Human Flight Committee

This is an exciting time for the guys in Human Flight Committee. Lineup changes and the typical getting-a-band-going factors have seen this band try to, well, fly since 2002 and they are just now beginning to find their wings. But now it seems the sky is the limit (just how far can we go with these analogies, I know).

The reason is that the band has surrounded themselves with good talent and wisdom. Anberlin’s Stephen Christian lends guest vocals to the album and Emily Lazar (David Bowie) mastered it. They’ve shared the stage with mewithoutYOU, The Receiving End of Sirens, Norma Jean and played Warped Tour and Cornerstone.

Now Shelton tells us all about the latest happenings, how a Blue Duck came in to help them out and just how they got Stephen Christian on board.

SA: What’s happening around the new record?

Aaron Shelton: The record is called Oh, When The Animals Unionize. It’s coming out on Blue Duck Records. We’re excited about it. It’s our first full length as a band. We released an EP a long time ago. But this is our first release in almost three years. We haven’t done anything with new music in that time, so we’re excited. We’ve got Stephen Christian from Anberlin on one track. Also, it’s being mastered by Emily Lazar, who has done an infinite amount of amazing work with David Bowie, Depeche Mode and the like. We’re just really excited. We’ve all quit our jobs and we’re just gonna push this album like there’s no tomorrow.

SA: Has this felt like a long time coming?

Aaron: Yeah like I mentioned, it’s been so long since we’ve released any new music. Plus this album was about a year in the making, just because writing and the progress of having to get it recorded and mixed and mastered. We had to take our time and with some unfortunate schedule conflicts, it took a while. But we do feel there’s a good level of anticipation in people waiting for it.

SA: What do you do during such a long stretch of no new music?

Aaron: With us, it was really difficult for us to practice and work on writing because we had all been working multiple jobs, most of us, and we didn’t get to do a lot of touring. It wasn’t a dead period, but it was slow. And that was the time when we were trying to finish recording, so that assisted certainly in the length. But we also wanted to make sure the songs were where we wanted them to be before we finished.

SA: Where did Blue Duck come into play?

Aaron: We’ve known the guys at Blue Duck for a little while. We were introduced to them through bands we had met like After the Sirens and Palaris, who we actually met when they were a different band. But we had been talking to them for a little while off and on. We wanted to get the album finished before we had any major conversations with anybody.

In that time, they had been talking to us and our management. We really felt they matched what we wanted to do with this record. We got the vibe that they were so legitimately excited about the band – not just that they wanted to release it, but that there was something about our music and band. We thought it was a great place for us to be. Sometimes bands can get lost in a label and they become, “Oh here’s just another one of our bands.” But we thought they would really, really push us because they were excited about us. That’s amazing to us to be such a focal point for a label.

SA: You guys have a long tour coming with Burden of a Day and others. Are those guys you’ve known before?

Aaron: Nope, we’ve actually have yet to meet any of these bands. We’ve chatted with A Plea for Purging before and we almost did a tour with them awhile ago. I don’t remember why, but it just didn’t work out. For the most part, though, we’ve never talked to these bands. But we’re really excited about it because it’s such different styles of music. It’s the fact that they are people we’ve never met, let alone seeing them every night for over a month. We’ve heard from everybody we know who have met them that they’re all great bands personally and also live. I’m excited to spend time with all of them on the road.

SA: You said you’re planning to just push the album as much as you can, so do you have other tours lined up after this one?

Aaron: We have various things in the works and there are a few different bands we’re talking to, but nothing worth mentioning yet. Definitely possibilities down the road, but we’re hoping once it’s released and we’ve spent some time on the road that we’ll have a lot more to work with as far as getting on tours. But basically, in the next few months, whether we get on tours or not, nothing will stop us from continuously touring this album. We’ll do it by ourselves if we have to. That’s our mission until we either move to the next level or something tells us that’s not what we’re meant to do.

SA: How did Stephen Christian end up guesting on the album?

Aaron: We met him at Cornerstone two years ago. The first year we played, we played one of the real stages but we were determined to play every day if possible. So I think within five days we played eight times. We were determined to make noise at Cornerstone. One of the times, Stephen or one of the other members of Anberlin took it upon themselves to watch us. Our manager works with Anberlin on the road, so he suggested them to check us out. And Stephen instantly liked us and it was a right person at the right time sort of thing.

While recording, they were in the area and we inquired about bringing him in. So it worked out. He came over and did what he does so well. That’s such a blessing. To have such a talented singer from such a talented band is such a great feeling.

SA: Is that the most validating thing to happen in the life of the band so far?

Aaron: It’s certainly up there. We’ve had such an honor and blessing to play with and befriend so many bands in one form or another. I feel we’ve been so blessed with that.

SA: How did you get Emily Lazar?

Aaron: We were just looking at what places we’ve enjoyed past work from. We were looking at who could provide a good sound for us – not that mastering completely provides the sound, but we wanted someone we could trust with that sound. Plus we needed someone to work with our time frame we needed. [Laughs] So we looked around and they got back to us. A bunch of people there dug our album and were willing to get started on it. Just with the vast list that Emily has, it felt perfect to us. So we went forward to that.

SA: So what else is the band up to?

Aaron: We have a new music video for our song “She’s A Car Destroyer” directed by Noah Carlson of Voda Films. He just did the new Fireflight video and he’s definitely an up-and-coming director. We just have a lot of new merch and we’re gonna put up on a lot of songs on our MySpace that people can hear. We hope to do a lot of touring. We’re really just ready to do whatever it takes.

• http://www.myspace.com/humanflightcommittee

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