KEY POINTS:
Who: Cut Off Your Hands
What: London-based Auckland rock band you can dance to
New album: You And I, out now
Also: Cut Off Your Hands EP (2006); Blue On Blue EP (2007)
Playing: November 1, Kings Arms, Auckland
The last time I talked to Nick Johnston from Cut Off Your Hands was just over a year ago. He was dossing at his mum's place to save money and doing the hard but enjoyable graft of touring, both here and overseas.
Back then things were already on the up for the angular Auckland dance rock quartet - think upbeat Cure meets poppy Joy Division - and they were about to support Brit band Bloc Party.
Now though, things have changed dramatically. They're based in London, holed up in a house in the borough of Hackney, and in the last 12 months they've continued to tour, signed to London-based record label 679 (home to the Streets, the Futureheads and Polyphonic Spree), and, best of all according to Johnston, recorded their debut album, You And I.
"It's been pretty rad," he says in his laid-back, verging on bored, lilt at a cafe in St Kevins Arcade off K Rd.
He's dressed far more casually this time, in jacket and jeans, whereas last year he was the flashest-looking chap in the cafe, wearing a neatly buttoned-up shirt, suit coat, skinny jeans and pointy boots.
During that interview Johnston was assured but slightly nervy and didn't really look you in the eye. Today he has a casual confident air about him, which perhaps explains his more relaxed attire. But more on that new confidence later.
With You And I out this week, there's no let-up for the band for the rest of the year and into next.
They played the New Zealand Music Awards on Wednesday, where they were finalists in the breakthrough artist of the year category, a secret MySpace show on Thursday and, as you read this, they are on a plane back to Britain for a string of dates starting in Southampton on Monday.
Then in mid-October they head to New York for three shows and back to New Zealand before the end of the month for more tour dates.
They're used to a torrid touring schedule having played everywhere from Iceland's Airwaves Festival to Australia's Falls Festival, with stints in the United States and a jaunt in Japan along the way.
"We're always on tour and I think it's because we've got so many territories on the go at once. Most bands do it the traditional way of breaking one market and then another market and riding on the back of those but we're spreading ourselves across all these places," says Johnston.
"We feel like we're an accomplished band because we've played hundreds of shows in two years."
Cut Off Your Hands - who were formerly known as Shaky Hands but had to change their name after a US band threatened legal action - formed in 2006 because they wanted to take their music out of the bedroom and onto the stage.
The band, made up of Johnston (vocals), Michael Ramirez (guitar, backing vocals), Phil Hadfield (bass, backing vocals) and Brent Harris (drums, backing vocals), recorded first EP Cut Off Your Hands in the same year, which included Expectations, a song that survived to make the cut for their debut long player.
Their second release, Blue On Blue, was recorded by former Suede guitarist and now star producer Bernard Butler, who the band met in London early last year, and features the band's first big songs Still Fond and Oh Girl (the latter of which you've probably heard on TV3 as a promo song).
At the time they liked to think of the EP as the Buzzcocks doing the Beach Boys.
"I think doing the EPs there was never the foresight of what we were going to end up with. We just chose the best songs," remembers Johnston.
The album was a different story.
Butler was back on board to produce which was a big coup for the band because he's the guy behind Welsh sensation Duffy's debut album Rockferry, which has sold more than 3.4 million copies world wide.
"From a PR perspective it's pretty good, eh," laughs Johnston.
"We were a bit nervous about working with him because we'd heard he was really tough to work with which we didn't find with the EP. So we thought he was just going to unleash during the album and be really tough and brash and wouldn't get our say."
But they got along well and it helped that he had the same vision as the band.
"Sonically I think we were really willing to create an album in the traditional sense," says Johnston, who was listening to a lot of Phil Spector produced groups like the Ronettes and the Crystals during the songwriting process.
"Bernard didn't want to do 12 hit singles. He's pretty unique and I think the reason why he's done so well is that he doesn't pander to what he thinks the radio is going to want. So, for example, Happy As Can Be, in his mind, is the big single off the record and he said, 'I don't know how that's not going to be a big single'."
That song, which opens the album, is not your typical single. It gallivants out of the blocks with chiming bells and rousing choral-like vocal harmonies and when they play it live Johnston plays a tom drum at the front of the stage.
"It has an Arcade Fire quality to it," he smiles.
And Butler was responsible for the use of strings, melotron, and getting the band to play different instruments on the album with the best example being the long, single note synth outro to blazing post-punk track Closed Eyes.
It was also the longest time they had spent in a recording studio so while some songs came out quickly, others were honed until they were "sounding amazing".
"Previously we'd always just had this thing of documenting [songs] and creating as we go. You find a good energy doing it that way but at the same time you're losing a bit of energy because a lot of it's old stuff as well. But this one, most of the songs, apart from the old ones on there, we had the excitement of playing the songs for the first time."
Johnston reckons the overseas experience ("It's a compromise OE because you're doing the band stuff," he says) and touring has made him and the band more confident.
Touring with bands like British act the Foals, Florida's Black Kids, and Scottish singer/songwriter Edwyn Collins made them feel like they were on the right track with where they were taking their music.
"It's the confidence that we're making music that's current and we're no longer following a trend. We're doing our thing and we're not going to worry about what the press is going to think about it because we feel like we're creating something new, or not necessarily something new, but more of-the-time.
"And in America, bands just take themselves more seriously, and they're not shy and bashful, and feel good about what they do - in a good way. In New Zealand we were bashful rather than standing up for ourselves and holding our heads up high when we were performing. And I think there's been a couple of New Zealand bands - Shihad and the Datsuns - who have done that and they are just as good as anything in the world.
"And that's not to say the Chills and the Clean weren't but there's that whole thing of 'head down and I'm not good enough'. So I think that's the big thing I've picked up - confidence."
Although, they don't think too hard about their chosen career and how many records they're going to sell.
"It's more than just thinking about where we want to go. It's also about enjoying where you are as well."
