songs so, to start the transition,

we began looking for the loudest players we could possibly find,” says Paschal. “We didn’t want for it to be

feeble or tentative in any way when we finally played these songs in front of people. I hate when people

see women who play music as these sensitive little things to be consoled”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hitting the jackpot quickly, they found a great drummer in recently returned Alabama ex-pat, Brian

Teasley who has played with a long list of impressive bands such as: Man or Astro-Man?, The Causey Way,

Shannon Wright, Vue, Japan Cakes, Servotron, Tyro, Har Mar Superstar, Christina Martinez of Boss Hog,

and The Polyphonic Spree. Pilling conveys, “Brian was very easy to play with. It immediately worked. He

has played with lots of people and is used to every kind of difficult personality that could possibly be out

there.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon after, Pilling convinced Jonathan Browning to move from Atlanta to play in the band. “I had put out

a record by his band (Man Made Brain) and knew he was a great guitar player so it was just a matter of

talking him into moving over here with everyone else. I think there was an offer of sex, I can’t really

remember”-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now with the full band intact, they set out for intense rehearsals. “I think we were practicing six days a

week for several months.” Paschal relates, “ We just really wanted the songs to be as good as they could

possibly be before presenting them to anyone else. Also, in the past, we were all guilty of making

recordings that we were later not completely happy with and sort of always made excuses for. I just knew

that was one mistake I did not want to make with this.”-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deciding it was time to take the band to the studio, they headed a few hours east to Athens, GA to

record with longtime friend and engineer Andy Baker. Paschal relates, “Recording in Athens is always

cool. There’s really awesome food and a lot of great musicians, especially if you need strings or some

other nontraditional rock instruments.” Indeed, true to this statement, the recording employs an assembly

of specialized musicians from members of Macha, The Glands, Elf Power, and The Polyphonic Spree.

Once tracked, overdubs and mixing took place a few hours north of Birmingham, with Daniel Farris at

Muscle Shoals Sound. The recording that had been tracked live in Athens was then meticulously mixed

using some of the finest analog gear around that had once graced the presence from Aretha Franklin to

the Allman brothers. A small bit of additional mixing and recording took place in Farris’ own Denial Studio in

Birmingham and various bedrooms of band members and their friends.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The music amalgamates a wide-range range of human emotions in dramatic form. The sound of Humans

can glide between being rather delicate to verging on being nearly psychotic. Bands hate to be compared

to other groups, and most assuredly it is because there are women in the band, but Humans have been

described as having the drama of Siouxsie and the Banshees, the eccentricity of the Sugar Cubes, and

the immediacy of The Patti Smith Group.

A lot of the band’s potency comes from the split-gendered lineup. “It was cool how the band ended up

being equal parts estrogen and testosterone- there’s some great sexual tension in that. In fact when we

were all together at the beginning, everyone was having some insane relationship meltdowns and a lot of

that got channeled into the music. You definitely get a glimpse of that tension our songs. It’s like the old

70’s ABC ‘s Battle of the Sexes but with music.”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The band intends to tour extensively and make the live performance the foremost priority. Pilling

confirms, “The studio is great, but it can be so scientific. I think a decent band can pull off a lot of crazy shit

in the studio, but you’re not a great band if you can’t reproduce it live. It’s such a disappointment to find a

record I’m really into, and then see the band live and be totally bored by a lame performance. There’s such

a thin line of bullshit between you and the audience, and people know immediately if you’re full of shit. I

love the studio, but it’s not like being in front of people that can either scream for you or spit in your face.”