We recently connected with Humans & Strangers and have shared our conversation below.

Humans &, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

This is something we have written a good amount of our songs about. Not necessarily being misunderstood as a band, but as individuals.

By putting our thoughts into words, and putting those words into lyrics, we have been able to express ourselves and how we want to be understood. It is strange sometimes how you can connect with people and still feel like you hardly know them at all. Obviously, humans are highly complex creatures, so this is a part of the human condition that we all experience at one point or another.

Music, to a large degree, is one of the most effective ways to communicate something about one’s self that one may feel has been misunderstood/mischaracterized. It isn’t always within the capacity of spoken or written language to accurately portray an emotion, so the language of music can sometimes help fill in those gaps. Whether or not the listener experiences that same image or feeling upon hearing the music is something the artist making it will never be able to know, but maybe it is the effort to replicate their own experience or feeling for another person that keeps them wanting to create more. The desire to be understood is a huge driver for creativity.

Humans &, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

For folks who may not have read about us before – hello. We are a band called Humans & Strangers. We are based in St Louis, MO, and we make music for those who like to listen. As to what kind of music that may be, we always struggle with that question. It’s hard to describe one sound by using another. So, to keep it short, let’s just say we take a little bit from every genre.

There are four of us in this here band (Jonah Presley – lead vocal/rhythm guitar, Grant Ciezadlo – drums, Tony Dykstra -lead guitar, and Dan Mullins – bass) and we have all been friends for quite some time. Music is a major passion for us all, and our love of it is a main drive behind our efforts to make some of our own.

The thing we are most proud of is the sound we have cultivated and are still cultivating. Individually, we each have our own inspirations and influences which shape the voice that comes out on our instruments. They aren’t always common to all four of us, so it’s very interesting to hear these influences blend together in our music and very pleasing to create songs that none of us have heard before.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

One thing that has consistently been either an obstacle or an all out road block for us has been a venue’s attachment to what is familiar. Some of the best “smaller” music venues/bars/clubs more often than not only want to book bands that play covers. As an original band that no one has heard of outside of our family and friends, this makes it very difficult to land gigs that will grant us the exposure and financial gain it takes to fuel our ability to do more of what we do. Obviously, no artist is entitled to these things right out of the gate, but it can be a bit of a Catch 22 sometimes. We can’t get shows where no one has heard of us… because no one has heard of us… so no one is going to get to hear of us… you get the point. This may just be specific to our environment, but this has been one thing we have certainly struggled with more than once.

The best thing society can do to support artists is to keep an open mind. In the context of venues, audiences need to show that there is a demand for something new, and a desire to break from the old. To support any artist in their creative endeavors will encourage them to take it further and further. Allowing them to strut their stuff will go a long way in fueling creativity, and this in turn breeds more creativity for all those in the same creative ecosystem. Society becomes better off because of it.

Art in all forms is something that humans can connect over regardless of any differences they may have, so when the arts flourish, it makes society that much more cohesive. It speaks to something deep in peoples minds (if their minds are open to it) and lets them take a little break from reality. Those little breaks might allow a person to take a step back from that reality and reassess a situation from without, whether it be in their personal lives or a problem with society itself, and to consider how something might be changed and made better. It all starts with an open mind, and people don’t always realize how important it is to maintain that openness to the arts.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist/creative is building connections with new people. It could be other artists/creatives, it could be other business owners/staff in the community, or it could be people in the audience that like our music enough to come up and meet us. Every time a new connection is made, it reassures us that what we are doing resonates with other people. Part of the thought process that lead to our band name was the idea that strangers are just as human as the people you already know, and vice versa. When music that we made from our own thoughts and experiences is found relatable enough by total strangers that they want to get to know us outside of that music, we feel like we’re doing our thing right.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.humansandstrangers.com/
• Instagram: @humansandstrangers
• Facebook: Humans & Strangers
• Youtube: @humansstrangers5924

Image Credits
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