Apr 03 2008 5:18 pm,
Profile: Cut Off Your Hands
Words: Camilla Pia
It’s as if someone doesn’t want us to speak to Cut Off Your Hands. We are firstly unable to track down the quartet in their native Auckland despite numerous attempts over a two week period, and then when they eventually visit London we are plagued by an overly chatty musician who cuts right into our interview time followed by a pub quiz master who booms over the first few questions and then a stream of sirens. Thankfully stick-thin and devilishly handsome frontman Nick Johnston remains unphased, because we’ve just got him talking about his influences...
“When we were writing songs for this record all I listened to was Pink Floyd, Roy Orbison and Elvis. I don’t really give a fuck about anything else,” he says staunchly. “It is important for us to make music that sounds totally fresh while maintaining a real classic grounding.” Their latest single, the fizzing indie-pop anthem ‘Oh Girl’, is a perfect example of that, so after further probing it comes as a surprise to hear that these four high school friends come from a punk rock background. “It was acts like Fugazi, At The Drive-In and The Stooges which made us form this band, I think. After the boring staleness that grunge became we would go to hardcore shows and really feed off that energy. It felt like something genuinely exciting again, and although we don’t sound like them now, their philosophy of participation and DIY ethics is really similar to ours.”
The as-yet untitled debut album will be out later this year, produced by ex-Suede man Bernard Butler, and although he is notoriously hard to work with, Cut Off Your Hands have become real experts in overcoming difficulties over their two year career. “Auckland is a lovely place to grow up, and it’s good to be away from media hype, but it’s also much harder to be a musician because you are so far away from everything. You end up paying loads of money to travel and play to a bunch of people who don’t really care.” Then there was the enforced name change... “We were called Shaky Hands for almost a year and were becoming quite a household name in New Zealand before the Portland act made us change it. There have been loads of examples of bands with similar names co-existing and we were annoyed that they took such a harsh stance but we have moved on and kept the momentum going and people seem to have come with us. Now we just want to make lots of friends in the UK and have a great time doing it.” The school of hard knocks has certainly taught this lot well.
‘Oh Girl’ is out now on 679 Recordings.
