Some pairings just make sense. When local trio More Humans opened for stalwarts The Caribbean two weekends ago, the fit was seamless. Like the Caribbean, More Humans write nuanced compositions that create lush soundscapes fit for watching sunsets or driving through open fields. Yet, the trio of Clinton Doggett, Andrew Fishbein and Marko Sonevytsky has an immediacy to them, whether by virtue of their stunning vocal harmonies or guitars that can crunch as well as they can quietly soar. There’s a little bit of mid-90s Foo Fighters in some of their rockier fare like the brand new “Icicles”.

Furthermore, above and beyond their musical chops, they’re also quite funny. It’s a clever and discreet brand of humor. You may miss lines like “Dracula/There’s something in your blood” the first time around, but you’ll snort later on. Similarly, the impressive build-up during “You’re a Liar” may belie the fact that the only words are the ones found in the title. However, those chuckle-inducing moment don’t overwhelm the music so much as enhance it.

We chatted with Clinton Doggett about the ebb and flow of More Humans productivity, the confusion inherent in changing a band’s name and working with people they respect.

Find them online: At their website and on Facebook

See them next: Tonight at St. Stephens’ Church with Office of Future Plans and BELLS for a Benefit for Fight SMA.

Find their music: On Soundcloud at Bandcamp or at their show!

I noticed on your Soundcloud page that it says Washington D.C./Chicago and I was wondering what the connection to Chicago was?

I actually don’t live here. I live in Chicago. We should probably just leave it as D.C. because we don’t really have a presence in Chicago. I just happen to be living there kinda temporarily for awhile because my wife is in school there. But we’re mostly a D.C. band, the rest of the band members live here.

Also, what is your tie to Pittsburgh? That city shows up in your bios as well.

Oh, yeah. We played in Pittsburgh for many years under a different name. Actually, we’ve been playing for awhile. But, two of us went to college there and the other of us just kind of moved up there to do music while we were in school there. So, we have a lot of ties to that community still. Although people keep moving from Pittsburgh, there are still a couple of good friends who live there and a lot of great bands and we definitely miss it. We definitely miss the cost of living there.

Did you guys grow up around here?

Yeah, we all went to high school together in Arlington and we’ve been playing music in some way since then with varying levels of seriousness — whether the band was the most important thing going on at the time. But, we’ve known each other for a really long time, just over the past few years we’ve tried to be more professional — take it more seriously.

Had you gone through multiple styles/genres over time?

I wouldn’t say that. We’ve definitely grown in terms of what we’re able to do with our songwriting and certain things that we’ve done in the past we might recoil at now but we haven’t flipped around too much. It’s not like we had a ska phase or a screamo phase or anything. We’ve been a straight ahead rock band with vocal sensibilities for awhile.

Your sense of humor also seems to come out in your songs.

Yeah. We try to do it on purpose, I guess. We’re really really slow songwriters, so everything’s put together really delicately. We fight about every little piece of every song. So, I guess we have a very democratic songwriting process and I guess it’s good that our sense of humor comes out. We like to be humorous without being jokey, so we try to tow that line as best we can.

That makes sense that you’re slow songwriters because it looks like there has only been a few EPs since your full length release in 2005.

And that was actually under a different name. That’s when we lived in Pittsburgh. We were called We’re Wolves. But we ended up changing that because there was a big Montreal band with a similar name in the Wolf band name craze of the mid-aughties. That was a good reason to change.

That explains the confusing myspace search results.

Yeah. Well at first our myspace page was /werewolves and then when we changed the name, we sort of kept it. Then, finally I was like, “okay, we need to move on,” and somebody else picked up the page so now it goes to some British grind-hardcore goth band or something. But yeah, that’s definitely not us. It’s not quite as bad as the Santorum problem, but definitely something we’d like to fix.

You’ve released music since 2005, though.

We released an EP in 2009…we may not have released anything between 2005 and 2009. We had sort of a slow period. But we released the Barbaro EP in 2009 and that was before I moved and then we went back to the studio in early fall of 2010. We finally have those new songs mixed and mastered and kind of sitting there. We’re trying to figure out what to do with them. We actually recorded these in a studio. We haven’t been in a studio for years.

Chad Clark was involved with the production on the new songs, right?

Yeah. He arranged it. Nick Anderson, who is a friend of ours from high school who knows Chad from working at Inner Ear, was the engineer on the project. Chad mixed it and we got it mastered by T.W. Walsh up in Boston. But Chad has definitely been a mentor to us. When I was about to move we had this sort of last show before my departure and it was sort of uncertain what was going to happen with the band. He was at the show, which was at Galaxy Hut, and since then he’s been a guiding figure. He forced us into the studio and says very nice things about us and we’re lucky to have somebody that we respect a lot cheerleading for us.

I’m sure you’ve also made your rounds at various D.C. venues, do you have a favorite?

I don’t know that we have a favorite. I guess it would have to be Galaxy Hut. We’ve been playing there for a really long time. I think I remember being there before it was 21 and over only. I remember drinking root beer there when I was nineteen. And actually, Marko, the guitarist, he works there. We always have the best shows there. It’s really tiny but everyone always comes out to see us and it’s always a real high energy atmosphere. We love Galaxy Hut. I know it’s kind of corny because it’s in Arlington. We’ve played around elsewhere, too. U Street Music Hall’s been amazing but it always feels kind of funny playing there because it’s sort of designed for…not us.

What have you guys been listening to right now?

Over the past few months we’ve been listening to a lot of our mixes, weirdly. I guess beyond that we’ve been listening to the new Caribbean album which is ridiculous and great. We’re listening to the new Mariage Blanc album. We all listen to everything. I wouldn’t say that there’s one album that we’re listening to other than the Caribbean album. I enjoyed the Beach House album a lot last year. A lot of hip-hop albums I enjoyed last year.

Matt from The Caribbean also does your booking, is that right?

Yeah. We’re not really booking extensive tours but he sort of helps us put together shows here and there. Like, we’re playing in New York and Philadelphia at the beginning of June and he helped us put that together.

What’s next for More Humans?

We’re excited to be playing more in the D.C. area again and we’re really excited for these songs that we’ve recorded and we’re going to have them out hopefully within the next couple of months. We’re not sure what form exactly, whether it’s a few 7”s or digital download or, uh, laser disc. We’ve got to figure all that out but hopefully we will soon. We’ll keep playing and playing along the East Coast and looking forward to the future.