Montreal’s political punk-rock trio Humanifesto have a lot to say and aren’t afraid of saying it. The proof: Their debut record entitled A Declaration Of Intent covers a wide range of social and political issues from veganism, human rights, police brutality; the list goes on. Guitarist Franck Chevrier recently shared his thoughts on being in a band like Humanifesto.
The Concordian: In your biography you write that you guys wanted to play songs that meant something to you. Do you feel it’s your duty to educate the public?
Chevrier: I feel it’s kind of a duty, I just find that music as a whole has become really redundant and it’s pretty much always the same mesage you hear in the mainstream. I also find that it’s easier to write when you write about something you’re passionate about and something you believe in than just writing what other people might want to hear because then I find there’s absolutely no passion into it.
The Concordian: You guys talk about pretty serious issues in your songs, but being still quite young, you guys probably don’t have first hand experience on every subject you talk about…
Chevrier: That’s one thing for sure; I’d never say that we’re experts on every subject we tackle, but everything we write about is something we have an opinion about. We would never say that our opinion is right either. I think there’s a couple of songs on the album that point that out too. I think we’re just trying to put some facts, talk about an issue that is not talked about in the mainstream and just get people to make their own opinion of it. We find that a lot of projects such as Punk Voter by Fat Mike or some of Michael Moore’s documentaries just try to put forth an idea without making people think for themselves. We’re not behind that and do not say that one way of thinking is right. We just want people to think for themselves.
The Concordian: Where do you get your knowledge about these subjects?
Chevrier: We all have a bit of education but most of the education we get for the kind of subjects we tackle is from reading books. All three of us read a lot of books mostly on political subjects. We also watch documentaries or movies, but not the mainstream movies, underground movies.
The Concordian: Are you at all scared of being pigeonholed as a political band?
Chevrier: I wouldn’t say we fear it but being pigeonholed as a political band, people expect you to go in a certain direction. Fans that are into that music are very dedicated fans and will follow the band a lot, but as soon as the band does something that they don’t agree with, they really let go of the band and stop following them. It can go both ways so I wouldn’t say I’m scared of it but it’s going to be nice to see how people are going to react to us starting to put out more records and do more show and see if they’ll tag along for the ride.
For more information about Humanifesto visit www.humanifesto.ca
Humanifesto play at Orkus Skatepark (4300 Cote de Liesse) on January 13th. Bike competition starts at 5p.m., show at 8 p.m. Tickets $10.
The band also plays at the Ugly Ass Bikepark (1935 De L’
