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Palm d’or
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There are only three major towns for touring bands to play in New Zealand, but Auckland’s Cut Off Your Hands, now based between London and a tour bus, managed to play 10 shows over four days in one city. It was Austin, Texas, of course, during the South by Southwest music festival. At a venue called Emo’s, the band shared a bill with screechy indie pop bandwagoneers, slick and snaky reggae rockers and a certain Swedish trio whose delayed, technically frayed performance drew heckling (Peter Bjorn and John later described their own set as “awful”). Cut Off Your Hands were easily the best band of the night, their punk-fuelled, classic-pop-schooled stylings reminiscent of top-shelf Britpop bands and the best of this decade’s nu wave. The band once known as Shaky Hands (Portland’s Shaky Hands won that battle) played a vigorous set, driving their catchy tunes with great energy and flamboyant moves—singer Nick Johnston favours his left side, facing the audience in profile. After the show, he stood up straight and looked the Mirror in the eye to talk about the band’s origins and the production of their debut LP, You & I. Mirror: I’m not surprised to hear you used to be a punk band. Nick Johnston: We started out as a post-hardcore band, along the lines of Fugazi, but with the record, we developed the melodies and the songs. The Buzzcocks was our biggest band when we started, but that gave way to ’60s pop. We started freaking out on all this stuff, and the way it was produced. M: “Happy As Can Be” is quite a way to open a record—it’s huge! I bet Bernard Butler [their producer, known for his bombastic wall-of-sound ways] talked you into that. NJ: Yeah, he’s a cool guy. We got signed to a really bad major label in England that we’re not with anymore, and they gave us money to work with big-name producers like Flood and Stephen Street, but Bernard’s closer to our age and he actually came to our shows, which a lot of these producers don’t do—I think it’s really important for them to see the band in action. Also, he’s been through a lot of shit in the industry, he’s so jaded. But he’s got a big heart as well, and made us feel at home. WITH MONTOIRE AND DARLING |
