Learn about their artistic evolution since the pandemic
Seven years ago, bassist and songwriter Aaron Utterback felt like he’d made it. His Charleston-based band, Human Resources, was drawing crowds in New York City after the release of its third album, Champagne. Nissan put one of its songs in a car commercial, and clothing retailer Hollister included its music on its playlists. After seeing another bump in their streaming numbers, band members discovered that a fabric store was playing their music at locations nationwide. “We bought a van and got a booking agent,” Utterback recalls.
Human Resources toured for a year, recorded most of a new album, and scheduled a release show for its first single on March 19, 2020—COVID, day one. The show was canceled. The band wrote more songs, honed the album, and scheduled another concert. That date landed squarely on the virus’ second wave—canceled again. “We just got dive-bombed by COVID,” says Utterback.
Human Resources’ four members have played together since high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then at Appalachian State, before collectively moving to Charleston in 2014. They went all in, shedding jam band roots in favor of bleached blonde hair, Canadian tuxedos, and a Daft Punk-inspired sound bereft of noodling guitar solos. “We said, ‘We’re going to party harder than everybody, no holds barred, and be impossible to ignore,’” Utterback says of the band’s early days anchoring Charleston’s indie scene.
When gigs dried up in 2020, everyone needed income. Utterback scaled up his digital design work, guitarist Dries Vandenberg built a videography career, and keyboardist Paul Chelmis grew his photography and filmmaking business. The group’s secret weapon has always been drummer Matt Zutell and his recording studio, Coast Records. “We never had a formal hiatus, but we weren’t young enough to wait it out,” says Utterback. “When you go into COVID at 29 and come out at 32, that’s a big difference. You can’t just get back in the van and let it ride and not be concerned with squaring away the rest of your life.”
Over the past several months, the band coalesced at the studio to build upon its lost album. The result, Human Resources 2019-2025, charts the group’s growth through songs like “cameron ave,” written from Utterback’s downtown porch in 2020 as he watched a construction project tear out a field of flowers across the street. “They killed all the roses on Cameron Avenue,” he sings. “Four rows of brick houses laid out between me and you.”
During COVID, Coast Records moved to Reynolds Avenue, and Utterback moved to North Charleston’s Waylyn neighborhood. “Liminal Space” addresses that life change, referencing Exchange Factor and the H&L Asian Market on Rivers Avenue.
“Girlfriend’s House,” the single planned for the March 2020 release, finds its place on the album, but that girlfriend became Utterback’s wife this August. “Power Stone” tracks the band’s transition from “our partying phase to living a little healthier and being a little more spiritual. There’s a through line,” Utterback says of the album. “It’s basically the story of our lives from then until now. It catches us up and wipes the slate clean, and now, we can start the machine all over again.”
