We built another band… called the Handsome Furs

Dan Boeckner and his wife Alexei Perry, better known as Handsome Furs, were recently described by hipster bible Pitchfork Media as “a match made in weirdo heaven”. Indeed, the accompanying music video for I’m Confused, the first single taken from new album Face Control sees Boeckner become a zombie and chase down Perry before vomiting black goo into her mouth and proceeding to share a passionate kiss. Maybe Pitchfork has a point?

“Yeah I’d definitely agree with that statement”, laughs Boeckner.

The Canadian couple doesn’t seem to fall into any one specific genre. Employing the use of guitars, synths and drum machines, they create a sound that has been described as indie rock, electro punk and alternative noise, yet Boeckner himself has a simpler take on it, describing the band as “loud rock music for weirdos”.

Look past the surface and the provocative, almost junkie-chic imagery associated with the waifish, heavily-tattooed pair and there is a lot more going on. Their music flirts with politics but it seems a stretch to label Handsome Furs as an overtly political band.

“There’s definitely truth in that. We’re not a band like Green Day. They’ve become ostensibly political but they kind of hit you over the head with it. A lot of our songs are about politics and things we have experienced, but we’re not telling people not to eat meat or anything like that.”

Does he feel that Green Day have gone too far with their political musings?

“It’s not for me anymore, it’s for teenagers and I understand that. I grew up loving Green Day when I was in high school. They were the right band at the right time and they’ve gotten older and they’re still playing music for teenagers.”

Boeckner is perhaps best known for being one-fifth of Canadian indie-rockers Wolf Parade. Handsome Furs was born in late 2006 during that band’s downtime, but Boeckner is quick to point out that it’s a labour of love that he takes very seriously.

“When we first started the band, the term ‘side project’ kind of bothered me but we both knew we had to take the band on the road and prove it wasn’t a vanity project. I definitely put as much time and energy into both bands, both creatively and in terms of playing live.”

Despite the band’s relative newcomer status, there is a noticeable progression between 2007’s debut album Plague Park and their sophomore effort Face Control, which was released earlier this year. While Plague Park was somewhat melancholic, Boeckner and Perry found that the songs took on a life of their own in a live environment and paved the way for a more upbeat sound.

“When we did Plague Park it was written in a one-room apartment in Vancouver during the winter and we were just kind of getting used to our set up and the instruments, and the record we were making kind of had a slow, meditative sadness to it, but when we played live the songs got louder and faster and we started writing for Face Control. It was kind of a natural progression for the band.”

The album’s title was inspired by a trip to Russia, where the band observed the strange night time ritual known as “face control” where nightclubs and restaurants grant or refuse entry to potential customers based solely on how attractive the person is.

“Face control is like the Russian version of dress code except it’s completely based on how good-looking you are, like there’s no amount of dressing up that can get you past it”, explains Boeckner.

“So, the album name comes from the interest in seeing this capitalist sort of exclusionary policy that has been adopted in Russia, but they take it too far, it’s brutal. The club is basically saying that you’re not attractive enough to get in. It’s something you can’t fix with money.”

Despite being born out of such a depressing set of ideals, musically speaking, Face Control has a very upbeat and positive feel to it. This is evidenced quite strongly in one of the album’s highlights; All We Want, Baby, Is Everything.

The track references New Order’s 1982 hit Temptation although does so without sampling the song or lifting directly from it. The Furs decided instead to base an original song around it. I ask Dan what inspired him to attempt such an elaborate idea.

“We wrote that song in Prague. We were playing this great punk club and after we finished they put Temptation on the sound system and the sound system was completely wrecked, like the mid-range was just blown out of it.

All these kids were dancing and they were singing along with the song but they didn’t know the words, they were making sort-of English sounds to go with the rhythm, and because the PA was broken it sounded totally insane, like some kind of bedroom crazy-ass techno and me and Alexei were like “Man we have to recreate this!” so we worked on the song and kind of worked in that rhythm with the singing.”

The song holds up both as a Handsome Furs original and as a love letter to one of Boeckner’s favourite bands. Before releasing the album, their label had to get clearance with New Order, which brought fears that it might delay the release of the album.

“We sent it off to New Order’s management and we and the label thought it would take forever to clear because it wasn’t like a sample, it was more of a reference, but the whole process took a very short time and didn’t hold up the album at all.”

The experience turned out to be an especially proud one for Boeckner as it afforded him the opportunity to get some feedback from his heroes.

“I love that band and they ended up listening to it and they liked it so on a personal level that was great for me.”

In an era rife with identikit remakes and retreads, it’s refreshing to see an innovative take on the cover version.

Boeckner agrees: “Maybe it’s better than listening to a song and loving it and then being like ‘Well we’ll just rip it off’”.

And what would Handsome Furs be doing if they weren’t touring the world, playing punk clubs and paying tribute to their favourite bands?

“Well we’ve said before that we’d like to be journalists, but I think I’d need to go to school for years to understand it better.”

I put it to him that perhaps what Handsome Furs are doing, travelling the world and taking in the various cultures before conjuring up songs about their experiences could be interpreted as a new form of journalism?

“I think writing songs about the places we go to fails as journalism in the sense that it’s not a truthful factual report from somewhere, it’s more of an emotional and psychological impression, so I guess it’s more like travel writing.”

In the end Handsome Furs are a strange marriage of freak rock and cutting social commentary.

It’s a juxtaposition that makes them one of the most interesting bands around, weirdos or not.