No Filler Music Podcast - Stratospheric Sludge: The Deep Space Cuts of Hum's Defining Record

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

We blast off into the stratosphere with Hum's 1995 masterpiece You'd Prefer An Astronaut, the Champaign, Illinois band's sonic collision of shoegaze shimmer and bone-crushing sludge metal. While MTV latched onto "Stars," the album's real treasures lie in the deep space between those radio moments—massive, swirling guitar walls courtesy of Matt Talbott and Tim Lash that feel like entire galaxies collapsing in slow motion. This is the record that proved heavy music could be beautiful, and shoegaze could absolutely crush. Strap in for lift-off. Tracklist Stars The Pod Suicide Machine Why I Like The Robins I Hate It Too I’d Like Your Hair Long This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that filled the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me as always. And if you didn't recognize that song, you weren't paying attention. into rock music or watching MTV in 1995, because this was a band considered at the time to be an MTV buzz band cue, which means they were hot for a second, and then didn't really get much success beyond this song.

I'm talking about the band Hum. The song we just heard was called Stars, their biggest single of their career, and kind of the song that put them on the map. They didn't crack the top 10, but they did make number 11. 11 on the billboard hot modern rock tracks, which is kind of funny. You know, so it wasn't like the top 10. Yeah, dude, I was going to say like, I don't recognize that song. But we were also, let's see, we were eight in 95.

Well, yeah, we weren't paying attention. Yeah. You know, this was not a record that was on my radar or a band that was on my radar or whatsoever. I mean, you know, you and I listened to. the usual suspects of 90s rock. Even back then, we had exposure to smashing pumpkins and Stone Tip of Pilots, Nirvana, of course, Bush. Presidents. Presidents.

Yeah, the big hitters. But these guys never quite mean it to those heights. But this is the song that kind of put them on the map. So, again, we're talking about hum. This is definitely not the first time that they've appeared on this show. We did an episode on their following record that they put out called Down. word is heavenward, which is one of my favorite 90s records of all time. Hum is definitely now one of my top five 90s bands. And like of all the 90s bands that we've discovered, you know,

in the last however many years we've been doing this podcast, Hum is up there for me for sure with like Catherine Wheel, bands that like were kind of under the radar for us that we sort of discovered in later years, you know, decades removed from when they were making music. Like, HOM is fucking incredible, man. And this record is amazing. So if you paid attention to the intro, to this episode, or to the intro to our show in general, we say that we play the tracks between the singles, Q. But I'm going to break that rule today.

I am going to bring another single later just because it's one of my favorite home tracks. Making an exception. That's okay, dude. You know what? We make the rules. We can break them. One of the reasons that we don't play singles on the show is because we're trying to expose you to other songs that you may have missed if you only tuned in to the singles, right?

But this is a pretty obscure band that a lot of people probably slept on anyway. So hopefully it's all new to you, right? So this record came out in 1995. Let me read this quote real quick because I think it describes the band pretty well, or this record pretty well. This is from an interview that was done years later by a Chicago website called Smile Politely. They are from Chicago, by the way. SmilePolitely.com says they were not nerdy enough to be Weezer, not particularly edgy enough to fit in with the tool and the nine-inch nails fans of the world.

And they certainly didn't fit into the neat college rock template established by REM. And that describes them perfectly because they really do, like, run the gamut in terms of, like, rock sounds and genres. Like, and you'll hear that with the – that's one of the reasons that I wanted to play another single called The Pod, and we'll play that probably for our second track, because it's really heavy. Most of the songs that I'm bringing in tonight are on the softer, more melodic side. But that's what made hum so unique. And probably why they didn't gain much traction because – They were so creative and, like, their songs were very well known for, like, going places you don't expect them to. So they couldn't really fit into any, like, box, you know what I mean?

Looking back on it, you broadly put them in. They're post-hardcore, but I guess they're not really considered grunge. Because they came up during that time. Well, I mean, if you want to just put them in a broad, under a broad genre, it would be all rock, right? but there is hints of like pop punk-ish type riffs and that's probably pop-punk barring from them or not you know right but like there's elements of shoegaze sometimes they're considered a shoegaze man which is like whatever that's probably just for like the the you know they have just the the wall of sound type just loud guitars I mean yeah that's like the that's like the blueprint for shoe gaze right right but like yeah it's it's

It's alt metal, post-hardcore, alt rock if you want to, if you want to try to narrow it down. But they also get the weird space rock label thrown onto them, which is funny because I think it literally means, you know, hypnotic beyond just like the sound. Yeah, hypnotic. The album is literally called, you'd prefer an astronaut. And there's a lot of songs in here that literally have space themes in lyrics about space. I don't think that's what Space Rock means, but it's just funny that they actually have, they sing about space all the time. Anyway, so again, 1995, I'm going to read the lineup here real quick. So Matt Talbot is the guitar and vocals.

Tim Lash is the other guitar player. Jeff Dempsey is on bass guitar and Bryant St. Pierre is on drums. And we're just going to fucking die right in, bro. Because these signs are going to do all the talking. You know what I mean? Just do it. All right, so I'm going to start with track one off the record. This song is called Little Dipper.

Let me think about this, dude. I'm trying to pinpoint like their overall sound. I mean, it's very, you're going to have a hard time doing that cue as we go throughout this episode. But for this, let's just maybe just for this one song, what do you think? I mean, so he's got the, like, kind of, his voice just kind of drones on a little bit. Definitely. It's a little, it's kind of like they're all just kind of, dragging their riffs and the drumbeat along with it, you know, trying to...

It's a very slow-paced song. I mean, it takes its time, dude. Yeah. You know? And I think this, this to me, put the lyrics aside, like, I can see the space rock label, like why that might make sense here, because it's, yeah, it's very hypnotic. Like you said, drone, like his voice is very monotone. Yeah.

He actually sings like that quite a bit. on all of their stuff, but then he'll do something different. I mean, he wasn't the only one doing that in the 90s. No, not at all. Yeah. But like you said, drone, you know, very drone-like. That is a staple hallmark of space rock drone heavy sound. And shoegaze, you know.

And shoegaze for sure. Yeah. But his voice is not very shoegazy whatsoever. It's not very angelic and like, you know. It's not buried in distortion either. No. But what I like about this. that song like there's a lot of stuff going on if you pay attention like with the um with uh you know

his his vocals will sometimes have like sort of like a little bit of a delay to them or like this kind of weird uh vocal type like effect and like underneath his vocals that are like kind of like reversed or reverbed or something like that where it's like what he's about to say and then he says it like they're doing some really cool things like uh in post production shout out to Keith Cleversely, who is the producer. Also, by the way, this was on RCA. So they got signed to RCA for this record. So that's a pretty big deal.

Yeah, for sure. And another thing, and you're going to hear this throughout the record, but those guitars just sound so, there's just so much texture. It's just so, like, heavy. And that was actually done in the studio. Here's a quote from the producer. What Hum did on almost every track on the record is tripped. triple track their guitar tracks.

One of the most amazing things about Tim Lash, who's the other guitar player, was his ability to exactly duplicate his performance no matter how complex. As soon as they got a performance that they were happy with, they immediately recorded a second and a third track of guitar. And then Talbot goes on to say that that would add a lot of density and heft to their arrangements. Interesting. That's a good heft, dude.

It's just like, just like you said, drone and just like taking their time with it and like dragging you along. I think that all contributes to like drone, that drone-like sound, you know? Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's cool. All right. That's a great opening track. And what I love about that track, just all those things you just said about it, we're about to hear the exact opposite with the next track, which leads in like beautifully. If you let the play back to back, which I think I'm going to let it, I'm going to let it close and then we'll pick up on the next track, which is the second single from the record. So I'm pretty sure I brought this track years ago, dude, to what you heard.

Before we were doing what you heard's, once a month, let me just verify. I'm pretty sure that this song was featured on... Oh, maybe I'm wrong, dude. I might be wrong. Okay, I think I'm wrong, man Well, good on me I wonder what track I brought Anyway, I'm pretty sure I brought a hum track

On our episode with Spencer So, you're not thinking of a helmet, are you? You know what? Dude, that episode may have been dropped from the fucking feed. Wait. Foo Fighters Oh, dude. So I'm pretty sure this track appeared

on episode four, so going way back. But here we go. So again, I'm going to let the little dipper close out and then transition into the pod. Here we go. They're a lot like the side of the coin that Catherine Wheel fell on, but with a totally different singing style. I mean, Catherine Wheel was trying to, was way, well, they leaned more into the grunge than I think. hum ever does. And that's the thing. Like, this song is a standout in their entire catalog. They never get heavier than this track, the pod. So that's what's interesting about them. But that's,

that's what's also so compelling about hum is that they will sprinkle in heaviness like this in their tracks. But this entire, this entire track is just like heavy, right? And that is a, that particular guitar sound is like is that that's the alt metal that they get that that's that label getting thrown on to them but um just just a random quote from chino marino who's the frontman of deaf tones he says discussing this particular record he says that it is a big part of the influence on deaf tones tone wise and i could totally hear that when you especially when you listen to songs like this, like that guitar tone, that heavy, heavy. And then, like, as we hear from like in the, like the production, post-production,

like triple-tracked, you know, like guitar, heavy sound, layered guitar sound. Like, yeah, I can totally, totally hear that. Yeah. Oh, you know who I was thinking of, dude? It just came to mind. Band of Sousans and we covered them. Mm-hmm. Or, man, what was that other band, dude?

So what is it about these bands then that? Swerve driver. That, you know, that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yes. I can hear that. I think Swar Driver...

It's elements of grunge, alt rock, and shoegays. Yes, yes. That's good. Yeah. So, like, the shoe gaze, I think, mostly comes from just the really loud, heavy guitar sound, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good call. Yeah, and dive back into our...

We've covered all those bands. Swar of Driver. We covered Band of Susan's Swirlies. I mean, dude, we had... That was, okay. That was jump back. You got to jump back to the summer of 2022. just found all those episodes.

Is that, the year that we did a ton of 90s stuff? Oh, yeah, dude. That was, I mean, that was a fend. That was probably my favorite, I think,

uh, year. Just like run of episode. Yeah. Because all we did was 90s bands, I think, for almost the entire year. The entire year,

dude. And that was when we were still putting him out once a week. Right? Yeah. Yep. Yeah, dude. All right.

Let's move along here. Uh, so again, that was the pod. That was a single. That's the heaviest it's going to get from hum, period. Unless you go back to some of their earlier, earlier stuff, their album Elektra 2000, their first record 93, is a totally different sound.

I'll just put it out there. And I think it's heavier. But anyway, all right, here we go. We're going to jump down to track number six on the record, Why I Like the Robbins. I'm actually going to play two parts. So I'll pick it back up here in a second, but what do you think so far? I feel like we've heard three different bands tonight. Yeah, and yeah, they were definitely doing their own thing.

That's really all I can say, man. I don't know. Yeah. You know? And maybe that's why they didn't, they kind of stayed under the radar for the most part. But yeah, man, that was great. It's his voice. His voice is unique and his, like, his timing and everything and his cadence.

His lyrics are really interesting, too, man. They're really, like, poetic and, like, he uses a lot of metaphors. And apparently he liked using space as a metaphor because you could just, just the expanse of space and like the isolation of space. Like, yeah, it's a great metaphor for a lot of things. So the pod, the last track that I played was about a couple doing drugs together to escape the pain of their lives. But it was called the pot. It's about like a space pod and shit like that. Or at least that's the metaphor that you're getting.

I really know what this is about. why I like the Robbins, whenever it's kind of a funny name. He's literally talking my birds. But according to good old genius.com. I always liked this line in the song,

and I like your raindrop collector, splash in my eyes and makes everything else look like you. And the genius annotator here says, it's like when you get a splash of water in your eyes and it distort your vision to see multiple things.

only it's you, you, you. It's just everything else looks like you. I mean, that's an interpretation for sure. But yeah, dude, this is funny right here. I'm going to read the About contribution from somebody for this track. Petal Heavy Shoe gaze or Neargays. Now, that's a new term that I've never heard. Wait a second.

Petal heavy shoe gaze, you can't do shoe gaze without a lot of pedals, man. Yeah. Yeah. Just say shoe gaze next time. You don't need the pedal heavy part. But it's just fine. Near gaze. That's a new one, dude. Never heard near gaze before. I've heard new gaze. Near gaze. That's interesting. What does that mean? Yeah. I don't know. It's funny. But yeah, it goes on to say. And this is the point I was trying to make early about how like they sneak in the heavy, you know, and through their song. Because that's a very quiet, pretty song with a like this very like nice, melodic kind of clean guitar tone. And then they, they, they just sneak in.

that heavy layered guitar sound. This person says here, the two extreme poles, as in like North Pole, South Pole, quiet stretches of hushed guitars and pitter-patter drums and loud bursts of heavy riffs and thumping percussion. There you go. That's about sums them up. And that's what I love about every track that they put out. It usually does that, where it's like, and this is a, there's actually a quote from Talbot here.

He says, we do shit like that all the time. And he was actually referring to one of those types of moments where there's a riff that comes in seemingly out of nowhere. He says, we try not to make our songs too predictable and boring. Well, mission accomplishment, my friend, Matt. All right, I'm going to pick it up where we left off. Here we go. Again, this is why I like the Robbins. I'll take the glasses and cover for you.

You get some sleep in all states of two. I'm looking for six who know about sound. Who promised to come back upside down. And that was heavy, man. Oh, yeah. Totally, yeah. And I like how his, you know, he was going back and forth between these two lines. She's got colors just bare and I don't care what they choose.

And I've got nothing to do and nothing like you left to lose. I like how they literally faded his vocals just slowly out. Like you just, you almost couldn't hear them. And then like the volume got lower and lower in the mix. like every time he delivered those two lines. Yeah. And then they were just not there anymore. Yeah,

just completely disappeared in the background. And then there was just nothing but that like really cool, heavy breakdown, that outro. I mean, I can, I totally hear the space rock there, man. I mean, like, did they have like a, I don't know, like a flanger or something of effect? Like some sort of phaser or something like that. That makes me think that that, that's space rock, dude. That's space all, you know, every time you hear of like that kind of effect on it, you know. Set your phasers to stun.

Exactly, dude. Yeah, that was a great. Great track. Well, it's about to get greater with this next track. So this is one that I slept on for a long time, dude, and didn't even, I don't think I've even listened to it until very recently. I hate to admit it, but here I am. Admitting it.

So this is another song. I'm going to have to break into two parts, but this is the last track we're going to play, and it's a doozy. And I think it sums up the band fucking perfectly this song. So here we go. This is second to last track, so this is track number eight, if you care about that kind of thing. We're just going to jump right into it. This song is called I Hate It Too.

Twisted mess of four inch shapes and sounds. I wish the ceiling was the ground. I'll send you flowers made of silent. many pieces of the sun to help me make up for this one while you send me tidal waves of love when you're alone and I can't remember what you do to find a way to turn the signal back to heaven sounding blue and bring me faithful back to you she don't forget it out quickly because it's about to but the change on us here in a big bad way not to spoil it or anything but what do you what do you think's for loved it man the opening guitar riff just him and a guitar right oh yeah really good

super clean yeah man no fuzz whatsoever on that guitar definitely an effect on there might have been a phaser again um very intimate intimate yeah just i mean i mean just talking quietly into the mic really Yeah, very subdued, almost like, yeah, talking. Like you said, very drone, another drone delivery, right? Yeah. But one thing, and you're going to hear that this riff come back in the second part here, but you know that, do, don't jam, do, do that's a very, like, pop punk riff, man. Like, you hear that so much in, like, sound 41 and all that.

Yeah, don't chan, but dick a don't chern, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. That's my best guitar impression. But a little bit, it helps with some distortion to hear what I'm talking about, which, well, let's just pick up back up, shall we? Let me kick it back here. We'll hear that refrain again. Here we go. The 90s.

Changed everything. Yeah. I mean, it was, we've said it once. We'll say it a hundred more times, dude. You want to hear us say it literally? 100 or 200 times. Like I said, 2022. We covered almost nothing but 90s. That's true.

If you want to see the the fucking vast, endless supply of styles. And that all fell under the 90s like the rock umbrella. Like it's insane

dude. That the variety that we had in the 90s for rock music. Well, my favorite part of all all this, dude, is that there's torch bearers, man. They're picking up the torch. The kids these days, man.

These kids, they're doing it, man. They're doing it. And pop punk is coming back, too. Remember that band that I brought? Yeah, that's right. What was the name of that group? Dude, a few watch-hards ago I brought a track from them. Wish you?

Well, not wish you. Let me see. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were really young dudes, right? Oh, what was there a name? Dude. I got a saved him. The paradox.

Yeah. Yeah. Straight up. And they're not the only ones, man. Yeah. Well, it's a good dude. Yeah. HOM specifically, too, was mentioned, you know, Narahead's one of my favorite acts of the last decade.

They specifically have mentioned HOM as a huge influence. They mentioned Deftones as a huge influence as well. But yeah. Hum, again, man. In this record, honestly, it's not my favorite Humber. record. Downward is heavenward is a fucking masterpiece from start to finish. And that's the next record they put out. Never had a single that charted off of that. Again, this is when they kind had a little bit of success and then haven't captured it since. But they've gone on to become,

I think, much more beloved and well-known post all of their brief success in the 90s. Like, they've actually gone on to have kind of a cult status. Mattis, right? And they put out a record in 2020 called Inlet that we actually, I brought at least one track for that year's best of. And that's another amazing record. And it's really a little bit slower and kind of sludgier at times. But that's another fucking phenomenal, beautiful record, man. One of my favorite 90s bands of all time. And yeah, here's a quote from Talbot to kind of some things up a little bit. Our band was made up of four guys who were extremely meticulous and extremely opinionated about our writing and our recording. And they basically said that they wouldn't

be satisfied with the track until each one of them were essentially, the quote was like the bass player Dempsey was, this was an interview from, well, they don't list the article, but this was found on an old fan site that's still up. He said that the process for songwriting was very democratic, that the songs take their shape primarily through communication between the band members as they express their likes and dislikes. And I can't tell if this is a joke, or I can't tell if he's talking about his part or everybody else's part,

but he says, Dempsey said the songs are perfected when each member of the band tells everyone else in the band that their part sucks. Are they saying that there as in like my part sucks because I'm so satisfied with everybody else's part? Or is it just a joke that like they're so proud of their own part that everybody else's part sucks? Either way, they work on it until they feel that they have all reached a final sound that they can all be happy with. And we've talked about bands like that before that like... King's convenience, fleet boxes. Yeah, every member has to be satisfied before they finish a song versus like a very opinionated dickhead front man.

You know what I mean? And we've talked about those kind of guys before too. Like, you know, speaking of talking hands, David Byrne, right? Notorious dickhead, right? But yeah, kind of comes with a territory of being like a lead frontman, right? But I feel like bands are better when each member puts their stamp of approval on it, you know? especially when you've got four band members that are all kind of approach songwriting the same way where it's like meticulous and like they all have high opinions of it you know and that's it comes across you know what i mean and that's maybe that's why their their songs go on so many different places because they actually mention that like

they will pull pieces from like other jam sessions and stuff and just throw them in because they thought it was really cool I just think this is one of the most underrated 90s rock bands. And yeah, go listen to go listen to Downward as Heavenward. And then you can listen to us talk about it. If you go back to April 2022, we did an episode on this record and a bunch of other amazing 90s groups that we had just kind of discovered, you know, over the years that potentially weren't on the radio or didn't die. dominate the radio. Maybe they had a single that made the radio and then kind of fell to the wayside after that, right? Hum is one of those bands where they only really had one song that made it to MTV and made it on the radio. And that was the song I introed in with, which was called Stars.

So that's it for this episode. I'm actually going to close us out with the other, the third single. And dude, it's a fucking blast of a song, man. If we didn't have our... our rule that I broke earlier. I would have played this song too, but I wanted to play those other ones. So, yeah, we're going to close with a song called I'd Like Your Hair Long. And that's more of like a dude. Like I said earlier, a fucking pop punk song to use that term very lightly. But like the guitar riffs and like the melody kind of reminds me of some of the pop punk

stuff, those right around the corner that you and I were really into when we were in high school. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, sounds good. So next month is October Q, which means we're going to do our annual Halloween episode. And we have talked with our buddy Mitchell. He's going to join us or join me if you can't make it Q, but hopefully you can join us because we're going to talk about Queens of the Stone Age. We're going to do an episode on some of the creepier themed songs, which is a lot that we have a lot to choose from because Queens of the Stone Age, they sing about a lot of creepy stuff, man. So it's perfect for Halloween.

Well, as always, you can check us out on Instagram. If you just search for No Filler Podcasts, we'll pop right up. That's the best way to get in touch with us. If you want to give us your opinions on things, what have you been listening to? What other 90s obscure band should we cover? We've covered a lot of them. But as we've said many times, it's a bottomless pit. Hum was one of those bands where it's like, how have I never heard this group before?

Yeah, man. That happens all the time. All the time. It happened last on our last episode. There's a couple of 90s bands, I think, at least the one that I brought, the band formed by the brother of Kevin Shields. I mean, how did you not know that?

Yeah, that's pretty crazy, man. It's crazy, man. It was a cool track. All right. And, of course, you can subscribe to the Pantheon podcast network feed if you want to get our show and every other show under the network.

All right. Well, here we go. Again, I'm going to close that with I'd Like Your Hair Long by Hum. And of course, thanks as always for listening. My name is Travis. And I'm Quentin. You'll take care.