Ty Walker and the Humanoids

Ty Walker and the Humanoids have a backstory that's out of this world. Legend has it that frontman Ty Walker was abducted by aliens (who called themselves "The Humanoids") from his tiny hometown of Roscoe, Montana. These ragtag extraterrestrials, with a peculiar liking for old-fashioned country music, saw something in Ty and chose him as their frontman. Since then, they've been traversing the multiverse, honing their strange sonic craft. Their live shows are something of a cosmic spectacle, featuring the large-headed, bug-eyed aliens themselves adorned in matching black western wear, a pedal-steel-playing android, and Ty—the perhaps reluctant cowpoke frontman who leads the audience through an otherworldly set. The show is a multimedia experience with sci-fi elements that often includes a tin-foil hat contest for attendees to join in. While The Humanoids may think they're playing human country music, what comes out is a genre-bending fusion of alt-country, art rock, soul, sampledelia, swamp, and psychedelic rock. To date, they've released two full-length records, their debut "Where the Hell is Roscoe?" (2022) followed by "Home on the Strange" (2024) which has been getting played all over the country topping NACC Top 100 (College Radio Charts) and reaching audiences all across planet Earth, as well as the multiverse. "A band of unparalleled creativity, bringing intergalactic otherworldliness to country music" - Happy Magazine (Aus) ---- Izaak Opatz: "Quirky Americana crossed with the indie-pop sensibility of the Shins, as performed by a Montana mountain man" - Rolling Stone Like many of his favorite songwriters (John Hartford, Lucinda Williams, Jeff Tweedy), Izaak Opatz is an ungulate in life’s winter pasture, chewing on and metabolizing disappointment, heartbreak, and the other tough stuff into enjoyable musical carbohydrates. A compulsive metaphorager (and inveterate wordplayboy), Opatz breaks it all down with enzymes of wry humor, thoughtful simile and close observation - a therapeutic process of narrativizing his own life that, almost as a byproduct, turns out savory nuggets of literate, confessional pop. Where 2018’s Mariachi Static drew from Opatz’s fragmented love life as a seasonal Park Service employee and resonated especially with the sensitive dirtbag set, Extra Medium, his latest release, splits time between romantic Hindenburgs across his native Montana, up the East Coast, and in faraway Los Angeles. Montana and LA especially\ decorate the album, supplying wells of metaphor and scene-making, and as characters in their own right - LA’s alternately charming (“In the Light of a Love Affair”) and discomfiting (“East of Barstow”), and, in “Big Sandy”, Montana evolves from setting to subject as the girl’s feelings he traverses it to see prove less than his own feelings for the state. In LA, Opatz learned from and worked alongside Jonny Fritz at Dad Country Leather, and met bandmates and Extra Medium collaborators Malachi DeLorenzo (drums, producer, engineer) and Dylan Rodrigue (multi-instrumentalist, producer). He now lives in Missoula, Montana, where he runs his own custom leather shop, is writing the next album, and pursuing a master's in journalism.