Humour
Words by Rosie Lowndes Photographs by Willow Shields
Glasgow is a city where, quite literally around every corner, there is a band waiting to pounce on you and get you (by hook or by crook) to one of their shows. For a place with, really, quite a small surface area, it’s got enough music groups to completely pack out the flurry of clubs, bars and pubs on the 102 Square miles that make up the grid of the centre. There are those, however, who stand out and rise fast. Humour is one of those, having been making the rounds on the circuit since 2019. Although they’ve only released two singles in the past couple of years, they’re a strong name in the energetic and frenetic Glasgow music scene already; to rise to the top in a domain such as this, there has to be a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’. I chat to the band on a nippy September morning in Glasgow’s very own Kelvingrove park.
First of all, hilariously, it takes over 15 minutes to find them. In a city as compact as Glasgow, it sure ain’t hard to lose someone. When we all meet however, it is instant fun. I’ve rarely had the pleasure to meet a friendlier band. So on that morning, in the later days of sun and early days of clouds, (well picked - there is the tang of cold chill in the otherwise mild breeze), sitting on the lush late summer grass, we chat about everything from dream festival lineup to dastardly arty meal-deal picks.
‘The exact opposite of what I intended has materialised’ in ‘Alive and Well’, a song about disappointing those closest to you through your own misguided attempts to remain friends with everyone, on display is their mastery in the art of digital, yet seemingly physical, nuance; lyrics shouted seemingly from a distance desperately trying to tell of the ever pushing bounds of disconnect you feel from those around you in situations like this, sinking deeper and deeper into your people pleasing impulses that really, as you try to use them to float are pulling you further down into the depths. This, coupled with dissonance jarring riffs subtly capture the all consuming essence of true social panic. Lovely stuff, really. Having considered being in a band together for a while, it wasn’t until they’d moved in together that things started rolling. It took lockdown for them to form, James admitting “it’s not a very interesting story but it’s true... we might come up with a cool lie at some point.” Writing ‘tonnes’ during lockdown, when they were able to start playing live, they had a plethora of songs to choose from. And choose well they did - Humour are extravagant and angry, real and raw emotion seeping through every spat line in ‘Yeah, Mud!’ You are in the trenches, you are in the front row of the moshes I can imagine forming at their shows.
Musically, they take their contemporary influences from all over, sounding almost multicultural with their tastes divided between London, America and Glasgow. Gathering choice sounds from Folly Group, Black Midi and Black Country New Road, they admit “We sound like them because we copied them.” Yet, they are unwilling to stay in one lane, also picking up stage presence from the ones who do it best; citing their friends Walt Disco and Ninth Wave for stage presence “We’re inspired by the way they ‘rock out’, like fuck, I wanna rock out like that.” They attribute their frenetic energy to their city - Glasgow is well known for energy on stage; that beautiful driving force that can make a good band great, “Glasgow definitely has that more than any other Scottish city.” Hailing from Edinburgh originally, they came to Glasgow for a myriad of reasons, but it was the realisation that they could do music here that made them stay. “It’s not hard to see why. If you can afford to live here then there’s loads of shit happening all the time.” They continue, “Lots of people would do that if they could. If you’re in like.. y’know.. Inverness or something.” Not to condone the slating of Inverness, but Scotland’s biggest city does have a lot to offer.
They’ve taken full advantage of this abundance of talent, laughingly admitting that “We took lots of different things from different people, I think they’re probably all still going though.” Although their music sound hails from the UK, for lyrical inspiration they look a bit further from home. At the start, they were interested in American and Canadian bands like ‘Protomartyr’ and ‘Ought’ for their vocal style. They seem to be a veritable jigsaw of influences, “trying to take bits and pieces of lots of different things we like.”
They cite Gilla Band and “Aldous Harding as well, we stole a lot from her performative type stuff. That was an inspiring one.” For them, it was watching Youtube during lockdown, seeing “live performances of these kinds of bands. That’s what made us want to put some of these ideas into practice, rather than sticking to one genre of music.” This rings true for their thoughts on stagecraft as well - “a lot of what we do has been informed by that. Just watching youtube videos and thinking ‘why is that cool, that they do that the way they do it?’” When pressed, they specify the cool gothic of Protomartyr as a particular incentive. “The lead singer stands very still and doesn’t really do anything and it has the opposite effect to what you think it would, it’s quite compelling.” Here, they present their take on the age-old ideas of showbiz; to move, or not to move? Rather than prancing around, it can be quite an eye draw to stay stock still. There’s a particular interest there; you just can’t help but look at them. For Humour, it didn’t seem right to keep things light against some of the heavier aspects of their songs. They choose instead to lean into their subject, “when it gets heavier with the more horrible parts of the songs, it doesn’t feel right, us also being more animated and doing more stuff .. it’s more engaging when it’s not matching the sound.” And their sound is exactly the opposite of stock still, building up into a desperate irony, sounding like a man on the end of his tether on life. They have a powerful musical grip on the bigger experiences of anguish.This developed through their formative stages - trying out different things, “thinking about what you feel comfortable doing with this type of music”
‘Yeah, Mud!’ is the fastest, most feverish yet most desolate song in their discography. This quintessentially conflicting song is dark and compelling. It was a product of Andreas’s influences, inspired by a series of short stories of the experiences of a journalist at war in the 20’s. An unusual stimulus, it has produced the brooding lyrical mood of the EP, contrasted nicely with the rapid music. They laugh about this choice of muse, Andreas specifying their drummer, Jack as the catalyst. “I was complaining I didn’t have anything to write and then Jack said well, what about just taking stories that you’ve read or news articles.” Jack laughs, interjecting - “you’re always reading all those old creepy books anyway so you might as well.” Andreas replying, “In that story, he comes across this soldier who’s fatally wounded and he asks him to give a letter to his mum if he ever makes it back. It’s a very sad story but really beautifully written and I thought ‘oh I’ll write a song about what that might be like.” They agree though, that it isn’t a sad song. It’s far too lively. This is just one of the many contrasting, fascinating themes of the EP, another musically varied patchwork labour of love soon to be released to the masses.
Curious, I want to know if they’ve ever had any comparisons they particularly resent. Instead, they maintain their attitude of inspiration - “being compared to really good ones has been a good way of finding new music. They’re good recommendations.” Leading to them being introduced to the previously unknown-to- them Fugazi and Lad Dispute, I admire their complete openness to new sounds and influences from all over. “We haven’t had any particularly bad ones to be honest” they do however, admit, “And you can see where it’s coming from.” Humour have been up to some very exciting things recently - readers prepare yourselves - unlike many vehicularly challenged touring bands before them, they are now the proud owners of a van. They’re on wheels!
They’re global! Ready to roll, we discuss touring, and equally as importantly, the food of all tours. Meal deals have sustained us all on so many occasions, the unswervingly loyal friend to the touring band, the hungry gig-goer and man in between. The question is, if Humour were sandwiches, which sandwiches would they be? Andreas maintains a status as a vegetarian New Yorker (while wearing a cord blazer - need I say more?) and to finish the meal, a classy San Pellegrino and pineapple box. Ross takes us all through the finer points of meal deal business, with a Ploughman’s, a Redbull and preferably the biggest bag of crisps - real thought goes into getting value for money’s worth (what with the price of a deal in Tesco going up - hard times indeed). Jack finishes with a well rehearsed “Egg-mayo, Quavers, Smoothie.” Rehearsed? “We’ve had a lot of meal deals.”
After some explaining the premise of a fantasy league supergroup, they switch out Ross for James Bond, then Taylor swift on guitar; “he’s got much better patter than Ross as well”, Ross conceding “it would be a big step up. He’s so much funnier as well.” Does James Bond play guitar? For Humour, he can and he will. “Flea’s on bass.” Trying to work out people who would actually be fun to hang out with, they decide John Bonham - (Is he dead? He’ll be propped up.) They continue it with musings on the look - for the benefit of our lovely readers. For the record: I’m seeing two grey jumpers, three pairs of black trousers and three pairs of black boots - militant chic! I think Taylor swift could rock that. Flea, not so much. It would wash him out. Name also brings up debate, swinging between Wandering eyes (“oh, no, that sounds a bit dodgy”) and after some discourse of legendary horror films, The Devil’s Rejects, Jack declaring “we almost called our band after the Dallas Cowboys, the football team. I really like that name.”
Not shying away from certain sounds, “in terms of actual instruments we’ve never had any success with anything that’s not guitars really.” Brief forays into Synth haven’t worked so far, “which is a shame as we’d like to venture into other types rather than just guitar music, but we’re not very good at it yet. I think we’ll definitely try. We shy away from synth in a fairly major way now. But that was on good evidence we wrote really bad synth songs,” but in terms of actual sounds, they are explorers. For them, it’s very important that there’s an idea behind music, that it sounds deliberate, “not like ‘we’ll put all kinds of music out and figure out which one’s a hit and which one’s a single and this and that. It’s always really convincing, no matter what kind of music it is, if you think it’s really meant to sound that way.” They liken it to Aldous Harding once more - “it doesn’t always sound like nice, at all, but you have to hear that song in a specific context. It’s not always on specific sound but it’s her and it’s on purpose. That’s why we’ve picked up a load of Black Midi stuff. It doesn’t always sound nice a lot of the time and I really don’t get the impression it’s just for the sake of it. Creating a horrible atmosphere with the music on purpose.” They crack, “I promise guys, we meant it to sound shit!”
Berlin, Paris, Rome. All beautiful cities famed for music, culture and beauty. But if Humour were to have a festival, they would like to keep it close to home. Namely, about half an hour away, Dennistoun’s Alexandra park. “Mainly for convenience for us. We could walk. It’s got a pond. Someone could play in the middle of it.” Their appreciation for the simpler things in life is unparalleled, and they also think it would be hilarious. Unlike the heat of, say, Barcelona’s Primavera, or Suffolk’s Latitude, they agree that summer vibes? “not really our strong point.” They agree on their headliner instantly, “Sza! I really wanna see Sza. Because there’s no way we could get her to Dennistoun for any other reason.” On the second night, Title Fight (and according to Andreas, “another band we ripped off.”), as well as getting their mates and contemporaries, Walt Disco and Vlure.