Humanist

Humanist is a project by British multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Rob Marshall. Marshall is from Teesside in north-east England and first made his name as the guitarist in Exit Calm. Before that, he forms his first real band, Lyca Sleep, in 2000; the group plays psychedelia and tours with South, The Warlocks and Engineers. Lyca Sleep later becomes Exit Calm, which releases two acclaimed albums, plays Glastonbury, V and Leeds/Reading, and supports Echo and The Bunnymen, Doves and The Music on tour. Exit Calm splits in 2015.

Humanist is Marshall’s first solo project and the first music he fully produces himself. While making the record, he teaches himself production and plays and records nearly all of the instrumentation. The project broadens into a collaboration-led album built around his songs and finished music, with guest singers adding their own lyrics to his themes. The debut album Humanist is released on Ignition Records and features vocal contributions from Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, Mark Lanegan of Queens of the Stone Age, Mark Gardener of Ride, Joel Cadbury of UNKLE, Jim Jones of Thee Hypnotics, Carl Hancock Rux, and John Robb of The Membranes, among others.

Marshall’s work with Mark Lanegan is especially significant. Lanegan first appears on Humanist material and later asks Marshall for songs for his own album. Marshall writes and produces six tracks for Gargoyle (2017, Heavenly Records), then contributes six more co-writes to Lanegan’s Somebody’s Knocking. Humanist’s debut develops from the earlier songs that first sparked that collaboration.

The project centres on philosophical ideas including mortality, meaning, religion, birth, death, creation versus evolution, heaven versus hell, the grave, eternal life and hope. Marshall describes it as a study of humanism and of what people mean to each other. He also sings on some tracks and writes some of the vocal parts himself, but he prefers collaboration and builds the record around singers he admires.

Marshall grows up in a small terraced house with six framed pictures of Elvis in the living room and music always playing at home. At eleven, after seeing Jimi Hendrix on television, he saves bus fare and lunch money so he can buy a cheap guitar and amplifier set. He teaches himself by playing along to Hendrix, T-Rex, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.

Another artist using the name Humanist is a Brazilian doom metal band.