Just days after their Coachella appearance, the energized Australian dance group Cut Copy made their way to the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, with Black Kids and Mobius Band in tow. Before treating packed house to a bevy of tracks from their recent release, In Ghost Colors, they spent a few minutes with melophobe to discuss touring with Daft Punk, “the eighties,” and of course, their greatest fears.
melophobe: You guys played Coachella, how was that?
Dan: Yeah it was great, always thought a lot about Coachella: the other bands that have played there and the line up. Pretty amazing thing. The reputation has really preceded it Just being there was really an amazing sight. It was well put together and organized and considering it was in the desert, really comfortable. And we had a great crowd.
melophobe: Was there a highlight in terms of an act there?
Dan: We didn’t see any…
Mitchell: We would have liked to have seen more. The whole thing was three days, but we were only on site for the one day. We would have liked to have seen more.
melophobe: I bet the touring is brutal. I saw you were going through Australia with Daft Punk; what was that like?
Dan: Some of the biggest crowds… For this one particular show they had different crowds across the particular stages, there was going to be 30 or forty thousand people just on the one stage for a show. Like a stadium assembly show where you look out over this sea of screaming fans and it’s pretty wild. Seeing that for the first time as I hadn’t seen that before was magnificent.
melophobe: Did you get to hang out with the helmet free version of Daft Punk?
Tim: They were always pretty up for hanging out after the shows; they weren’t like behind closed doors or anything like that. Can’t keep the helmets on forever…
melophobe: They are great outfits. I noticed some of the bands you’ve been involved with, like Jamiroquai or Groove Armada; what is your favorite thing about the dance pop scene?
Dan: In Australia we got involved maybe four years ago, or even a really long time ago when it was just getting support and getting it in front of people. Even more recently touring with acts like Franz Ferdinand or Mylo, which are right up there, or even our friends the Midnight Juggernauts or Presets.
melophobe: You are doing some remixes for them?
Dan: Yeah and we’ve toured with them in Australia. Been actively recording and at festivals with them.
melophobe: Midnight Juggernauts were at Coachella, right?
Mitchell: We caught up with them. They are good friends of ours. But we didn’t actually have a chance to see there set, unfortunately.
melophobe: Running the gamut from doing the big festivals to doing bar shows, like the Doug Fir, what is you favorite kind of venue to play at?
Tim: Anywhere that has a good sound system. I am kind of happy to play anywhere, festivals more so when the people are into it, but really happy to play anywhere, it is more that when you tour the shows kind of blur into one a bit. Just where there is a good sound system makes it a lot easier for us to play anywhere. When things sound bad, even though it may come across for the audience, for us it can be like “this isn’t right”.
melophobe: The Australian Recording Industry and Association are ranking you well and you have had a lot of success with extended shows. What is the reception like there?
Mitchell: It’s amazing. Our record debuted at number one in Australia. That’s crazy for us, it wasn’t something we set out for, or never the terms we thought of our music in, or something we dreamt of, but it is an amazing indication that people are into the record.
melophobe: People talk about “the eighties” a lot; how does that translate in the Australian club scene?
Dan: The whole eighties thing is kind of a weird preoccupation for people in the press. I don’t know exactly why. For me, it is about music made that inspires you, and people go “oh it must be an eighties vibe”. In actual fact, our music is more inspired by seventies synth or nineties dance music. That kind of thing rather than the eighties – particularly for this record.
If you are talking about the dance music, in that sort of vein, most of that has established a foothold in Australia over the last two or three years. When we started there was really nothing much going on; it wasn’t popular that’s for sure. Whereas now – I guess you can tell with our record being number one – it has steadily sort of crossed over even though we would have never really expected that. I think it is a young audience that has been causing it and that’s why it has been in the last few years. The crowd has come to shows now that they are old enough compared to when we first started out. It is exciting for us, we never thought popularity would come to our home country; we thought we’d need to get big in the US or in the UK for that to happen. But that it happened in Australia first is awesome.
melophobe: Like a grass roots thing where you are from, that’s awesome!
Dan: I’m not coming down on Australia here, but I didn’t see that kind of music becoming that popular.
melophobe: Is there a particular slang word that we might not use here that jumps to mind when you think of Australian slang?
Tim: Australia has a lot of weird sayings… maybe “Do you reckin’?”
Dan: Apparently cowboys are the only people that use “Do you reckin’.”
melophobe: Yeah we’ve got a lot of that here. I read that In Ghost Colors, that the “ghost” in the title of the album, refers to the memory of the people that you’ve known. Is that accurate?
Dan: To a degree. It’s supposed to be a little open ended for people to draw their own inferences for what it’s about. For me it has a meaning inspired by the music. I like the idea of it being open ended in that sense, for people to ponder over a little bit.
melophobe: Dan I’ve seen the website for Alter, the graphic design site, could you describe some of your work there and how that aesthetic plays in with the music, or does it? Is there an overlap?
Dan: I don’t know that there is an aesthetic that Alter has or that we have, even. A bit of overlap, sure, to me it is like with music and art there is a linkage and there is, in effect, a language built up…
melophobe: Around the type of music?
Dan: Yeah, around the music. That is something that is fun to play with. In the last few years, when I am shopping in a record store, I’ll pick up records because I like the cover. More often than not, they are records that are interesting musically. Often it is a bit of an indicator.
It’s selective for us being able to do our own artwork. It must be hard for bands putting there faith in someone to do their album cover; that it will reflect what the music is about. Particularly when you’ve probably spent a year or two actually working on the album and you give it over to someone to do the record cover which might effect how you’re perceived by people. Being able to do your own artwork is a good option.
melophobe: Do it yourself is huge in Portland…
Dan: Yeah, we love to do our own artwork and a lot of the artists that we’ve really admired have been able to do that.
melophobe: You had worked previously with a French producer, Phillippe Zdar, but now your working with Tim Goldsworthy; what are the notable influences or changes between producers?
Dan: [Zdar’s] involvement was more in the last stage of the process. With this album we had writ the songs but [Goldsworthy] was getting us to re-record parts experimentally. He was re-recording things before he had even got part of the program. So I guess it was much more of a traditional approach rather than re-recording everything from scratch. Going from the ground up.
melophobe: I saw one article from SXSW that described you as “bedroom bangers” for doing recording in the home, was that the process for the current album?
Dan: Nah – it always sort of starts there, with ideas. There is always going to be that initial part of the process where you are getting ideas for tracks and they get communicated; getting ideas thrown out there where tracks come together. It is always good for us to have something like an outside influence. We got the demo together and have someone we trusted to influence us come in and sit in impartially, and that the record can maybe be enhanced by finding things or just trying things differently. Really it comes from us just trying things we hadn’t tried before and that probably opened our minds a little bit. Using things we would never have used and then fell in love with a little bit on the record
melophobe: What’s an example of something you are using more?
Dan: Well, the Glockenspiel was one… a bit foreign on our tracks, but maybe filled our tracks.
melophobe: So our website is melophobe and we do phobias so maybe if you guys want to take a minute and tell us about the phobias of Cut Copy, what those things might be?
Tim: Bad Coffee…
Dan: Yeah I think that is a collective one…
melophobe: A traumatic experience with bad coffee?
Tim: Every couple of days. More in the states, unfortunately… we’ve been lucky more recently. We’ve found a few websites where you look up what city you’re in and they can tell you where the coffee places are; seems more fortunate…
melophobe: Who would be your top choice of performer to see in concert, dead or living?
Tim: I would say Can. Can around the Tago Mago era. Definitely.
melophobe: With audiences, what is your perspective on participation at shows?
Mitchell: Well it is fun for us when people dance, part of it is that you are tying to get that movement. At the same time, people enjoy music differently: you can listen in your bedroom as much as you can in the clubs. So, if people want to dance that is really cool, but if they don’t like dancing or have more of their own way then that’s great, too.
melophobe: Are you guys rioting up the stage when you are out there?
Mitchell: Yeah, we try to be a bit chaotic at the expense of maybe playing perfectly; we encourage people to dance.
Tim: Yeah I guess that’s how it works…
melophobe: Thanks for your time, guys! Really looking forward to the show tonight.
Mitchell: The show will probably get across the idea of what we do best.
Kelli Shaefer’s songs get stuck in my head non-stop. Every other day I find myself waking up with one in there. And that’s a good thing, she’s a talent!
by Siri on Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 04.37 pm from the entry: Artist Profile - Kelli Schaefer (Portland, OR; Winter, 2010)
Probably johnston has wrote a excellent article for the readers and are excellent photographs and thanks for sharing your thoughts
by fake tattoo on Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 10.03 pm from the entry: The Reverend Horton Heat + Nekromantix – Wonder Ballroom (Portland, OR; Jul. 9, 2009)
ha, yes! the photogs in the front row were drooling throughout the entire set…
by chris on Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 01.05 pm from the entry: Washed Out + Small Black - Mercury Lounge (New York, NY; Mar. 7, 2010)
nice pics Chris. Don’t you love it when the artist brings some cool light. It’s a bunch of low hanging fruit after that.
by colin on Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 12.53 pm from the entry: Washed Out + Small Black - Mercury Lounge (New York, NY; Mar. 7, 2010)
WOMP WOMP WOMP WOMP WOMP
by BASSHEAD on Tue Mar 9, 2010 at 04.02 pm from the entry: Ginuwine's "Pony" Deconstructed Through Dubstep (Remix)
James,
E-mail me: info@jaredfroiland.com
Thanks!
by Jared Froiland on Tue Mar 9, 2010 at 12.37 am from the entry: State Radio - Showbox (Seattle, WA; Jan.19, 2010)
Check out a sick interview back\slash Magazine did with LMFAO about how they blew up in a down economy, the struggles of entrepreneurship, and getting high.
Here is the link: http://www.backslashonline.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=317:lmfao-entrepreneurship-interview&Itemid=56
by Mike McComack on Mon Mar 8, 2010 at 10.24 pm from the entry: Photo Feature! Black Eyed Peas + Ludacris + LMFAO - TD BankNorth Garden (Boston, MA; Feb. 26, 2010)
