Who Are … Cut Off Your Hands

You And I, the debut full-length by Cut Off Your Hands, is the sound of four New Zealanders making off with Britpop's crown jewels. The band makes the heist look easy, but it's been a circuitous journey from Cut Off Your Hands 'hometown of Auckland to its new digs in London. For starters, singer/songwriter Nick Johnston and his mates began as teenage punks obsessed with manic, post-hardcore Dischord outfits. Formed in 2006 as Shaky Hands, the quartet was forced to change its moniker a year later when it was discovered a Portland, Ore., group shared the same name.

After issuing a pair of EPs, Cut Off Your Hands emigrated to London and found an ally in Bernard Butler, the former Suede guitarist who's recently produced albums by the Libertines, Duffy, Sons & Daughters and others. Johnston wanted to expand his guitar-pop horizons to incorporate the sound of '60s girl groups; behind the boards of You And I, Butler encouraged all the reverb-heavy crooning and percussion crashes that make the album sound like early-period Smiths produced by Phil Spector. Yet for all its retro sonic decor (and even a pair of maudlin ballads), You And I has the youthful energy and invention to outmaneuver and outsmart a roomful of Arctic Monkeys. eMusic spoke to Johnston on the eve of a European tour with Foals.

On touring New Zealand:

There's really only three major cities to play in. And they're fairly spread out; it takes three or four days to drive from one end of the country to the other. We did a 26-date tour of New Zealand once. We literally almost played everywhere. We went to one town that had a population of 90, and I think 75 people came to the show.

On the whereabouts of the other 15 residents:

Well, it was the most remote place in New Zealand. It's called Barrytown, on the west coast of the South Island. There's not many telephones. The people all came down from the hills in their wild pig-hunting jackets.

On punk-rock beginnings:

I started out going to shows in the hardcore scene. Hardcore seems to thrive anywhere in the world without any commercial influence, which is awesome. The bands we saw didn't have any records out but there would still be 500 kids at every show each week.

On the legacy of New Zealand's Flying Nun label:

I always loved the Clean and the Bats, but [the Flying Nun scene] has slipped out of everyone's consciousness. There's been a big void in decent music in New Zealand for at least a decade. I think the last few years people have started to rediscover it in a big way. In the same way you've had groups like Interpol go back and reference Joy Division, friends in our generation have been going back and exploring the Chills and bands like that.

On the medical reason behind the band's original name, Shaky Hands:

It's a symptom from ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) or chronic fatigue syndrome, which started when I was 14 or 15; it's just a tremble I have. It's not anything I worry about.

On the perils (and benefits) of being a physical performer:

I like groups that believe in what they're doing and are interested in something other than just looking cool onstage. That was born out of the time when I was starting bands inspired by Q And Not U and other D.C. post-hardcore bands. Now that we're doing more of a pop thing, it seems like a weird juxtaposition. In England, we really haven't come across a band with a similar mind frame. They're much more into how they're perceived or their photo shoots than what kind of experience they put forth to the audience at a live show.

Last year, at the end of a tour with Foals, I jumped off an 18-foot balcony during a show. I landed quite well on both my feet, but as I was walking around afterwards it was pretty painful. At the hospital the next day, I found my right leg was hurting and the left foot was unwalkable as well; they couldn't see what was wrong because there was so much swelling. It turned out the foot was fractured. We got back to New Zealand and I spent the whole summer holed up in my room, which was really good because I wanted to write the new record without getting sidetracked. It was a blessing in disguise, I think.

On the subliminal Smiths influence:

They're definitely one of my favorite bands. I guess there is some similarity in the guitar line to “Turn Cold.” The line in “Still Fond” wasn't meant to be a Smiths reference — it was just a subconscious thing. I didn't realize it at the time, but later I realized “I'm still fond of you” is the same lyric from “What Difference Does It Make?” Sonically, I love the way Johnny Marr plays guitar, but lyrically, Morrissey is expressing something I have no idea about. (He's coming from) a morose, British, depressive industrial town. We grew up in sunny New Zealand.

On misinterpreting You And I track “In The Name Of Jesus Christ.”

All four of us in the band came from religious backgrounds. I'm not involved in the church anymore. Some people have misinterpreted “In The Name Of Jesus Christ” as a worship song. I thought it was really obvious that there was a gigantic amount of irony in me singing “hallelujah.” The song is slightly cynical, like the line about stealing money from the church. That actually happened — I was only five or six years old, but they found out the accountant for our church was stealing money.

On comedic countrymen Flight of the Conchords:

We knew about them in New Zealand, and those two were pretty popular comedians doing stand-up or whatever. But none of us had seen the TV program until it came out in America. We had heard some of the songs on the radio, but I didn't really get it until I saw the show. A lot of people were thinking, “Oh, this is such bad colloquial New Zealand humor.” But as soon as it started to get recognized overseas, it was like, “OK, this is alright.”

On the “cultural cringe” — the down-under phenomenon of artists migrating to England and the U.S. to have successful careers:

We've lived in England for the last year. I've gotten over the cultural cringe. The proposition of living in England or the States is much more attractive, financially, for a musician. People back home aren't giving us a hard time. They're pretty proud of us, actually. They think we're a lot bigger than we are. [Laughs]