Handsome Furs - interview

Where are you?

Ah in Montreal, we just got back here a few hours ago. 

Yeah we were on tour and out last show was in Ottowa, which is the nation's capital. And probably the most boring city in Canada. It was terrible...well the show was great. We were there for three days cause we had to be at the Chinese consulate to get our VISAS sorted out for China and Vietnam...and for New Zealand, actually...and we got it sorted out but, man, that city is uh - whew - it sucks (laughs). 

Uh yeah (laughs). I mean it was a festival so there was a lot of people there, that was really fun. It was cool we got to play with the Dead Weather, they were on the bill. 

They were great, actually! I never heard the album - I guess it just came out while we were on tour but man, they were fantastic. 

Live it was incredible. Like a cross between the MC5 and just some great, scuzzy soul music it was really impressive. 

Yeah actually, I'm just in our little studio apartment here and it does feel kinda weird to be home. 

Yeah actually our phone died on the day that we had all those scheduled, at that point we had one cell phone between the two of us which wasn't really working and then we had a landline that just decided to crap out. 

Yeah I think it was just from touring, you know we had made Plague Park after just a couple of tours of Europe basically I don't think we had even done a North american tour at that point. We made Plague Park and toured that. And as we toured it we just kind've realised, you know - both Alexis and I just love you know punk music and dancehall and kind've live performances that have a lot of energy to them...so we wrote Face Control. And we've been playing music together at that point for a year and a half by the time we started record Face Control. So we were figuring out exactly what we wanted to do with the band. 

Definitely. I think that was a big part of that recording and I don't think that we were really aware of it when we were writing the songs. Like we only really figured that out when we listened to the record when it was finished. 

Yeah that was definitely a big part of it. A lot of the touring leading up to that record was us against the world (laughs). Doing stuff like touring by train through Russia was y'know (laughs) us against the system. Us with no money trying to play in their country.So is the band a means to travel or vice versa?

The band isn’t a means to travel...well I mean we do get to travel a lot with the band and a lot of the places that we choose to play are completely at random or because...we’re not necessarily going to make any money in like say, Romania. But when we started doing shows outside of the regular European touring circuit, and I think the first of those would’ve been the Moscow show - we kind’ve realised with a small amount of equipment that we have, we can go to these places and people will actually see the show (laughs). You know we’ll have as many people there as say in Berlin or wherever. Basically because of the internet. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve got distribution in those countries any more, if you get there physically people will come to the show.

Handsome Furs - 'Radio Kaliningrad' live at SXSW

I’ve got some friends who have played shows through Eastern Europe and they say it’s almost an entirely new touring circuit that no one really does, but they’ll play a show in a forest and have hundreds of people in an aircraft hangar or something.

Yeah, I feel like it’s this great secret thing that is just starting to open up. Especially in places like Serbia where they’re really, really starved for entertainment. Like Czech Republic gets a lot of stuff, Poland is starting to get a lot of stuff. But places like Romania and Serbia where maybe they get a tarred and feathered image from the rest of the world, but people will definitely come to the show. The art scene there is really exploding in those places because of the isolation I think.

Do you see it as a place that maybe isn’t tarnished by the commercial, Western label steamroller?

Yeah I mean, it’s weird because it feels like that when you’re there but I’m not sure why that reason would be. Because a country like Romania, they have access to everything that everyone else in Europe has access to. Maybe it’s just because the infrastructure of the country is so totally screwed up that it makes it less homogenised than somewhere like, a mid sized town in Germany. Maybe it’s the violent recent history – or just the level of poverty – but the kids we met in Romania who are playing music in bands who are doing stuff like…they had really cheap, touch phones – this is just an example - like cheap LG touchphones, and writing beats on them and playing them through PA’s, you know (laughs). And it sounded great y’know? Like limited resources, right?

That ties in to what drives you guys as well right? Like Alexis uses the little Electribe drum machine? I was wondering actually - to be a gear nerd for a minute- I can only imagine that you have all your songs programmed into it. You must rely quite heavily on it.

Yeah we need that machine to work basically (laughs). We’ve already been through like three of them. You know the media card that saves all the patterns and stuff, so you can transfer them to another machine, they don’t even make them any more. So we have to buy them off the internet. And like, there’s a really weird subculture of people that love that machine. They pretty much exclusively live in the UK and are rave culture burnouts, or super into like Gaba or dead sort’ve offshoots of house music.

I’ve looked at clips of them on YouTube and it’s always someone in their room playing trance music as loud as possible.

Totally. That’s what they’re made for, they’re not even made for performance. But I love it, I love the machine. Like we’ve been through a lot of other drum machines and the interface on on it...the fact that it’s so small but like you could drop it off a house and it will still work. But they do have some just nasty presets. You pretty much have to destroy the entire internal memory to get a good sound.

Yeah you don’t want to bump one of those trance sine waves in the middle of a set.

Yeah I mean, you canget the worst 303 sounds out of them. Like the acid, tweaky high pitched stuff...it’s awful.

So artistically it must be important to keepthose limitations.

Yeah definitely that was kinda the mandate when we started the band. Like if we’re gonna do this it’s going to be a drum machine a keyboard and a guitar. And an array ofpedals. And if we can write songs that we like and think are good and we can play them live. Then we should just stick to that.

How do you think that can develop, with future records and so on?

I think getting better at the programming and musical interaction with each other. Next time we go out I think I’m gonna start playing a little bit of keyboard along with guitar. I mean it’s already forced me to be more creative with how I play guitar. And I think it’s forced Alexis to be creative the way that she programs the machine. Because in one sense it’s like an unlimited palette of sound on that machine. But in another sense you can really fall into – the way it’s set up and the way it’s designed it kind’ve leads you into this cul de sace of trance music. Like stock riffs and electro riffs. But I think it just forces you to be more creative. 

I think as a songwriter as well it kind’ve pulls focus on what you’re singing about and how you’re arranging your songs.

Yeah we got really into the idea that like...how low we could get the chord count in songs? Cause if we could write a two chord song that sounds good and has tension and release and balance, I think we’d pretty happy with that.

Handsome Furs - 'Legal Tender' live in studio for QTV

It almost seems these days that Wolf Parade is the side project?

Yeah I mean...(laughs). It’s funny whenever we tour or record – because there’s so many people involved– it’s always sort’ve a grand production. But that’s one thing about HandsomeFurs that I like, is that we can just kind’ve pick it up whenever and base it out of wherever we’re at, and book a tour and go. But with Wolf Parade it’s just like everyone’s working hard on their own thing as well. Like Arlen (Thompson, drummer) is producing albums and he’s in the studio right now producing this band We Are Wolves. Spencer (Krug, keys and co-vocals) just got back from a Sunset Rubdown tour. But in November we’re gonna get together and make a third album and everyone’s really excited about it. I think it actually helps Wolf Parade survive as a band. I think if these other things weren’t happening then that band wouldn’t exist anymore. I think we just would’ve imploded.

Do you still send ideas back and forth while you’re off doing other bands?

Yeah definitely. Especially just like little chunks here and there.

Do you have any whole songs written yet for the next Wolf Parade record?

No because this is the first record that we’re gonna do with Dante DeCarro. He used to be in Hot Hot Heat and he’s been like a full time touring member since the first record was released but he’s never actually sat down and written with us. Like he’s never been involved in the writing stage. This is the first time.

Is he a fully fledged member of the band now?

Yeah he is. After like four years (laughs).

Get’s his name in the liner notes.

Exactly.

We’ll Dan I’m really excited to see you out here, I think a lot of people are.

Thanks man yeah we’re really excited as well, I’ve always wanted to go.

HANDSOME FURS - DEBUT AUSTRALIAN TOUR AUGUST 2009

Thursday 27th - The Corner Hotel, MELBOURNE VIC
Saturday 28th - Oxford Art Factory SYDNEY NSW
Sunday 30th - Amplifier, PERTH WA