Humming Along to Humanity's Demise.

The title came from a restaurant review.

​

Claude MarQuis was recording in a cabin in North Hero,  Vermont when he came across a Burlington food guide describing an apathetic burrito joint as a good place to go “for those who hate human interaction.”

He cut it out.

He was also deep into The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
The album’s concept took shape through an unlikely pairing — a restaurant review and a post-apocalyptic novel.

​

Recorded entirely on a laptop — one man, one machine, 25 tracks — For Those Who Hate Human Interaction is a concept album about everything wrong with the world, delivered in melodies so irresistible you won’t notice what you’re agreeing with. As MarQuis explained to Xtra Magazine:

“It would all seem destined for a dire and heavy output, but all of the songs are specifically catchy in order to trick one into humming along to humanity’s demise.”

​

The album was mastered by Jeff Lipton — whose credits include Arcade Fire and The Magnetic Fields — and released simultaneously with its folk companion North Hero in the summer of 2010:
40 songs at once, because that’s how many there were.

​

Among the album's 25 tracks, the ninth — "For Those Who Hate Falling Tragically Madly In Love" — arrives like a breath caught mid-sentence. After the bombastic opening album track and ongoing songs of relentless pace and sardonic energy, it stops the clock entirely. The song opens as if excavated from a 1920s recording — two voices, he and she, earnest and period-costumed — before slowly warming into something contemporary at the bridge, where delicate harmonies rise: "calling all angels fallen from grace / banish the earth of the whole human race." A plea from a love that once was. It became a slow jazz standard staple in The PepTides' live repertoire — the moment in every show where the room went quiet and stayed there.

​

The Ottawa Citizen awarded the album five stars. Critic Peter Simpson wrote:

“Even in a city with a vibrant indie music scene, For Those Who Hate Human Interaction raises the bar.”

Breaking his own rule against awarding five stars to new recordings, Simpson later named it Album of the Year.

​

Xtra Magazine called it “deceptive — such light melodies with dark, over-the-top lyrics,” while the French-language weekly Voir described it as:

“le seul album concept 100% made in Ottawa jamais créé” (the only concept album 100% made in Ottawa ever created) crediting MarQuis as “cerveau créateur” — creative brain.

​

The PepTides had already been named one of Xtra Ottawa’s Indie Queer Heroes in 2009, but the album’s success changed everything. As MarQuis recalled in Ottawa Life Magazine:

“Completely out of the blue, I awoke to find the cover of that latest album on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen being named best album of the year. It seemed like it was an appropriate time to start a live band.”

Two of the vocalists who appeared on the recording — DeeDee Butters and Dale Waterman — became founding members of the nine-piece ensemble that followed.

​

The album later formed one half of LOVE + HATE, The PepTides’ theatrical mini-musical performed at the Ottawa Fringe Festival (2014) and Undercurrents Theatre Festival (2015). Ottawa Magazine noted that MarQuis had always conceived the album in theatrical terms:

“When I was writing Human Interaction the scope was so big that I always thought of it as a soundtrack to a musical.”