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Of all the hardcore groups I dug in the ’90s (and boy were there plenty), In\/Humanity
\nmight be the freshest-sounding group of the bunch. They managed to combine the Gravity
\nRecords scene’s frantic aggression with the brutality of power-violence and the nihilistic
\npranksterism of Vermiform into a distinctive and fantastic product. It didn’t sound
\nlike they were trying to play their songs so much as escape from them, as the drums and
\nguitars played with the speed and intensity of a fiery man running towards a pool. And
\nof course, they managed to be completely weird, too, releasing a slow-brooding 7″ single
\nthat featured a unique photograph on every cover and an occult-themed final album, not
\nto mention creating the tongue-in-cheek genre “emo violence” among other gags and tricks.
\nVocalist Chris Bickel has been up to numerous things since In\/Humanity’s demise, from
\nthe avant-noise explorations of Anakrid to the gut-punching hardcore of Guyana Punch
\nLine. Below, he provides a little history behind the mystery.<\/p>\n
How did In\/Humanity get started? Was there some sort of dramatic change that
\noccured early on? Your first 7″, the Intolerable EP<\/i>, sounds pretty much nothing
\nlike the rest of the band’s discography…<\/b>
\nI was living in a very small town in South Carolina. There weren’t really other people
\nto play music with. Only a handful of people in the town listened to any sort of punk or
\nhardcore at all. This kid Paul moved down from Albany, NY. He was really into the NYHC
\nscene. He was a couple of years younger than me and managed to get a couple of local younger
\nkids to play with him. We found each other quickly because it was a small town and anyone
\ninto hardcore was bound to find each other. So we first started playing as Tolerance, which
\nwas very short-lived. After some line-up changes, we changed the name of the band to
\nIn\/Humanity. It was a weird band from the start, because Paul was into all of this NYHC music
\nand I was mostly listening to peace-punk. I already had a label at that point, Stereonucleosis,
\nand had released a couple of Antischism records before the existence of In\/Humanity. So
\nI released the first In\/Humanity record, which really should have been a demo tape. It
\ngot crucified in reviews because it was in all actuality terrible<\/i>. We had sold
\nhalf the pressing out during our release party. (By the time of the record release I had
\nmoved to Columbia, SC, which was a bigger town and had a supportive hardcore scene –
\ndespite being terrible, we had a following.) Anyway, we realized quickly that we had put
\nout a bad record, so we destroyed the remainder of the pressing by gouging symbols and
\nmessages into the vinyl with compass-points. We gave those records away free at our shows.
\nPeople seemed really happy to be getting a free record! By the time we were destroying
\nthose records, I had gotten Paul to come around to stuff I was listening to at the time,
\nlike Neurosis and Rorschach and Born Against. He was still not crazy about the older
\npeace-punk stuff I was into, but those newer bands were appealing to him and began informing
\nhis music writing. We put out a few records after that which were all over the place;
\nwe were still trying to find a sound. It wasn’t until the Gets Killed By Robots<\/i> 7″ EP that
\nwe sort of came into our own. It was fast and chaotic and discordant. Soon thereafter,
\nwe found a new drummer who was more in-tune with the kind of loose chaos we were looking
\nto create musically, and then we did The Nutty Antichrist<\/i> LP which I think is the best thing
\nwe ever recorded.<\/p>\n
I would probably agree – if I had to recommend an In\/Humanity record to someone, it’d
\nbe The Nutty Anti-Christ<\/i>. Why do you think your music got progressively faster and more
\n discordant over time? It’s almost like you went the opposite route of a usual hardcore
\nband progression, ie. “band starts off fast and raw and gets progressively more slick and
\nmid-paced”.<\/b>
\nIt really had to do with Paul being exposed to more than NYHC. I could probably take some
\ncredit there, but moreover we were playing gigs with all kinds of different bands. I think
\nPaul soaked it all up, assimilated it, and it came out as In\/Humanity. I know seeing bands
\nlike Dropdead, Initial State, Antioch Arrow, etc., had an effect.<\/p>\n
Were there any bands you played with that really blew you away? Bands that made you
\nreally want to step In\/Humanity’s game up, so to speak?<\/b>
\nBands that had a profound effect on In\/Humanity include but are not limited to Merel, Rorschach,
\nDead And Gone, Antioch Arrow, Headache, Los Crudos, BuzzOv*en, Spazz, and many, many more.
\nNot to mention our good friends in Palatka and The End of the Century Party. Their friendship
\nprobably had the most profound effect on us as a band.<\/p>\n
I always wondered, after spinning the Southeast Hardcore, Fuck Yeah!<\/i> compilation 7″ a
\nmillion times, if there really was this comraderie \/ friendship among those bands, or if
\nit was strictly geographical. Was there really a bond between most (or some) of the bands on
\nthat compilation?<\/b>
\nYes. All of those bands were friends. We all played many shows with each other. Mostly in the
\nGainesville and Tampa scenes. Florida had an amazing hardcore scene in the mid ’90s.<\/p>\n
At what point did that whole scene “end”, so to speak? And why do you think it did? Bands
\njust broke up and people moved away, that sort of thing?<\/b>
\nI’d say it started slowly fizzling out by the early ’00s. I couldn’t say why with any
\ncertainty. If we need to level blame, let’s go with “the Internet”.<\/p>\n
Was it hard to be punk in the ’90s in South Carolina? Was there a constant battle between
\nyourself and ignorant bigots, or was it relatively calm?<\/b>
\nI took a lot of shit when I lived in the small town. It actually pushed me further into punk
\nas a philosophy. I had moved to that town from Virginia Beach, VA. In Virginia Beach I was
\ninto punk, metal, rap, classic rock, new wave, a bit of everything. By the time my family
\nhad relocated to South Carolina, I found myself more and more drawn to punk because it was
\nthe antithesis of all the ignorant assholes I was surrounded by. High school there was a
\nnightmare. “My War” probably saved me from suicide on more than one occasion. It was different
\nwhen I relocated to Columbia. I was in college at that point, and yeah, there was a bit
\nof frat antagonization, but nothing too out of control. So there it wasn’t “hard to be a
\npunk”. But it was<\/i> hard to sit by and see so much ignorant bullshit going on culturally
\nand governmentally. That was a constant source of idiocy to be pissed off about. There
\nstill is, but it was certainly worse then. This is back when they were still flying the
\nConfederate Flag on the dome of the Statehouse. Conservatism is bad enough, but good-ole-boy
\nignorance in positions of power is the worst<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I swear it’s almost the norm for today’s high school kids to be into “punk” music, skating,
\ntattoos and piercings… stuff that was all pretty counter-cultural or shocking in the ’80s
\nand even ’90s. It just seems much easier to be “punk” as a teenager these days. Do you ever
\nwish your were born like twenty years later? Or do you feel like the young generation of
\npunks have it too easy, maybe?<\/b>
\nI wish I had been born ten years earlier so I could have been around for the first wave. I
\ndon’t envy kids born today. Access to information is amazing<\/i>, and I love it, but that
\ninstant access has stifled some of the character building of having to go out into the world
\nand find<\/i> the things that interested you. As well as the character building of taking
\nsome abuse for not fitting in.<\/p>\n
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I always admired the effort and detail that went into In\/Humanity inserts and design… I
\nused to love laughing at the fake advertisement for ridiculous In\/Humanity t-shirts that came
\n with your first LP. Was that all you?<\/b>
\nYeah. The first punk record I ever bought was the Let Them Eat Jellybeans<\/i> compilation on
\n Alternative Tentacles. I was obsessed with the poster insert that came with the record. I
\nspent hours pouring over it. As I got more and more into punk, I was attracted to the amount
\nof art and information that many bands (Dead Kennedys and Crass come instantly to mind) were
\nincluding with their packaging. I knew that when I was finally putting out records, I wanted
\nto give the audience that same experience. So we would pack a lot into those inserts. I was
\nalways a class clown growing up, so the inserts always had a sense of humor. I’m not sure how
\nmuch of that humor holds up today, but at the time we were having a lot of fun with it. Even
\nthough I had no training or business doing layouts, I enjoyed the shit out of doing them. So
\nI was responsible for most of the artwork and layout for all of those records. Essentially
\nIn\/Humanity was Paul writing all of the music, me doing all of the lyrics and art, and then
\nwhatever two other guys were playing with us at the time. The best and longest-running line
\nup was Paul and I with Ben Roth on drums and Will Zaledeski on bass.<\/p>\n
I think the humor holds up really well, actually. And I felt like, as a punk record consumer
\nwith limited disposable income, In\/Humanity cared about the records they were selling, that
\nthe inserts and overall presentation really mattered, because not every random hardcore band
\nhad the chance to do an LP, or even a 7″. I kinda can’t imagine a 2012 hardcore band willingly
\nglueing different polaroid photos to the cover of every 7″, which I guess, to be fair, was a
\nfeat few bands have completed before. Did you feel that the art was as integral a part of
\nIn\/Humanity as I felt like it was?<\/b>
\nFor me it was equally as important as the lyrics. I never thought of In\/Humanity as a “great”
\nband musically. It was more an art package to me.<\/p>\n
I definitely see In\/Humanity as a sort of nihilistic provocation that followed in the
\nfootsteps of Feederz, maybe, even though the sounds were totally different. Are there any
\nbands today that you feel like share or continue the spirit of In\/Humanity?<\/b>
\nI was a big fan of the Feederz, but at the time probably moreso of Frank Discussion’s writings
\nin the ReSearch Pranks<\/i> book. I don’t doubt that there are bands carrying forth that sort of
\n provocative vibe today, but I must be honest – I don’t know of them, and I’m not sure if I
\nwould be that interested in them musically. Part of this is probably Old Person Disease, but
\nthere’s also an element of being bored with the lack of innovation in the last ten years of
\nthe hardcore scene. After a while you stop paying attention even though there could be tons
\nof fantastic stuff flying in under the radar. I’d usually rather listen to discordant classical
\nmusic than punk most of the time anyway.<\/p>\n
One of your “hits”, if you wanna call them that, was definitely “Teenage Suicide – Do It!”.
\nHow do you feel about that song some 10+ years later?<\/b>
\nI don’t regret it at all. I think it’s still kind of funny. I probably wouldn’t write a song
\nlike that today. I’m not the same person I was then. I wrote a lot of songs about suicide
\nbecause I myself was ‘suicidal’. Everytime I wrote a song dealing with it, it was sort of
\na proxy suicide. I did that<\/i> so I wouldn’t do the real thing. I was a little messed up.<\/p>\n
Did you get a lot of flack for that? I’d imagine most of the punk scene was into it, and I’m
\nnot sure if the conservative parents groups of South Carolina had any idea In\/Humanity even existed.<\/b>
\nI know of one girl whose parents threw her In\/Humanity record away because of that song. We
\nmet her at a show and gave her a replacement when she told us the story. Other than that,
\nthere wasn’t a lot of flack.<\/p>\n
You coined the term “emo-violence” as a sarcastic joke, but people actually took to it.
\nWere you surprised how that took off? Did you find it hilarious, sad, flattering, or something
\nin between?<\/b>
\nI was\/am totally surprised by that. I don’t find it sad or flattering. It just is<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The last album, The History Behind The Mystery \/ Music To Kill Yourself By<\/i> kind of took a
\n darker, almost gothic turn, which was pretty unique at the time. Whose idea was it to bring
\nin violins, and kind of take things in that direction?<\/b>
\nPaul and I were both listening to a lot of Eastern European 20th Century classical music at
\nthe time. So we brought in elements that in some cases were ripped off directly from guys
\nlike Gorecki or Penderecki. I wish we had gone further down that rabbit-hole. There are one
\nor two songs on that album that I think sound like black metal, but we had never heard any<\/i>
\nblack metal bands at that time.<\/p>\n
After you finally heard black metal – what’d you think?<\/b>
\nI liked elements of the style, but also found a lot of it musically lazy and tedious.<\/p>\n
Was there a true passion for the occult in In\/Humanity, or was that all a piss-take? I could
\nnever quite tell.<\/b>
\nI’ve had a life-long interest in the occult. It’s legit. But I also take very little seriously.
\nSo there’s a love there, but also a mocking.<\/p>\n
Is there any possibility of an In\/Humanity reunion tour?<\/b>
\nAbsolutely not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of all the hardcore groups I dug in the ’90s (and boy were there plenty), In\/Humanity might be the freshest-sounding group of the bunch. They managed to combine the Gravity Records scene’s frantic aggression with the brutality of power-violence and the nihilistic pranksterism of Vermiform into a distinctive and fantastic product. It didn’t sound like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5829"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5962,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions\/5962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}