Influenza with Michael Tyler of The Hands: Part One

Approach Influenza as a series which serves to help give insight as to where music is born; these are the thoughts, influences and the inspirations directly from the mind of the artists. Here bassist Michael Tyler of Seattle’s The Hands discusses the concept of war and how the term’s disassociation impacted the band’s ultimate decision to label their recent release. Whether war be of a physical, environmental, social or mental nature, its definition is flawless; it is the action to a hosting battleground, an action as Tyler suggests, that is often akin to glimpsing into nothingness.

On The Hands:

Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the Motherfucker…

Samuel Fuller once said, “Film is a battleground. Love, hate, violence, action, death… in a word, emotion.” And while the great majority of his films weren’t about the military all of Fuller’s movies are war films. He applied the urgency of mortal conflict to each of his characters and films – as if through this reductionist perspective of the world, humanity could be simplified and understood in its purest, most primeval elements. The urge to survive. The urge to love. The urge to fuck. The urge to create. The urge to destroy… It’s about what you see when you stare into the void.

The Hands toyed with the idea of naming the record Total War. We ended up not using it – nor any of the other tentative titles (Jordan was determined to call the record Led Zeppelin I, ’cause, fuck it, why not? right?) – but Total War would have been appropriate. These songs are about war – maybe not war in the Rambo Pt III, kill-em-all and let god sort ‘em out sense, but certainly war in the Samuel Fuller sense; these are songs about staring into the void.

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Also: Influenza with Michael Tyler of The Hands: Part Two