Strange things happen in the dead of night in skeevy hotel rooms in the American southwest. For two Canrock MVPs — ex-Unicorn and current Islands leader Nick Thorburn, and Three Gut Records namesake/full-time jingle writer Jim Guthrie — a chance musical indiscretion in the bone-dry outpost of Tucson, AZ turned into a living, breathing indie-rock organism which they’ve dubbed Human Highway, a group with (as their label puts it) “lots of hot man-on-man vocal action.” The result of this tour-based tryst is Moody Motorcycle, a celebration of breathy harmonies, acoustic guitars and wistful reveries reminiscent of classic male duos (think the Everly Brothers) of the mid-20th century. EYE WEEKLY spoke to Guthrie about the new album, playing live and staying at home.

Other than insanely catchy jingles, you haven’t released any material since 2003’s Now, More Than Ever, and there are a lot of people anticipating your next album. Was forming this side project partly a way to put out music without having to deal with quite as much pressure?
I always know what’ll happen when I put out a record: you play shows, sell some albums, do some interviews. And I like doing different and unexpected things all the time. I think I did [Human Highway] because there was a mysterious thing about it — I kinda knew what me and Nick would sound like but didn’t really know. It feels like a throwback to what we were doing in the Three Gut days. It was just a little thing that we did in my bedroom. Though [laughs] I guess there’s more tension, ‘cause people who knew my stuff from before are more curious about it.

Moody Motorcycle has a throwback quality — it’s gentler than your other projects. Did you and Nick bring out new things in each other?
We weren’t like, “Let’s make oldies music,” but we knew we loved the sound of two guys singing together. And when we were on the road, we’d trade stuff back and forth, like “You should listen to this Kinks song.” It became apparent really fast that our voices went well together, and I sort of feel like in popular music, or at least in indie rock, you never hear guys harmonizing.

It was like a game of musical chess. We were mostly working with half-baked song ideas and figuring out what would happen from bar to bar, track to track. I’m still nervous about trying to play them live, though. Normally, you write some songs and make a band and practice and record. At this point, the songs only exist on a hard drive, and I don’t know how to play them start to finish.

I remember you facing similar challenges when you were composing music on a Sony PlayStation and trying to translate that live. Is there a connection?
Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. [Laughs] I don’t even think about what the results will be when I’m working on songs. So yeah, it’s like the PlayStation stuff too — the process is a really stimulating part of it for me, and now I’m like, “Oh shit, I’ve gotta do this live.” It’s one of the things I like least about making music: once you come up with a recipe, you have to figure out how to replicate that every single night. When I make food, I don’t use a recipe book, I just start throwing stuff in a pot. Pop music doesn’t work that way. Sometimes I wish I were a jazz musician, so I could improvise every night… though I don’t think I’m skilled enough to play jazz.

The cover art of Moody Motorcycle also feels like a throwback to old LPs from the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Before we’d even made any music, we had an album cover picked out. It was a photo by this artist, Andrew Goldsworthy, who captures things you can’t actually capture. He’ll make a snow angel and take a photograph of it, but the point of the art is actually the snow angel. We tried to get the rights to one of his pieces. It was a photo of an imprint in the grass in a meadow, with a trail next to the grass. He doesn’t really sell his art like that, though. But later, when we knew what the music sounded like, we were like, “We should totally do an Everly Brothers thing.” My face has never been featured in my artwork. [This record] has a human quality to it that neither of us has ever had. That’s something you don’t see a lot of in indie-rock. It’s like it’s supposed to be about the music, not image or clothing or hair.

Have you developed a whole new fan base of folks who’ve discovered you through, say, “Hands In My Pocket” (used in a Capital One commercial)?
Totally! I think I’ve become more known since I stopped making records. It’s an odd sensation. The way the media and the internet work have changed so much since 2003 — I feel a bit like an old man. I mean, back then, we were sort of worried about leaks, but there was no YouTube. Now there are all these websites and stuff you have to answer to — it’s an insane atmosphere in the music industry. At least once a week, I’ll get emails from places I’ve never toured or released albums in, from people saying, “Your records are awesome — when are you coming here?” You’re still out there, even if you’re at home.