All-around Breakdown: Human Animal Discuss Originals & Covers from 2024 Release Sick Puzzle (Surprise Attack Records)

Human Animal, L-R: Bob Williams, Adam Salaga, Kyle Bull, Ryan Zimmerman, and Eric Schauffele/E.M.S. (PHOTO: Human Animal)

Late September of 2024, Eerie, Pennsylvania Hardcore Punk stalwarts quietly dropped a super-limited edition compilation album consisting of five original songs and three covers entitled Sick Puzzle. It was strictly limited to physical media and available on blue vinyl as part of a standard vinyl LP package, black vinyl as part of a special test pressing vinyl LP with just 15 copies produced and boasting hand-made covers using spray paint, stamps, and hand-painted watercolor all done by frontman E.M.S., and $8.00 CD’s through Surprise Attack Records. A few of Sick Puzzle’s contained songs had previously been released digitally online and Human Animal’s cover of “Two-Faced” originally recorded by xDisciplex A.D. was issued on 25 limited edition hand-numbered 5-inch picture disc lathe-cuts, along with 51 copies of the band’s Brother’s Keeper’s “xHardcore Songx” on special 6-inch square clear lathe-cut records both unleashed throughout 2022. Soon after, Sick Puzzle was exclusively released to Bandcamp and then, before year’s end to additional streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, etc. After the holiday season drew to a close, I got a chance to speak with E.M.S., Adam Salaga, and Ryan Zimmerman from Human Animal about the making-of Sick Puzzle. Check out their comprehensive full-project track-by-track breakdown below, which has been lightly edited for general clarity. Unfortunately, the customized Sick Puzzle test presses are now completely sold out, but the standard edition blue vinyl LP’s and CD’s are still available or give it a spin on streaming!


Adam Salaga (guitar): It was fun going out of town and getting back into the studio with an engineer that had no idea what the original songs we did were going to sound like going in. We tried some wild things, like adding tambourine and bongo drums into these tracks, but, ultimately, those experiments didn’t make the cut. I was mesmerized watching Shane [Mayer] edit and clean up drum tracks as Bobby [Williams] was tracking them, so by the time he finished recording them, they were fully polished and ready to go drum tracks. Also, this is the first time we got to mess around with re-amping guitar tracks, so our tone palette was kind of limitless once we got the guitars recorded. We ended up going with Dual Rectifier and 5150 [amps] for my tracks and Mezzabarba and Orange for Kyle [Bull’s] tracks. I believe Ryan [“Baby Boi” Zimmerman] used a combo of his Mesa Boogie head and direct signal with some plug-ins. Random Notes: “Burgatory” dinners were delicious, and we peed in the snow… A LOT! For the cover songs on Side B, we tracked them all ourselves in my basement and sent them to Shane to do his best to re-amp and match our tones from the original songs. The process was a lot longer than the original songs, but the results ended up great.

E.M.S. (vocals): For the past decade, we’ve recorded a lot of our own songs ourselves and that’s been awesome. The only problem is it winds up taking us FOREVER to get everything done; almost to the point of driving me insane. I’m always happy with the end result, but can’t stand the pace. This was the first time we’ve gone out of town to a studio and I loved knocking out everything in two weekends. It was nice to be fully immersed in the studio process and not distracted by life back home pulling you in a lot of directions when you record locally. My only regret is we didn’t get to utilize the hotel pool! This was, also, the first time I did multiple songs vocally in one day. I was a little nervous stamina-wise, but I felt like I came through it really strong and [they’re] some of my best performances to date. I had demo’ed all of the songs prior, so I felt like doing my homework had really paid off in the direction to go.

Adam: The first original we wrote for the record. [It] started at Bobby’s old house and studio (Under The Radar V.1,) finished at The Animal Lair (current practice space and Adam’s basement.)

Ryan Zimmerman (bass): I had been messing with this riff for a while before bringing it to practice and jamming it with the band. I initially thought the parts were too weird and Poppy for us; but, eventually, we tried it out, embraced the weirdness, and really collaborated well to make a great final product. I remember early on, Bobby[/Savage Bob] perked up, commenting that it reminded him of Orange 9mm, which may have influenced some of his choices. (I’ll follow up with Savage Bob to confirm.) Selfishly, I love the bass breaks in the track—gives the song a nice bounce; [it’s] impossible to NOT move to.

E.M.S.: I chose this as the album opener because I like how it kicks in full-throttle so fast. It’s a mouthful of words for me, though. The concept of this one is something I think about often: balance. When one or two areas of your life are going good, something else in your life is lacking attention and suffering. “Perfect balance” pretty much seems unobtainable and I’m not even sure why we as humans expect it to be a possibility. As a former bassist in a band, I love that this song is super-percussive and bouncy with ringing out guitars and Adam’s subtle Bluesy solos underneath. Everything about the pace of this song is why I love hardcore and punk. There’s even a little [The] Suicidal Tendencies homage in my lyrics with “a smarter man than me once said, there’s a war inside my head.” That bridge into the breakdown goes hard, too; very Snapcase-y, which are a big influence on a lot of us. Oh, yeah, the title track “Harrison Street” is where our original studio/practice space was and my iPhone would name the demo voice file recordings of the songs “Harrison Street.” I guess I was getting lazy with titles and it just stuck, but I kinda like it as a tribute to our old spot.

Adam: I was listening to a lot of MADBALL & [The] Suicidal Tendencies when I came up with this one and I think it shows. I think Baby [Boi/Ryan] had brought “Harrison Street” to the table already and I thought it’d be fun to contrast his more mid-tempo, Rockier song with a more tough guy, Thrashy banger. It was fun discovering my voice on this one, as well. Before this band, I never really had any prominent vocals. It’s fun to dip my toe into that area, although, I don’t know that “frontman” will be in my future.

E.M.S.: I always thought Adam’s first riff in this reminded me of some Cro-Mags Best Wishes-era type crossover. Then, boom, Bob drops the tempo and we hit the bouncy pocket again. This song is kind of a thematic continuation of one of our really old songs, “Time Tells All,” off [of] our first EP, [Dark Days]. It’s about the truth and how it always comes out sooner or later. Sometimes, a lot of people around you know super-impactful and huge secrets that will [affect] your life before you even hear about them. It’s a very odd predicament to be in on both sides. There’s some subtle (or not-so-subtle) nods, again, to some of my all-time favorite bands in the lyrics, too, like MADBALL, Agnostic Front, and even Corrosion of Conformity.

I wanted the chorus [gang vocals] to be super-shouty, like Strife’s One Truth era. I, also, thought it’d be cool have Adam sing a bunch on the bridge, probably the most he’s sung on a song to date, and he absolutely crushed it. The lyrics to that part are taken from at least four, maybe, even more, various movies. Sometimes, I’ll jot down what I think are just bada$$ impactful moments from a film and insert them into a song. There’s, also, a movie sample that entertains me before Bobby goes ham on the [tom drums] in the pre-bridge. It’s from Elf and [sounds] kind of silly to be taken out of context in an angry song. I had always wanted to tap into movie samples, like tons of 90’s bands used to do. The song rounds out with the song title repeated, which is a move I should lean into more often. It’s, also, complemented with “wooooahhhs.” I grew up on The Misfits, 7Seconds, and Anthrax, so even though we sound nothing like those bands, I love to incorporate them into songs when I can.

Ryan: Sometimes, I feel like a hoarder, sitting on riffs from old projects that never saw the light of day, hoping to dust them off down the road. “Sick Puzzle” offered this exact situation while, also, showcasing Adam’s ability to compose dynamic Hardcore songs. I came up with the main riff (used for the verses, etc.) wanting something heavy and plodding, but for the chorus, I threw out an unused part, initially written for my old band, Phases. Adam saw through the haze and was able to whittle down and button everything up well.

Adam: A slower, moodier song than we usually do. A pretty cool contrast to everything else on here.

E.M.S.: The band might kill me for saying this, but the beginning stompy riff of this song hits so hard, dare I say it almost has a Nu-metal vibe to it? This one, again, is fun because of the dramatic tempo changes and guitar drop-outs. The whole verses are mostly bass, drums, and vocals, then, Adam kicks in with his best Refused tribute riff and Kyle is rocking out like he’s covering Danzig’s “Mother.” Two very polarizing guitar parts in contrast to what everyone else is doing. This might be one of our more unique tracks and is intentionally sandwiched between shorter faster tracks. I enjoy how the chorus is kind of slightly “melodic” vocally, as best as I can, I suppose. I wanted it to be rather straight-forward lyrically and repetitive, as a chorus, at times, should be.

This song is literally about being in nature, sunlight, moonlight, fresh air, water, etc. and just walking or connecting to the magnetic fields of the planet Earth in order to try to stave off losing your d*mn mind. The last few years, I’ve felt like my grasp on reality has been tested and every time I take a second to clear my head, it grounds me back to a healthier place. Adam’s guitar solo is pretty wild in this one! Especially, with the backdrop of that heavy-a$$ bridge. The title came from walking into Adam’s house and his partner, Rochelle, was doing a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table and I think I said, “sick puzzle” and we laughed. Boom, an ingenious song and album title is born. Oh, yeah, also, when we wrote this, we [had] a habit of taking Ryan’s riff ideas and flipping his original idea. I’m pretty sure these were fast riffs and we, then, slowed them down, then, his riffs for other songs were slow and we sped them up. Maybe, we just do that to be contrarian to his ideas and be d*cks and complicated to him. Who knows!?!

Adam: An homage to our LaCroix [sparkling water] flavor of choice at that moment. I was listening to a lot of Manic Compression by Quicksand when I came up with this one, so I wanted a fast Post-hardcore feel with kind of an abstract solo at the end. It didn’t end up being very “abstract,” although, I think it lends itself to the overall feel of the song. More vocal fun on this one, as I actually get to sing notes in the chorus. This one goes hard start to finish and like most of the other originals on this record, it’s become a staple of our set when we play out.

Ryan: I think this is my favorite bassline I have written.

E.M.S.: This might be our “Punkest”-sounding track and I love it for that! The pace is perfect and I love Bob’s floor tom Jungle beat style. It reminds me of classic [New York Hardcore] (N.Y.H.C.) This was another one where I utilized Adam’s voice to contrast mine. He’s a gruff singer, as well, but can hit different notes and frequencies than me, so I feel like mashing up the two sounds add for nice dynamics. We are named, after all, from a Biohazard song, so looking up to dual vocals, like Evan [Seinfeld] & Billy [“Biohazard” Graziadei] is always in the back of our minds.

So, we go back-and-forth on the pre-chorus, then, flip it for the chorus. The verses are nice and upbeat and were fun to put lyrics to. [For] the lyrics to this one, I was thinking about how oftentimes people don’t see that you are trying to help them in life. You’re looking out for them, you have their best interest in mind with all you do, but feeling weary of getting overly taken advantage of. You can only do so much when others just take, take, and take and you run out of f*cks to give. It’s never enough for them and when you cut it off, you’re the a$$hole. This is me just trying to come to terms with being the a$$hole sometimes even though you care for them. I love Adam’s guitar solo in this one, as it almost has an Agent Orange “Surf Punk” vibe to it. It’s unlike any other guitar part we’ve ever had.

Adam: The easiest of the tracks on this record. We re-tracked the guitars, me at my house and Kyle at his house, and let Shane (Cerebral Audio [Productions]) work his magic on the tone. I made the intro overdubs a little greasier than the original on this one. I’m not sure if we re-sampled or re-tracked the drums, that’s a question for Bob (* Note: Bob declined to comment.)

E.M.S.: This song was originally recorded in 2015 for an Erie Punk compilation. It had never seen a proper vinyl release and we had originally recorded it as a four-piece. Over the years, we often always play this every time we play out, so we figured we’d breathe some new life into it. The vocal and drum takes are all original [from] ‘15, as we were pretty happy with those. All guitar and bass tracks were re-done and now, we added Kyle’s playing on to the song, as well. Once again, I love the [fast-paced chugging verses with a million words over it. This one gets hard if we are too excited and speed it up in a live setting because of how many syllables there are. The chorus is a nice reprieve, as it’s a classic-sounding Punky sing-along vibe, maybe, our first foray into that simpler style back when we wrote it. The ending even has a little Shawshank Redemption tribute to it. There’s an old YouTube video I made about this song nine years ago and we definitely have less white hairs in our beards in this.

Ryan: I was pretty true to the original here, but I did get the opportunity to embellish a little and put my stamp on a classic. Learning and recording these classic Erie Hardcore tracks by members of those bands was such a rad and meaningful experience.

Adam: Another one we did pretty straight-up to the original track. [We] added some guitar overdubs to thicken it up, but the cherry on top for this one was having Scott [Vogel] & Martin [Stewart} from TERROR do vocals on this one. They absolutely killed their parts. Thanks to Scott & Martin; you guys rule!

E.M.S.: It’s funny how full-circle things go. I [Surprise Attack Records] released this song on a Shockwave - Warpath EP in 1998 and 25 years later, I’m covering it. Weird. Shockwave shows are just legendary in the 814 [Northwestern & Central Pennsylvania] area. We played a Cleveland, Ohio show in 2022 with TERROR and Adam mentioned to Scott about doing guest vocals. Scott, then, told us he’d be game, but Martin was a big Shockwave fan, so we had the idea to feature both of them equally in the song (plus, it didn’t hurt I was a big Donnybrook fan, too!) It’s cool to hear those guys trading lines back-and-forth; sh*t, I’m barely on this song and I’m cool with that! Both guys knocked out their parts in Buffalo & California studios and graciously sent them over to us with a quickness. Truly an honor to have one of the hardest working bands of the 2000’s on a track with us. Just an all-around fun experience. We didn’t change the song back too much other than adding some extra gang vocals, Adam’s little weird twiddly guitar lead, and an extra breakdown in the middle of a breakdown. We had some merch ideas to go along with this song and, sadly, they didn’t come to fruition. Maybe, someday!

Ryan: Only A LITTLE stressful recording bass for a cover track that your lead singer originally wrote and performed—but, luckily, that was, also, the best resource.

Adam: This was the toughest one for me to grasp. [Brother’s Keeper] (B.K.) always had some interesting structures to their songs. I had always been in bands that did things two, four, or eight times, so it was easier to count. So, it was a little odd having to do things five times, seven times, [or] 3.5 times haha, but I’m always up for a challenge and we made this version of this song go hard.

E.M.S.: This was the last Brother’s Keeper song Bobby & I wrote together before he moved to North Carolina in 1997. It was featured on a [compilation] and the original recording of it was pretty [sh*tty]. So, Bobby picked this one to re-do during our COVID Lockdown sessions. It took a minute to remember some of the parts, but we got there and had fun with it. The intro of me talking in the beginning and end of the song are from an actual [Human Animal] (H.A.) show in Pittsburgh. The soundbites were taken off of YouTube. [For] the original B.K. version, we took soundbites off of [a] VHS [tape] of Mike [Ski] talking. Technological progress! This definitely wasn’t the most popular (or most widely released) B.K. song. but was a pretty cool example of where some of our writing was going back then. To re-work some of the vocals parts, I had a few ideas on how to “Animalize” the song or how we would have written it in current times.

The original main chorus was Mike & I going back-and-forth, but I decided on the re-make to do me, then, gang vocals to give it a bigger impact. I peppered in Adam on a few pre-chorus parts, as well to break up all of my parts. Bob does guest vocals on the “go!” and “1-2, f*ck you” [parts]. He recorded them at home by himself and I would love to hear how many takes he did, all the while his wife and kids are upstairs thinking, “what the Hell is he screaming about downstairs?!” To top the song off, I added some “woahhhs” at the very end to add some melodic flourishes. This was a fun one to re-visit. We, also, had learned “No Love for The Haters” by B.K., but didn’t track it. Mike had great concepts and lyrics and this was his commentary on bands not really getting deeper than typical cliché sh*t, not delving further into personal topics and expressing real feelings. Ironically enough, Mike, also, tattooed the words “down for life” in Old English across my stomach back then, a tribute to Biohazard, the same phrase kind of being mocked in this song, but that sh*t is still hard.

Adam: Got to play guitar on a song I originally wrote drum parts for. This was a fun one for me. Got to add a solo in there and do a bunch of vocals. All the [xDisciplex A.D.] dudes I played this for were pretty stoked on it (to my face, at least haha.) This song lended itself well to the H.A. style, so there wasn’t a ton of “Animalizing” that needed to be done to it.

E.M.S.: This one, we’ve actually played out by request! I had a few ideas on this one vocally. I thought peppering Adam’s voice as an echo to each last lyric phrase would have a cool effect and I think it came out awesome. I, also, asked him to throw a ripping guitar solo over the bridge part, something [xDisciplex A.D.] would have never done back then. I, also, love how short and pumping this track is. Another fun one to cover from a huge impactful band on our shared youth and hometown scene.

L-R: Human Animal’s Sick Puzzle test pressing and blue record, standard vinyl edition, and CD pictured with lyrics sheet (SOURCE: TATTOOS BY EMS)