Handsome Furs' Big Brother Issues

Taken at face value, it wouldn't be out of line to assume that Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry are a cynical and reclusive pair. The mini manifesto that dominates their Handsome Furs website is rife with expressions of frustration over the iciness of technology, the omnipresence of Big Brother and Eastern Bloc methods of control.

In many ways, their latest album, Face Control (out March 10), is a manifestation of those frustrations. The sophomore disc, conceived while the husband and wife duo were on tour in Russia, takes its name from a practice in which bouncers at clubs (and sometimes machine gun–toting guards) decide who gets in based on looks, clothing or fame.

While Boeckner and Perri are appalled by such things, they're also quick to point out that being able to visit the far corners of the globe is their favourite part of being in a band. No matter the cost, and despite their objections to many countries' "systems of control," Handsome Furs always find a way to tour in the most disparate places imaginable. If nothing else, it provides inspiration for new material.

"A lot of [Face Control] came out of journals that we were keeping when we were on tour in eastern Europe," says Boeckner. "We kept pretty detailed journals of conversations we had with people, or impressions of the cities, and a lot of the lyrics came out of that."

While Boeckner and Perry tend to malign the practices of nations abroad, Boeckner says they seem to run into more problems with security on their home continent.

"I remember one tour we did, we ended in Serbia — I think it was Belgrade — and we'd been through the border from Croatia to Serbia. It was a really singular experience to have a guy with a machine gun come up to the car and say, 'Are you selling anything in Serbia?' And us saying, 'Yeah, we're selling some T-shirts,' and him thinking about whether we should get checked or not, and then basically saying, 'Have a good time.'

"Contrast that with flying back from that tour and trying to get home to Canada and getting routed through America and basically being put through the ringer for two hours and missing our connection flight just because we had to stop over in Newark.

"The border in America, they have us on file. They know we're musicians from Canada. They know we're not going to try and illegally live and work in the United States because we're doing this connection flight, but they still pulled us off for two or three hours. Doing that over and over again on these tours... The security state in the U.S., especially at the border, really gave focus to a lot of the ideas on the record about systems of control."

At some point, Handsome Furs plan to hop on a plane for a lengthy Face Control tour, but Boeckner is trying to arrange his year so that he'll be in Canada in the fall when he and his Wolf Parade bandmates have tentative plans to break ground on a new record.

"There's a handshake deal between all of us that we're getting together in October to start writing and see if we can put together a third album," he says. "Everyone's pretty excited about it."

Here's where you can catch Handsome Furs:

March 12 Ottawa, ON @ Mavericks
March 13 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern w/Dinosaur Bones, Daniel Wesley, The Bicycles, Human Highway, Hot Panda and The Schomberg Fair (CMW)
March 14 Champaign, IL @ The Blind Pig Co.
March 15 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
March 16 St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
March 17 Columbia, MO @ Mojo's
March 20 Austin, TX @ Club De Ville (SXSW)
March 21 Dallas, TX @ The Loft
March 23 Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot Saloon
March 25 Fargo, ND @ The Aquarium (Dempsey's Upstairs)
March 26 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
March 27 Ames, IA @ Maintenance Shop
March 28 Iowa City, IA @ The Mill Restaurant
March 30 Newport, KY @ Southgate House
April 1 Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
April 2 Syracuse, NY @ Spark Art Space
April 3 Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
April 8 London, England @ 93 Feet Eat
April 9 Canterbury, England @ The Farmhouse
April 10 Utrecht, Belgium @ Motel Mocique
April 11 Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
April 12 Brussels, Belgium @ Domino Festival
April 14 Cologne, Germany @ Gebaude 9
April 15 Hamburg, Germany @ Molotov
April 16 Dresden, Germany @ Beatpol
April 17 Frankfurt, Germany @ Nachtleben
April 18 Munich, Germany @ 59:1
April 19 Prague, Czech Republic @ Rock Cafe
April 20 Zilina, Slovakia @ Stanica
April 21 Zagreb, Croatia @ Kset Clubv
April 22 Belgrade, Serbia @ Rex
April 23 Krakow, Poland @ Klub Re
April 24 Warsaw, Poland @ Hydrozagadka
April 25 Klaipeda, Lithuania @ Roxy
April 26 Liepaja, Latvia @ Fontaine Palace
April 27 Riga, Latvia @ Club Depo
April 28 Talinn, Estonia @ Juuksur
April 29 Helsinki, Finland @ Kudes Linja
May 1 Stockholm, Sweden @ Strand
May 2 Bergen, Norway @ Garage
May 6 Oslo, Norway @ Garage
May 7 Linkoping, Sweden @ Herrgarn
May 8 Malmo, Sweden @ Debaser
May 9 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Vega
May 13 Berlin, Germany @ Bang Bang Club
May 15 Bucharest, Romania @ One Day
May 22 Lisbon, Portugal @ Musicbox Club