Q&A: Humane Wants You to Free Yourself from Imagined Restraints on ‘Penny Let Go’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY AMANDA COLLINS ☆
Photo by Hannah Murrell
UNBURDENING FROM A RIGID SENSE OF SELF THROUGH MUSIC—East-London indie/alternative, post-punk group Humane released their most recent single “Penny Let Go” on September 10. The five-piece band dropped their angsty, to-the-point single amid a tour supporting their post-punk peers Sex Mask, and on the brink of a second tour with Radio Free Alice.
Engaging upon first listen and leaning into a live-driven sound, “Penny Let Go” is energetic in a directive way, with a clear emotional plea to let go of something weighing you down. On “Penny Let Go,” lead singer Max Hanley knows that the act of letting go is often the necessary solution and needs to share this through the song, for the betterment of the receiver.
“Letting go of the sense of self can free you from a lot of unnecessary shit that comes along with it,” Hanley shares.
Whatever the problem being addressed, whether it’s Hanley’s letting go of the sense of self or what some fans have interpreted as guidance about how to handle addiction or a failing relationship, Hanley wants the listeners to take it in whatever way they need it most in the moment, rather than prescribing the song with a rigid meaning.
“I think the meaning of songs always changes a bit after you release them because they're no longer yours. They're everyone who listens to them.”
Read below for Luna’s conversation with Max Hanley of Humane about “Penny Let Go” and the band’s next steps as they continue growing their presence in the UK alternative scene through tours and upcoming projects.
LUNA: For readers who are not yet familiar, can you introduce yourself and Humane?
HANLEY: Yes, I'm Max. I play guitar and sing in Humane. We're from East London. There's five of us: me, Jim, Louis, Jude and Ed, and we make a mix of indie, post-punky alternative guitar music.
LUNA: How did you find yourselves in the music scene, and how did you all come together to create Humane?
HANLEY: We've all been playing in bands in our local area since we were kids, and we've all played in different variations of bands together since we were young and, yeah, this is the most recent iteration of that. Louis is my brother, and we all went to school together. So we grew up and did it together from the start.
LUNA: “Penny Let Go” is your latest single! Before, you’ve stated that you feel like it could be about money or a girl but, mostly, “about ego death and a surrender.” Since the release of the song on September 10, has the meaning of it changed or deepened to you and your band members?
HANLEY: Yeah, I think the meaning of songs always changes a bit after you release them because they're no longer yours. They're everyone who listens to them. I've heard a few people come with different interpretations of it. Maybe it being about an addiction or a reliance on something. Maybe an instructions logo that I think, when I wrote the hook, I just came up with on the way to the studio and I wasn't really thinking about what it meant so much. Obviously with the verses, I did go more into the idea of identity and the issues and the problems that arise from that, and I think that's still where the meaning of it sits with me now.
LUNA: So then, if it is interpreted as a song about a relationship, with lyrics like "I don't exist" and "don't cling to me, Penny, because there's nothing to hold,” how would you see the song in context of relationship or potentially mental health?
HANLEY: If it's interpreted about a relationship, you can feel lost a lot of times when you're so indebted to someone else, and you can lose yourself in someone, and it can be quite an isolating thing. Obviously, if that ends, you're left with a big part of you not there anymore.
I think for me, writing the lyrics, the meaning of it is more about a surrender to identity, though. You know, trying to let go, when you let go of “me.” Letting go of the sense of self can free you from a lot of unnecessary shit that comes along with it.
LUNA: One standout line in the song is “the prairie and the precipice.” Would you like to dive deeper into that contrast and that line?
HANLEY: Yeah. So that second half [of] that verse plays on letting go of the problem and the remedy and the prairie and the precipice. I just see them as opposites, and also reference the prairie in the previous song "Kill Time,” where I said I killed a man in the prairie. I suppose in my head writing about the prairie, it's some sort of analogy for the mind. It's something within you, it’s an instruction to let go of all of it. A path to a bit more freedom.
LUNA: Was there anything about the songwriting, behind the scenes production or performance of “Penny Let Go” that stands out to you as different from your past releases?
HANLEY: Yes, actually, this is the one song on the upcoming project that I fully produced, which is fun. It was quite a late addition to the release of this project—it was the last song written—and it was very fun. It felt like it all came [together] quite seamlessly. No one was really struggling with their parts when we wrote it. Me and Ed came in, and it was pretty much all structured, and the backbones of the song were done within an hour, which I think those are my favorite sort of writing experiences where you don't fester on it for too long. It just happens, and I think as a whole, it's probably one of my favorite ones that we've written.
LUNA: Tell us about your day on set for the music video, take us behind the scenes of that!
HANLEY: Yeah, sure! We work with a bunch of guys called Static3, who are great. They're very talented boys, and it was directed by Hannah Murrell, who is also incredibly talented. It was a really nice team of people. We went to this abandoned school on the edge of Wales and England, in between them. We just went there for a day, and it was a really nice experience. It felt like everything came together in a very spooky environment. The school itself, it's an old boarding school, and they do ghost tours and stuff there. It's known to be a haunted place, and it just fit the mood of this project. We've recorded the whole album there live, and we're gonna release it as it comes out. But yeah, it was a good day and a good experience, and everyone involved was amazing.
LUNA: That’s so interesting! You brought up the ghost tours—did they tell you any stories about that while you guys were on set for the music videos?
HANLEY: Not really, I didn't do the ghost tour. The guys in Static3—they did it though and yeah, they said it was interesting. They did an Ouija board and all this stuff. I think it depends on how much you want to buy into it, whether it's scary or not. But I think they had a fun time anyway.
LUNA: What do you hope listeners take away from Humane’s music as a whole, and then also from “Penny Let Go” specifically?
HANLEY: From “Penny Let Go,” that's one that means something to me, but I enjoy when people take something away that just means something to them, and it's a song that should be seen live, in my opinion. Then for the music as a whole, I think music should be something that brings people together, and it can mean what it needs to mean to you and mean what it needs to mean to someone else, but when you listen together in a setting where you're seeing it, I suppose that's what I'd like people to take away from it. Come and enjoy it as a collective.
LUNA: Definitely! Bringing a community together for the shared experience is special. How have you felt yourself fitting into, or bringing new perspectives, to the East London and UK music scene?
HANLEY: It's an interesting time to be in a band in the UK. It's very exciting. There's a lot of amazing new music coming out, and it's great to be surrounded by such talent. So it's just nice to be involved. I can't really say what we bring or what we don't bring, but I feel inspired at the moment being and within it.
LUNA: What’s one song you love so much that you wish you wrote?
HANLEY: “In My Life" by the Beatles. That's my favorite song. It reminds me of being a kid. It's a very nostalgic song for me, and it's just an incredible composition. The older I get, the more I appreciate it, which doesn't happen for a lot of songs you liked as a kid, I suppose.
LUNA: What’s one song or album you always return to whenever you’re feeling low, and one song or album you always play whenever you’re wanting to have a good time?
HANLEY: Ooh. I don't want to say the Beatles again. I'll sound like a broken record. Right now I'm listening to "Sweat" by Sex Mask. That's the song that gets me energized and pumped up, and it makes me happy as well.
LUNA: Speaking of, how's the tour with Sex Mask been going?
HANLEY: Yeah, it's been fantastic. We played a few shows in Europe before, but this is our first time on tour, going to all these cities we'd never been to. It feels special and doing it with Sex Mask—we're extremely close. We love each other. It's a bit of a family. There were no flaws to the experience. We loved it, and it was just amazing to come to different countries and connect with people who you never thought you'd meet.
LUNA: Do you have any favorite moments from it, or any setbacks you guys faced?
HANLEY: Yeah, the favorite part was the Leipzig show. That was very special for us. We felt very loved there, which was brilliant. Setback: our van got broken into, which was fun. Had a lot of stuff taken, but it is what it is. These things happen.
LUNA: You’ve been on tour with Sex Mask, and have an exciting upcoming tour with Radio Free Alice. Where do you hope to see Humane go next, musically and personally?
HANLEY: We've started writing the next project, and we're in the process of releasing this first project. But these songs are like a collection of songs written in the last two years, so we've had a lot of time to think about it and get it to a place that we're happy with, and now we're moving on to the next project. I see it going into a place where I produce it, and it's more rustic, more DIY in the production. The subject matter depends on what happens in the next year, personally, and I can't really predict these things.
