Mano Humana is a chilean metal band formed in early 2012 by brothers José Ignacio and Osvaldo Guzmán as a band untied from traditional canons, writing diverse music, with no creative limitations. In early 2015 they manage to record their debut album “Sombras” in AudioCustom Studios, produced by Sebastián Puente (from the chilean thrash metal band Nuclear). Mano Humana strives to fulfill their primal goal; to express their thoughts in various fields of violent music, full of energy and always exploring new sounds from the aggressive phenomenon.
Lineup:
Osvaldo Guzmán (Vocals)
José Ignacio Guzmán (Bass Guitar)
Felipe Valenzuela (Guitar and Support Vocals )
Diego Valenzuela (Drums)
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: we heard of Exposed Vocals on our Twitter @manohumana. I think it’s a good website to promote bands.
Osvaldo: Yes, we signed up because we love to listen to new music and this place looks like a good one to accomplish that.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: I meet Osvaldo in a Arma Mental gig, band in which I used to play with Diego, our drummer. We shared the love for metal and extreme music. One day he told me that he was planning to record Sombras with Mano Humana and he wanted me to play guitar on it. It was an honor to join the band in such a high moment!
Osvaldo: We all grew up mostly in Chile, most precisely Santiago, the capital.
Also, I wouldn’t say we “decided” to “become” artists… we just ARE artists. Don’t know if good ones but I can assure you, art is so inside our bodies the only real question is “What made you decide to embrace your artistic side”. The answer is “It’s a work in progress…”
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Mano Humana:
Osvaldo: That’s a funny story… we started up as “Mundo Zero” (World Zero) but we had to change the name because we googled it and another band was already called like that. We changed our name to “Culto Oculto” (Hidden Cult) just to realize a couple of days later the name was already taken by another metal band with way more years and experience.
One day my brother Jose Ignacio, the bassist and main composer, told me “Let’s call ourselves Mano Humana (Human Hand)” and I was instantly on board.
-”Wow man, it fits perfect with the band’s mentality. We talk about humanity, our actions and consequences, our beliefs and philosophies, what we think is wrong, what we can do about it… it seems silly, hands are human-exclusive, but that’s the point, the hand is the way we make things, we destroy, we create, we express, I love the concept behind it… you nailed it!”- I said in a brainstorm of my interpretation of the name… which my brother replied
-”I dunno, I think it sounds cool, that’s all”
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: We think it’s a great way of showing our music to anyone. We don’t give away our music for free, we sell it, we need support to keep on publishing new music, buying music it’s a very good way of supporting growing bands like us!
Osvaldo: Online music sharing is fine. It was complicated when it started, of course, there was another business back then, were songs were sold exclusively with physical copies and meant a lot to the income of the band. Now things have changed, it’s not unfair anymore, it is what it is. Thanks to the world of internet i’m able to listen and discover plenty of music I wasn’t even aware of and now I can support those bands I discovered thanks to online sharing. We could possibly give away our music for free in a distant future, but right now is the only way we are able to push this machine forward.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: we are actually a growing band, so we are in the same fight as all the rest. I think bands should work as hard and as systematic as they can, music and art must be treated with all respect.
Osvaldo: That’s true. We are not experts, but the way we have been pulling things out is with a lot of effort, not taking anything for granted, putting a lot of money in the process, looking for media and ways to get to more people constantly.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: everyone makes mistakes during live performances, I think the experience of going to a Mano Humana show has another approach, we try to express the energy of our music and the emotion behind the lyrics.
Osvaldo: We are going to make mistakes, that’s for sure, if you ask how we handle it is because you assume (rightfully) we all make mistakes in live performances. We just play our thing, if someone messes up we just keep playing until we all get back on track. The focus of the show is to express our energy and give it all, not playing perfectly.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: since we are just releasing our album Sombras, we are scheduling our shows right now, we are planning to play everywhere we can get to, our music it’s sounding strong, so we can’t wait to share it!
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Mano Humana:
Osvaldo: That’s also a funny story… the main composers of Sombras are my brother José Ignacio and I. If any of us comes with an idea for a song we go to the other one and try to impose the idea. The other will disagree and we start fighting until we both come to an agreement that becomes a song. I’m from the Death Metal department, I listen to Meshuggah, Napalm Death, Decapitated, those are my daily basis meals and try to make the songs as extreme as I can make them because of it. My brother, in the other hand, loves the Prog scene and tries to make the songs as complex as he can. So the fight goes like that, how much prog or how much chaos is going to be in a song.
About inspiration… can be anything. The song “Demencia” came to my head instantly when I was having a horrible day at work and needed to punch something, that day I hid on the bathroom and recorded the main riff with my voice on the cellphone. Other days is just “I sat on the grass the other day and thought of this”.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Mano Humana: you can follow us on www.facebook.com/manohumanabanda, www.twitter/manohumana , youtube and on manohumana.bandcamp.com
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Mano Humana:
Osvaldo: I don’t think music is “embarrassing-material”, but if you want to have a laugh I can say I had for a long time “I Never Loved You Anyway” from The Corrs in my mp3. I just love the instrumentalisation of that song. There’s also an “embarrassing-worthy” album that I truly love and would fist fight to death just to defend it… “El Rock de mi Pueblo” from Carlos Vives is a fucking masterpiece, a hidden gem from a latin musician that makes popular music with all sorts of instruments. I don’t like Carlos Vives’s other works, is only that album that makes me want to kiss a random girl in the streets because of how happy and energetic that music is.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: I would probably go to some beach somewhere in the world and grow a half million dollar belly (laughs)
Osvaldo: I would spend it all to make more music, that’s for sure… and eat a lot probably. I will obviously regret that decision at the end of that year, but yeah, i’m nuts for my music and would pay it all to make more of it.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: right now we are working with all our energy to promote our album Sombras. There’s much job to be done!
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: websites like this are very useful to promote our art. We use internet a lot, and live shows to promote our music. Live shows are always the best, it’s all about the experience!
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: that’s a very hard question to answer! I would like to play with Pantera, because they are a big inspiration to us, they brought metal to a new level.
Osvaldo: Hard question indeed. If I could play ANYWHERE, I would choose an eccentric place like antarctica or the himalayas, somewhere so bizarre and unforgiving hard to perform it would be a nice challenge and story to tell to my grandchildren. If it’s an artist I must choose I would simply revive Vitek from Decapitated and make him jam in our presentation.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: we are planning on playing, playing and never stop playing! We are going to be working with ClawHammer, that has us very excited! We’ll get the chance to share our music with people from all over the world.
Osvaldo: We are already writing new material, but don’t expect anything anytime soon. There’s a lot of work to do with Sombras alone that will take us a lot to get done… also take in mind we wrote over 40 songs just to pick up those 8 that are currently recorded in Sombras, I would love to talk about the new music we are making but there’s a long way to go yet…our main projects right now are all Sombras related.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: I would probably be working on some other art, I love poetry, maybe painting or something like that! Art is such an inner thing that you just can’t stop doing it.
Osvaldo: I write a lot, I make videos, I make songs, I draw a lot, I love acting, I’m constantly making art in a lot of ways, if my ears are chopped off I would shift my attention to another kind of art.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: I think the first album I bought was a Pantera album, or a Cacophony one. Much inspiration came from that music, I was just getting into metal, It was mind blowing to listen to those bands!
Osvaldo: The first album I bought by myself was the first Gorillaz album. Was just a little kid back then… but the feeling was great, buying music is just so good for me, it felt magical opening the cd for the first time and look at the art inside. I’m still buying CDs, whenever I can, we have a big collection with José of metal albums. We buy music in both physical and digital forms, sometimes we do both on a same album just because we want to listen to it right when is out and then we get the CD to add to the collection… we’re that obsessed with it.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: I just try to do the best I can, that’s about it!
Osvaldo: I finish my responsibilities as soon as possible just to have more time for my music.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Mano Humana:
Felipe: Mano Humana fans should get prepared for tons of riffs and some serious mosh pits, and stay tuned on our facebook and twitter, because we surely are going to post live shows
Osvaldo: A good life insurance. We’re gonna destroy everything wherever we play.