have a backstory that’s out of this world. Legend has it that frontman Ty Walker was abducted by aliens known as ‘The Humanoids’ from his tiny hometown of Roscoe, Montana, back in September of 1972. These rag-tag extraterrestrials, with a peculiar liking for country music, saw something in Ty and chose him as their frontman. Since then, they’ve been traversing the multiverse, honing their sonic craft.
Their live shows are a cosmic spectacle, featuring the aliens themselves adorned in matching black western wear, a pedal-steel playing android, and Ty, as the perhaps reluctant cowpoke frontman who leads the audience through an otherworldly set. The show is a multimedia experience with sci-fi elements and often includes a tin foil hat contest for attendees to join in.
While The Humanoids may think they’re playing human country music, their sound is a genre-bending fusion of alt-country, art rock, soul, sampledelia and psychedelic rock. To date, they’ve released their debut full-length album, “Where the Hell is Roscoe?” and are gearing up for their forthcoming second release, “Home on the Strange,” set to drop in the fall of 2024. Both albums were crafted in a geodesic dome studio in Washington State.
Izaac OpatzLike many of his favorite songwriters (John Hartford, Lucinda Williams, Jeff Tweedy), Izaak Opatz is an ungulate in life’s winter pasture, chewing on and metabolizing disappointment, heartbreak, and the other tough stuff into enjoyable musical carbohydrates. A compulsive metaphorager (and inveterate word playboy), Opatz breaks it all down with enzymes of wry humor, thoughtful simile and close observation – a therapeutic process of narrativizing his own life that, almost as a byproduct, turns out savory nuggets of literate, confessional pop.
Where 2018’s Mariachi Static drew from Opatz’s fragmented love life as a seasonal Park Service employee and resonated especially with the sensitive dirtbag set, Extra Medium, his latest release, splits time between romantic Hindenburgs across his native Montana, up the East Coast, and in faraway Los Angeles. Montana and LA especially decorate the album, supplying wells of metaphor and scene-making, and as characters in their own right – LA’s alternately charming (“In the Light of a Love Affair”) and discomfiting (“East of Barstow”), and, in “Big Sandy”, Montana evolves from setting to subject as the girl’s feelings he traverses it to see prove less than his own feelings for the state.
In LA, Opatz learned from and worked alongside Jonny Fritz at Dad Country Leather, and met bandmates and Extra Medium collaborators Malachi DeLorenzo (drums, producer, engineer) and Dylan Rodrigue (multi-instrumentalist, producer). He now lives in Missoula, Montana, where he runs his own custom leather shop, is writing the next album, and pursuing a master’s in journalism.
