Handsome Furs. Alexei Perry (clape, drum machine)

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RiCo for CZB: Do you believe in life after death, and how did you come to this belief?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): The life after death that I believe in exists only as legacies, the tales of who we were in life that live beyond our demise. I find it as comforting to believe in the stone cold scientific facts of dead and gone as those that have faith in other things like heaven and reincarnation. I studied anatomy and cell biology and loved very much working with the cadavers in the lab at my school and watching their beautiful decay. It made me feel really connected to their previous lives and their ultimate ends. It was, for me, very spiritual even in the negation of spirits themselves.

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CZB: What is the meaning of life for the Handsome Furs in 2011?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): The meaning of life for Handsome Furs in this next year - and for the future in general - is to make better and more meaningful music. It is our only pursuit in this band - finding new ways to sound stronger. In January, we'll be writing and recording the third album and the rest of the year will be spent relentlessly touring. We never tire of traveling and being able to make careers out of doing something we love so tremendously. It is a very lucky life that we'll never undervalue and we both feel it is immensely important to pursue it to the bone.

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CZB: How did you two meet and who had the idea to start the band?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): We met initially at an obscenely boring telemarketing job in Montreal, called Datacom where we were forced to swindle American housewives and small-time secretaries of their savings. It was a soul-crushing job and neither of us would have kept our positions if we hadn't been able to make out in the elevators during our breaks. At the time, I was between metal-smithing jobs and Dan was just starting Wolf Parade and we were both broke as hell and dating other people. Three years later, we re-met in Vancouver where I was then eking out a living and Dan was visiting on tour. It took one night before he decided to move in with me and by the next week it was impossible to keep our hands off each others work. Dan would edit my stories and I started helping him with song writing. There was no grand design to the formation of our band - it happened in a fully natural way. We're both workaholics and didn't want to pass the opportunity to work on our passions together. All I have ever wanted from life was to travel and try to make sense of the world through art and, in Handsome Furs, I get to do that with the person I most love and respect on earth. It's a good deal.

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CZB: What are your poisons?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): Vodka. Nail polish.

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CZB: What are the percentage of interviews that include a smart alec question related to anti-fur activism?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): Not as many as you'd think really. Though a lot of our headlines have some animal-related quip, usually unfunny. For quite a while we were getting a ferocious amount of hate mail from PETA and other fur protestors. Eventually I had to write a backlash article letting these idiots know that we were not seal-clubbers, that in fact "Handsome Furs" was a band name relating to a story that I had written and that we didn't have a zeal for killing cuddly things. You couldn't find animal-lovers greater than Dan and I. It made me angry to see so many misinformed people choosing to fight the wrong battles; which is how I feel about a lot of humankind's inefficient struggles actually.

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CZB: Have the Handsome Furs thought about donating funds to any animal rights groups? Are there any causes you already support or plan to get involved in as artists?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): We support a group that helps Romanian street kids in Bucharest and another group that helps the down + out + drug addicted of East Hastings. We also donate all of our hospitality rider to those in need of food. Both Dan and I were activists in very lefty circles like Food, Not Bombs and worked in drug clinics like the Portland Hotel and for animal shelters and have tried earnestly to make good choices, to help in the ways that we can. As always, it is never enough. And we will always want to do more... for the rest of our lives I imagine.

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CZB: What were you doing at the time you found out about the 9/11 tragedy and how did you feel about what was going on at that time?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): I was in Montreal working at a shitty Hard Rock Cafe surrounded by many teary-eyed Americans. In retrospect it is rather easy to be ruthless and try to put things in a global perspective (i.e. The American Government has so surely ruined the lives of so many people on the planet, it was only a matter of time before this type of tragedy hit them personally) but during the actual event, of course, I only felt deep sadness for all that loss. It saddens me still. As for Dan, he was on tour with Atlas Strategic, opening for Modest Mouse, and they had to cancel the remaining shows and return to Canada due to the sheer terror of the situation.

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CZB: You did a special CNN "Indie Asia" on your first tour through China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam ... how did CNN contact you and how did the Asian public receive you and your music ...are you a popular band on MTV Asia?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): The connection to CNN came randomly backstage at a Thermals show in Vienna. Basically, I had just secured some Asian dates and my heart was soaring from the news. I was talking my ass off about it to a stranger who turned out to be a CNN journalist. I had no idea at the time but some months later, while we were in Australia, he propositioned the show idea to us and sent us cameras. We love documenting our travels so it was nice to get free gear to do so. I think the series should have included more of the bands we played with and the discussions we had with people about art and the politics of making art in the different countries but, regardless of the final edit, I feel proud of the experience. It was so life-changing to play in those places that I got a journalism gig in Beijing earlier this year (living and writing there for almost two months) and Handsome Furs returned to Asia for another tour last August. It is difficult to describe how the "Asian public" received us because every country we visited was so wholly different in their response to us. Without getting into too much detail what I can say is that the shows were absolutely amazing and the people we met have become immediate lifelong friends and I am in awe of the music and art being made in the various cities we visited. And I feel with my whole heart that there is so much fascinating things brewing in that region that I want to be a part of.

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CZB: Alexei Perry and Dan Boeckner ... Do you know how your families got to Canada and how old is your Canadian Heritage?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): Random bio: My first name is a Russian boy's name and my last name is my mother's maiden name but my Dad's family is mostly Cuban. On my mother's side, I think it was my thirteenth-great-grandfather Reverend Love who gave the first prayer upon arrival at Plymouth Rock. I'm not even joking. My Mom grew up in India but most of her family has very strong upbringings in Canada and they come from English/Scottish stock I believe. My Dad's family came from Cuba when he was six I think and my grandmother cannot speak without a thick thick thick accent and wild gesticulation. She was a ballet dancer in Cuba and my great-grandfather was the first to introduce mixed schools to the country and my family continues to be involved in education and politics in truly amazing ways on that Caribbean nation. It's a funny thing being Canadian because our histories are so recent. I don't have the same sentimentality about my "culture" as many others in the world do for their countries because I'm not even sure what that would include. It is a nation of mixed identities which makes it hard to have a singular unity, or pride in one's country. I don't feel Canadian. I feel like a global citizen and happily so.

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CZB: Have you watched Zeitgeist and how did the philosophy behind it touch you?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): Oh shoot, I haven't seen it yet. I could comment on Zeitgeist in general and my personal philosophies but I have a feeling that's not what you're looking for really!

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CZB: Did Avatar have a similar effect on your senses, or was it too eclectic and clichee to get a deeper sense?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): I'm one of the only people I know who really truly didn't see Avatar!

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CZB: Being Canadian, is there a culture shock gigging from Western to Eastern Europe ... or not that much?

Alexei Perry (Handsome Furs): There is culture shock even between the countries in both those regions! Finland is very different from France for example and Poland is very different from Serbia. And the differences fucking delight me. I love having my knowledge challenged. I think it makes for larger hearts.

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The interview questions were conceived by RiCo for CZB.ro

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www.myspace.com/handsomefurs

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Members

• Alexei Perry (synth, drum machine)
• Dan Boeckner (vocals, guitar, drum machine)

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Albums

• Plague Park (2007)
• Face Control (2010)

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The inspiration behindtheir second album, Face Control, was a peculiar aspect of club culture they observed while on tour in Eastern Europe: if party goers wish to reserve a table at a bar in Moscow, they must pay large sums of money through PayPal or with cash, however their seat is still not guaranteed; bouncers have the authority to turn reserved patrons away from the bar based solely on appearance, which has been termed "face control".

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Info sources: Wikipedia, MySpace, Booha Bar PR, various interviews posted on the Net

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