John Hannah of Facehugger speaks!

Who plays in Facehugger?

Facehugger is Paul Harper, who plays guitar and David Spence, who plays keyboards, percussion and programs the drum beats... And myself! Vocals and guitar and on one track I play keyboards.

Tell me about Facehugger.

If you took "Romeo's Distress" by Christian Death and combined it with "Disorder" by Joy Division and took a dab of Arab on Radar and splattered it over the top... something like that. I think it's hard to compare it to other bands, but that is something that I always find amusing. Paul likes to make the joke that we sound like a cross between Christian Death and Dee-Lite.... There is nothing similar to Dee-Lite in what we do other than we have a drum machine and there are three people in the band.

Speaking of Christian Death and Joy Division, you often stress to me that you are the "gothest" person in town, but I don't think I have ever seen you wearing a single stitch of black. What's up with that?

No. I am the least goth, goth at all. I'm just facinated with death rock, Nick Cave, Bauhaus, early goth stuff. I think its awesome. It's a really fun thing, but I can;t say that Iam goth or that Facehugger is goth at all without it being very tounge-in-cheek.

I see, but I definitely hear some allegiance to Christian Death's early stuff in the melodies on the Facehugger CD.

Yeah. I like the early stuff and when I say that I like goth I'm talking about the era when goth still had a lot of punk and post-punk things happenign with it, as opposed to when it got to be more industrial, metal or whatever it is that people associate with goth.

Have people given you any good criticism yet?

No.

People don't like the way tiy dance on-stage.

They don't!

That's the most common complaint that I have heard. It makes people feel uncomfortable.

What do they not like? Granted I unplugged the microphone 7 or 8 times while dancing the last time we played. But what do people not like about dancing? I don't mean this to soundpretentious, even though it does, but when I play I kind of turn off rationality. It's very cathartic and I just kind of do it. Obviously it's very showy and very much part of the performance but i'm not doing with any intention. The reaction is not something that I'm concerned with. If people don't like it, they don't like it. But at the time I'm reacting however I do. If Iwant to dance I'm going to dance or shake, or punch someone inthe face, or punch someone else in the face, it's going to happen. It's more of an organic thing. I don't sit down and plan out that I'm going to go crazy at this show. It's part nervousness and part me enjoying the show and being emotionally in-tune. There's no point in painting a painting, writing a book of playing music if you don't have something to really put out there, and that's just the way it is. It's not a