After a bit of time off, Cut Off Your Hands are bringing their debut album You & I back to the stage this Friday as part of The Others Way festival. With that in mind, we asked Nick Johnston from the band to look back to 2008 and the songs that started it all.
Photo: AFP
This is part of a regular series called Verse Chorus Verse which sees local artists break down the stories behind their music. For more, click here.
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Happy As Can Be
I came back to Auckland for summer of 07/08 with a hard drive full of Phil Spector bootlegs given to me by (ex-Suede guitarist) Bernard Butler who we had just recorded our Blue On Blue EP with in England. This gift and the old ribbon mics that Edwyn Collins very generously gave to me when we finished up at his studio pretty much kept me indoors all summer figuring out how to write and arrange like Spector. Of course I failed dismally every time, but these attempts ended up forming – for me anyway – the main theme of this record, which we returned in February to record with Bernard in that same studio.
Happy As Can Be is most typical of this. I had become bored thrashing around on stage (in shows prior to You and I) with every song having to be two minutes and spikey and shouty. Until this album, everything I had written for Cut Off Your Hands was born out of the live context and was conceptualised for being able to play in places like Eden’s Bar or the Northern Steamship. I think people who went to those shows mightn’t have understood what we were doing on songs like Happy As Can Be, but basically we just got bored of that same thing, and wanted to bring some colour into the music.
I became obsessed with Spector production and hence the shift. I always wish we had released it as a single, but our record company had different ideas. Also: “Last night I told a thousand lies to you, into your eyes I swore that I loved you..” – there was some tactless honesty on my part lyrically which made for some pretty awkward moments with loved ones once it was released…
Expectations
One of the aforementioned “written for live” tunes. I think it was the first song I wrote for Shaky Hands and it has three different music videos shot by Luke McPake and Joel Kefali respectively. It’s funny thinking about how when I wrote this song I was trying to write Ashtray Ashtray. Die!Die!Die! never sounded so commercial.
Oh Girl
This was always a parody, or at least my attempt at writing a Beach Boys’ pop melody. Something got lost in the translation from demo to recording though and it really turned into something entirely more saccharine than I had hoped for. In the context of a thrashy live band breaking up the set with this majorly pop song – but played really fast – it worked, but it always felt uncomfortable playing it to audiences that didn’t see us in earlier days.
Turn Cold
I wrote this in London, had two hours to finish the lyrics while the rest of the band was out at a show, and perhaps came closer to capturing how my lil’ anxious 22-year-old self actually felt than any of the songs on the record. The only song on You and I not recorded with Bernard Butler, this was done with Stephen Street who did The Smiths’ Strangeways Here We Come and heaps of Blur. This was the start of our Rickenbacker obsession.
It Doesn’t Matter
A record company man from Warner came into our studio when it was being mixed and told us to put the chorus at the front of the song. So Bernard Butler told him to fuck off out of the studio and he never came back. Great! However the joke was on us because we got dropped by Warner before the record was released in UK!
Heartbreak
This is such a weird little song. I’m not sure what I was thinking; maybe I was trying to tap into some kind of Unchained Melody vibe. Our buddies and label mates Mystery Jets had released a record with this 6/8 song on it and I think I was just trying to copy them. We never played it live.
In The Name Of Jesus Christ
“My mother’s best friends’ husband, he stole from everyone when we knew…” – another instance of some tactless honesty getting me in bad books. Mum wasn’t too impressed but I was just more interested in the weirdo vibes of growing up in church land. I think maybe I got a bit carried away and it probably shouldn’t be on the record. But it was what it was and is what it is. It’s never been played live, either.
Let’s Get Out Of Here
I still prefer the demo to this, which is more Spector-like and washy. “I know you’re tired of everyone you know...” yelled at the top of my lungs, again made for awkward moments.
Still Fond
A Low Hum tours were the pinnacle for lil’ bands like ours when we started. Every month you’d hear about the latest tour being announced and it was so exciting to get asked to do our first one with The Sneaks and Thought Creature. The second tour we did with Blink was insanely extensive for New Zealand; we played 20 shows in the month with So So Modern, having both recently returned from UK. We had been recording the version of Still Fond that ended on the record, and we got the video edit sent to us from Joel Kefali whilst in the van somewhere in the middle of Central Otago running around a frozen lake and en route to Barrytown.
It’s my favourite of the old Cut Off Your Hands songs and the first time a producer actually improved a song of mine (which says more about me than the producers). Bernard took all the reverb off and introduced me to the big cheesy guitar pedal, which drones over that opening intro thingy. Probably have this song to thank for most of the things we got to do so cheers Still Fond :-)
Closed Eyes
Another older song, which is just a big dumb rock song, really. I was trying to make The Chameleons’ Fan and the Bellows, but failed miserably at that lil’ quest. It’s an OK song, I guess.
Nostalgia
I have a lot of fondness for this song. It was recorded last on the album when everyone was tired of having their ears chewed off, so it was nice to do this slightly calmer recording.
Someone Like Daniel
I wrote this in my bedroom in Hackney. The record was done, but I sent it to Bernard who forced everyone to put it on. In hindsight I would have replaced In The Name Of Jesus Christ with it. It’s the only song on You and I that I don’t cringe over lyrically; I’m no lyricist, so for me that was a rare one.
Cut Off Your Hands are curating the Cut Off Haus stage at The Others Way festival, which is going down this Friday. Tickets are available in store at Flying Out.