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| Cut Copy trips the light fantastic |
Music Feature |
Interview and galleries by Dimitri Kalagas
SINCE THEIR HUMBLE BEGINNINGS IN THE LATE NINETIES AS FOUNDING MEMBER DAN WHITFORD’S EXPERIMENTAL HIP HOP PROJECT, CUT COPY HAVE SPENT THE LAST FEW YEARS MAKING SOME SERIOUS WAVES LOCALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY OFF THE BACK OF THEIR STELLAR 2004 DEBUT ALBUM BRIGHT LIKE NEON LOVE.
Come 2008 and the Cutters are justifiably excited, having just wrapped up an Australian tour supporting their friends and self-confessed heroes Daft Punk, and with their sophomore album In Ghost Colours about to drop after being finished up in New York with none other than DFA co-founder Tim Goldsworthy at the production helm, why wouldn’t they be? So with all this in mind and camera in tow Lifelounge ventured out to the video shoot for their track ‘Lights and Music’ for a chat between takes with Dan, Mitchell and Tim about writing, touring and a renewed love of ELO.
DK: How are feeling now In Ghost Colours is on the verge of release? Is there any sophomore album anxiety?
TIM: I don’t think we ever felt any pressure making the record. Because we spent three and a half years on the road, we were really excited to get back into the studio (or our bedrooms) to actually start writing again. The only real anxiety has come from waiting for the release, we finished it a while ago now, so we’re just anxious to get it out to the people.
DK: Did you write the majority of it in Melbourne?
DAN: Yeah, the majority of it was written here. We did demos, and when we spoke with the label, they wanted us to use a producer, so we ended up agreeing on Tim Goldsworthy from DFA. The first time we had a conversation with him we had this conference call with our label, him and his lawyer, and it was really formal and kind of weird. But then they all got off the phone and it was just Tim and I. We started talking about the songs, and he got it straight away. He immediately picked out a few of the records that I was listening to when I was writing, plus we love all the DFA stuff, so working with him was a bit of a no-brainer.
DK: What were the records that you guys bonded over?
DAN: The main one was probably ELO’s Time record. I know a lot of bands have rediscovered that one in the last few years. And then some of the other references would have to be My Bloody Valentine and Daft Punk. He even had this weird old Eurythmics record that he was listening to that he suggested I get a hold of. Most people would associate them with 80s pop hits, but the first one they did was produced by the guy who did all Kraftwerk’s stuff, Conny Plank, and it had guys from Can playing instruments on it. We just shared ideas and things we were excited about, so it was a pretty cool thing. I think with any relationship that you might have with someone who is producing or mixing or whatever, you want to find a common musical ground, and we had really common tastes in a lot of things, so it was great to work with someone who was excited about music.
DK: So do you think that your tastes converged at a particular point in time, or was it that you and Tim always had similar tastes, and it worked out nicely once you met?
DAN: Well it was actually our idea to get in touch with Tim initially. We’d run out of ideas for producers, and we weren’t really into a lot of the producers the label was suggesting, so we thought ‘What about Tim Goldsworthy?’ A lot of the stuff DFA has done more recently has moved away from the straight punk disco stuff that they’d initially become quite renowned for, and they’d started doing some weird, trippy electronica stuff. Disco I guess, but in a more spacey kind of way. So we thought that might bring an interesting edge to the record. A lot of the stuff that we used as inspiration was psychedelic electronic stuff like Tangerine Dream. Having said that however, the record is quite pop, so it’s great when someone has a pop sensibility, but with an appreciation for all kinds of weird music, and you can draw these things into even the most catchy songs and make them interesting.
DK: Based on what I have heard off the album so far, you guys have made a distinct departure from the sound of Bright Like Neon Love but there is a definite Cut Copy aesthetic that’s developing, so do you think that there is a refined sound that you are searching for, or is it evolving as you move along?
TIM: I think it’s an evolution. As we grow as musicians and as a band together, I see things getting interesting for us, constantly pushing ourselves and introducing each other to new sounds and ways of doing stuff. It’ll constantly grow, but I guess it’ll always sound like us because it’s us making it. We’re pretty aware of trying not to contrive something, or going with what’s happening now.
DK: And how does the writing process work for you guys? How do you go about creating something from nothing?
TIM: Ha, steal something else first, then start making something around that!
DAN: I guess it depends on the song. For us one of the really cool things was working at the DFA studio and seeing their process and the way they work. Often I’d be thinking about getting to a certain sound or a certain feeling in the songs, and having a real goal in mind, which is good in its own way. But at DFA they work in the opposite way where they have no goal in mind at the start, and they’ll bust out some weird instrument and start mucking around with it, and all of a sudden they’ll get something that sounds cool and make a track out of it. So it was great to come at it from their angle, which I guess was a bit more experimental in a way, but also a lot more fun for us. We tried a whole bunch of instruments we’d never have thought of trying like the glockenspiel, 12 string guitars, Mitchell on the woodblocks, so that’s what you want out of working with different people, trying things you’d never expect, and maybe now we’ll use a bunch of those things on the next record.
DK: And do you think recording in an environment like New York as opposed to Melbourne has influenced the sound on the album at all?
DAN: It would have made a difference I guess. Just the story of the experience for us could have affected things. You’re in a different place, not in a regular environment. We originally wanted to do the record in Melbourne, so we’d be at home and comfortable and have all our gear with us, but there’s probably pros and cons to doing it either way and I think there were positives in doing it in New York. It’s a pretty inspiring place.
DK: Bright Like Neon Love had quite a French touch feel to it, so how was it working and touring with pioneers of the sound like Daft Punk and Cassius?
TIM: Yeah, certainly the Daft Punk tour was a dream come true. When we first started out, we were talking about how it would be crazy to support Daft Punk one day, and that finally happened. Also working with Phillipe from Cassius on the first record really helped us achieve that sound you were talking about, so it’s been pretty amazing to have come full circle, recording the first album with Phillipe in Paris, then ending up supporting Daft Punk five or so years later.
DK: Do you think that the fact that Bright Like Neon Love
had that French sound, has helped to open the doors for you guys internationally, or do you think that the success you guys have achieved is separate to all that?
TIM: Yeah it’s interesting, because when we put the show together it was quite raw, pretty rocky and stuff, almost like an early 90s sound, like Pavement or something. We didn’t really know how to play our instruments properly so it was quite sloppy... There weren’t really many live bands doing the dance thing at the time, and we managed to get on some great bills overseas touring with Mylo and Franz Ferdinand…
MITCHELL: Yeah I think it was our touring more than anything that got things going for us overseas, more so than having releases out or anything like that. I think there’s definitely a French influence, but there’s quite a few different influences converging on our first record, and people have responded well to it, but our live show is probably a little more raw than the record.
TIM: And the press kind of took to the first record in the UK and Europe. NME and everyone were really into it and were giving us great reviews, so that also helped I think. It’s so important over there, because the press are making and breaking bands every day, it’s pretty crazy, and it can be hard to stay ahead of it.
MITCHELL: Yeah, it’s really not worth worrying about.
DK: And have you noticed any changes in the audience or audience response as your career has progressed as a band?
TIM: Yeah, the audience has certainly grown. The whole crossover thing, blurring the lines between rock and dance has changed things a bit though. It was great at the beginning to put our show in a different context, taking it to rock clubs and playing full on dance music, and then going to dance clubs and playing really loud guitar songs. It was cool to see how people would react to that sometimes. We were overseas when a lot of the stuff started getting bigger here, and when we came back and started touring again, our audience had doubled or even tripled in some cases, so it was great to have a new audience to play too.
DK: Why do you think there are so many bands coming out of Australia at the moment that are producing that particular genre of music that is appealing to people all over the world? Do you think it’s coincidental, or was there something in the air that made people start switching onto a particular sound?
TIM: It could be a combination of both, but with us and the Juggernauts and the Avalanches and those groups, doing the live thing as a band is quite unique, whereas dance acts from overseas tended to be very much behind their computers. So I think having a live drummer and guitars, and making a show of it, was quite exciting for people overseas.
MITCHELL: I think that’s why people have taken to it. I think you find a broader audience when you play dance music in a live context. We’ve had people say ‘I never really liked dance music until people started playing it live.’ And people really are looking to Australia at the moment for the live dance thing, so maybe that will become a distinctly Australian sound, who knows?
DK: While we’re on the topic of live shows, and having toured with artists like Daft Punk, are there any plans to start incorporating a heavier visual element to your shows?
MITCHELL: We’re always wanting to work on our live show, adding bits and pieces to it and working on our projections, doing a little bit more than just having guys up there playing. That seems a little bit boring to us. We always manage to get a bit more done between each tour and raise the bar a little higher. But yeah, after seeing Daft Punk our minds are blown.
TIM: Yeah how can you compete with that? Maybe wrap ourselves in Christmas lights.
DK: I think Muscles has that going.
TIM: Yeah we can’t even do that now.
DK: So what do you think are your main inspirations artistically at the moment?
TIM: I think the good thing about Cut Copy is that we’ve all come from different musical backgrounds. Certainly when we started writing this record, we handed each other mix CDs, tracks or albums we were listening too, and were introducing each other to all this new music. And it’s all quite different. Dan’s definitely into his French house stuff, but also stuff like the Beach Boys and ELO. I came from my early 90s guitar bands and that kind of stuff. It’s such a broad range, and we try not to close ourselves off from any musical style or genre. We’re open to anything, and I think that shows, the way styles will sometimes change and converge within one track. We’re also quite visual people, I mean Dan’s a graphic designer, and I studied visual art, so all kinds of art, film and everything finds it’s way into our music.
DK: Is there a particular art movement that’s helped inform In Ghost Colours at all?
TIM: With In Ghost Colours and ‘So Haunted’ we wanted to do something quite photographic for the artwork, something we took. So we were taking images, projecting them onto ourselves and rephotographing them and then doing it all over again. Like what the artist Richard Prince would do. For instance the My Bloody Valentine record is quite washed out, and you look at that and it informs the music, all that layering of sound, and then for the artwork all the layering of colour.
DK: So are the any thoughts to what’s next?
TIM: Ha, a lot of touring. But that’s something that we’re looking forward to doing, putting the new show together. We definitely don’t want to take as long in between records this time, so we’ll get this record out and keep writing and doing remixes, and more mix CDs. We just want to keep putting more stuff out at an increasingly rapid rate.
DK: And any idea where you might be headed next stylistically?
TIM: I don’t know. I think it’ll to come to us as we’re playing. I think we actually said a couple of years ago, just after Bright Like Neon Love, that the next record would probably be very early 90s, and certainly that’s pretty apparent with a lot of our new stuff. But who knows what we’ll be doing in a year or so, maybe it’ll be a folk record, or some slamming trance. Maybe both.
This article features in Lifelounge's Food Edition.
Check out the galleries of the filming of Cut Copy's 'Lights and Music' video and Cut Copy live at the Forum.
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