Hunter Martinez has a line that keeps coming back when he talks about the new Human Issue record. “I’m not sure this band could function if we were the younger versions of ourselves.”
Behind that sentence is everything “In Flesh” actually is: a fifteen-minute, nine-track Southern California hardcore record about pulling yourself out of cycles of self-destruction, made by a band who have already done that work and who know what the alternative looks like.
The album landed on June 5th through Smartpunk Records.
“Vice” is the third single, out now with a performance video, and it sits at the centre of where the record’s head is at. Hunter wasn’t keen on a line-by-line about the song. The bigger thing, the one the album keeps circling, is where that pull shows up off stage and how it bleeds back in.
“I feel like this could very well be the theme of this album,” Hunter said. “I talk about coping mechanisms to get by day to day. Personally, in my life I’ve fallen into cycles of self-destruction to deal with my insecurities and as an escape. At a young age, I felt like it was always easier for me to face things under the influence or numb. Or to portray myself in a different way. ‘Liquid courage’ as some say. I think you have to make a conscious decision to not be self-destructive, especially now at my age and for the rest of the band. We’ve all been self-destructive and have seen where this behavior can take us. Mentally and physically. There’s sober guys in the band. We’ve done the work to pull ourselves out of the disease. We all have stories to remind ourselves and each other that we don’t wanna go back to these dark places. I’m reminded every time we play these songs live. Or when I listen back to any of our songs. I’m not sure this band could function if we were the younger versions of ourselves.”
That mindset shaped how the record got made, in ways that show up in the speed of it. Hunter walked into the sessions with most of the music finished and the vocals barely worked out. He’d sent demos to Alex Jacobelli (of Negative Blast, who engineered and mixed) before tracking and got notes back, but there wasn’t time for him and Matthew Watkins to sit with the feedback properly.
“So a lot of what you hear on this recording is the first or second takes of our vocals,” Hunter said. “Mainly on Matthew’s part. We liked what he had in mind for his vocal ideas and we ran with it.”
When parts needed adding (a lead guitar line, a vocal harmony, an extra bass part) Bryan Lothian, who co-produced and plays in A Global Threat, or Alex would write it on the spot. Alex picked up a guitar and tracked the lead on “Vice” in the room.
Hunter notes it dryly: “he rips on Vice.” Emmett O’Reilly came in with the solo for “Circles” the same way, off the cuff. Their friend Randy Moore tracked the lead on “The World Is Your Oyster”. Bryan played bass on “In Flesh”, “Clocks Bow. Trees Frown” and “Waking”. Everything else, guitar, drums, bass on the other tracks, Hunter handled himself.
“Our time management kinda sucked haha,” Hunter said. “I really wanted to pick apart the songs and Alex was right there with me, making sure the songs had a good feel, tempo and room to breathe for vocals. Therefore we only finished the 9 out of the 12 songs we had in mind.”
That last piece tells you most of what you need to know about why “In Flesh” sounds the way it does. Twelve songs cut down to nine, most under two minutes, mastered by Nick Townsend at Townsend Mastering. A record built on a strict get-in-get-out logic by people who could have over-thought it and chose not to. Songs end before the second verse settles. The dual vocals cut across each other rather than locking into clean call-and-response.
That two-vocal pairing between Hunter and Matthew is the other piece the recording process drew out. The trust between them is part of why Matthew’s parts went to tape that fast. The studio just confirmed what they already knew about how they work together.
“Honestly, I feel like we lock in more and more as we go,” Hunter said. “We’re very good at finding the balance of what’s enough or too much when it comes to our dual vocals in a song. We have our strengths and go off of each other with that. I know Matthew is gonna sing something different from what I have in mind. When writing, I just write without any sort of expectation. We collaborate on some ideas. We pick what we are gonna sing together, separately or harmonize and see what sounds best.”
The dynamic doesn’t shift much when they go from tracking to stage. “So when we get to the studio then perform live, there’s an excitement of – he’s gonna go off and do his thing, his way BUT keeping that balance of both of our voices and the song itself in mind,” Hunter said.
That balance is part of why the self-destruction theme on “In Flesh” doesn’t tip into singer-songwriter confession territory. The album talks about coping mechanisms and dark places, but it does it as a fifteen-minute hardcore record with two vocalists trading lines, not a long meditation. The thing being processed and the form processing it sit at odds on purpose. Hunter says the songs remind him of where they all came from every time they go up live. The shows over the next two months are going to be the real test of that.
Human Issue is Hunter Martinez (vocals), Matthew Watkins (vocals), Sam Mankinen (drums), Ryan Marino (bass), Dylan Moore (guitar) and Emmett O’Reilly (guitar). “In Flesh” is available to preorder now through Smartpunk Records.
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