Sometimes a great idea takes patience.
That is a lesson that Mahomet-Seymour High School senior Justus Payne has learned during his lifetime.
The young musician, who has been known for his ability to make people laugh and think outside the box, is realizing his great idea that began when he was little.
While many of his peers dreamed of making the basketball or baseball teams when they were young, Payne held onto his dream of being like his uncle, who played in a band.
“I remember thinking, ‘I want to do what he’s doing. That’s amazing,’ ” Payne said.
He practiced his dream while rocking out to Christian punk bands, jumping on his mattress and playing his plastic guitar.
But being in a band takes time, knowledge and maturity.
Payne was in his first band as a percussionist under the direction of Mahomet-Seymour Band Director Michael Stevens as a fifth-grade student.
Mahomet-Seymour senior Jack Wilhelm was right beside him.
While the two, at the time, were not friends, they admired each other’s drive and talent.
As a sophomore, Payne joined the band Incognito Tab for the school’s Variety Show.
“That band didn’t go anywhere,” Payne said.
But Payne took the opportunity after that band dissolved to build something new; he was ready to build a band.
He had the band’s name picked out.
As a freshman, Payne was required to read “The Book Thief.”
“I was always obsessed with that book,” he said. “It’s narrated by death.
“It’s such an unthought of narrator. Near the introduction he says, ‘a lot of times humans feel they are haunted by ghosts, And I, as death, feel like I am haunted by humans.’ ”
“I whipped out my phone immediately and wrote that down; if I ever form a band, I’m going to call it Haunted by Humanz.”
By the time Payne was a junior, he knew he had to turn the songs rattling around in his head into something more than ideas.
“I asked Jack, ‘Do you want to form a band?’ ” Payne said. “And he texted me back pretty quickly and said, ‘Yes.’ ”
With similar interests in music, including Twenty-One Pilots, Front Bottoms and Cage the Elephants, Payne and Wilhelm knew what style of music they wanted to produce, but needed a guitar player to help them get there.
In the fall of 2017, they only knew two people who played guitar: freshmen and fellow percussionists Ryan Bushell and Wyatt Taber.
Bushell politely turned the duo down, citing that he enjoys a different style of music.
Taber, though, immediately said, “Yes!”
“I never thought I’d do this kind of thing,” Taber said.
“I was in drumline and I kind of knew them, but when you’re a freshman and you see the upperclassmen, you’re just kind of like, you can’t be friends with them.
“Now I’m in a band with them.”
Unlike the drums, Taber was only learning the guitar, though.
“I started playing the guitar because I wanted to show my dad up,” Taber said. “He would always play the same song downstairs; it was super lame. I was like, ‘I can do that’. I wanted to show him up in something.
“It really fueled me to get better.”
Taber has also enjoyed the process of making original music with his friends.
“I’ll start on the guitar, then Jack will come and I’m thinking, that could totally be a song!” Taber said.
Payne, Wilhelm and Taber were completely okay with their band consisting of three members.
That is until Nathan Mueller, a base player who was inspired by Paul McCartney, moved to Mahomet-Seymour.
Mueller knew that he, too, wanted to be part of a band, but being at a new school made that dream nearly impossible.
“That was a really tough time in my life,” Mueller said. “I barely knew anyone except for sitting with Jack at lunch. We became pretty close friends.”
Without getting Mueller’s hopes up, Wilhelm talked to Payne and Taber about the possibility of Mueller joining them.
“We met up with Nate and hung out with him,” Payne said. “I remember getting in the car after we were done, and I turned to Wyatt instantly and said Nate has to be in the band or has to be with us in some capacity.
“We didn’t even hear him play.”
Mueller took the role of videographer for one gig before getting behind the base.
In the six months the boys have spent together, they now consider each other to be their best friend.
“We are really tight,” Taber said. “We work really well together and we have a lot of fun.”
In order to show their change, the group modified their name from Haunted by Humanz to Haunted x Humans.
They also finished their original song “Butterfly Knife,” which helped to earn the top spot at the 2019 MSHS Variety Show.
Although the band performed at a few other local venues, including some events at Mahomet-Seymour High School, the Variety Show performance led to some unexpected opportunities.
“Twenty minutes after the show, we were contacted by WPGU,” Payne said.
A local movie maker also contacted the band about producing a music video over spring break. The video is scheduled to be completed soon, and Haunted x Humans hopes that it leads to other opportunities.
“Doing this has been a whole new world,” Taber said.
Knowing that three of the four members will graduate at the end of May, Haunted x Humans is making plans for the future.
Payne, Wilhelm and Mueller plan to stay close to home as they attend either Parkland College or the University of Illinois, while Taber will finish out his final two years of high school.
“Just because we are in Champaign doing school does not mean that we are going to leave Wyatt in the dust,” Payne said.
“We will still be working as hard as possible,” he continued. “We will still be making music, even though Wyatt will still be in high school and we will be in college, that’s not hindering us.
“In a way it’s perfect.”
After two years of college for the trio, Taber will have his high school diploma, and the boys plan to find a music scene in Colorado with a newly recorded album.
The group is excited about “being in the trenches” as they write more songs to create an album.
Until then, they plan to be “in the trenches” finishing up songs together, and finding opportunities to perform on stage.
“We want music that has a theme; songs that could play with our life,” Wilhelm said.
