RS: I read in an interview that you were almost at your ideal
sound. What do you think you'll need to get to that?
Dan Whitford of Cut Copy: I don't know. It's not like it's black and white as
actually finding exactly what you're looking for. I feel like we got
a lot closer on this record than we did with the first one in terms of
just perhaps realizing an idea of what a great record for us is. But
I don't know whether we actually could say we've reached a goal or
gotten close to perfection for us, because I don't think that's really
the case. When you think you've gotten close to that, you probably
should give up doing music because part of the process of making music
is striving for the next thing. Having finished the demo for this
record, we almost could have kept going with another record, like we
were just sort of getting on a role with what we were doing with
music. So I'm sure if we stopped touring for five seconds we'd
probably be working towards the next record and towards the next thing
that we're interested in.
RS: Who are you influences, what bands influenced you? And
please don't say the generic answers of Kraftwerk and Joy Division.
Dan Whitford of Cut Copy: I wouldn't say them. On this record, we're kind of
obsessed with a Californian pop sound like Fleetwood Mac. I spent a
lot of time with ELO making this record, so that's one big influence.
On the other side of things, just sort of listening to a lot of
psychedelic music like Tangerine Dream and weaving a bit of a
psychedelic, more textured edge into the fold of what Cut Copy does.
In the more modern sense, applying that kind of aesthetic with the 90s
studio sounds of My Bloody Valentine and Ride. We were very pleased
to discover that Tim from DFA was a huge fan of My Bloody Valentine
because that was one of the real key things that we'd been listening
to when writing out demos.
RS: You're touring right now with the Presets, what shall we
expect on this tour?
Dan Whitford of Cut Copy: Oh well the tour hasn't actually started yet, we're
actually touring separately through Europe for the next few weeks and
then I think we meet up just in time for the tour. I'm not exactly
sure what to expect except that were kind of old friends. We've
toured so much in the past that we seem to bring out the best and
worse in each other, we almost feel like brothers. We're really
interested in putting on an energetic show, trying to get them to
dance but having energy as a real live performance with a funk edge to
what we're doing. It should be a pretty amazing tour and it's almost
like a reunion of bands that have grown up playing together.
RS: I read that you toured with Daft Punk, what are those guys like?
Dan Whitford of Cut Copy: Yes, they're surprisingly down to earth guys. When we
did that tour we weren't actually expecting we'd really get to hang
out with them or spend much time with them at all. But it was kind of
funny, we did after parties to play with them, hang out and have a few
drinks after the show and chat with us. That was actually really cool
getting to spend some time with those guys. The Daft Punk guys have
inspired a whole generation of dance-inspired music and obviously us,
being no exception. Its a great time because there's so many bands
that are inspired by them right now, to actually do a tour with the
original guys was a pretty amazing experience.
