We Cut Corners are definitely a band to watch in 2011. In the second of three interviews with the bands involved in The Certain Three tour, Vanessa Monaghan caught up with John Duignan from We Cut Corners for a chat.
Mild mannered teachers by day, by night We Cut Corners are setting the music scene alight. In 2009 they won the JD Set, when they were completely unknown. Since then they’ve opened for acts like Joan as Policewoman and Two Door Cinema Club. With so much praise being put on their heads, are the band well chuffed with this or taking it as another step on a musical journey? ‘Not at all chuffed, I was just chatting to Conall a few minutes ago, we’ve done nothing. We haven’t released a note of music. We sold some CDs at gigs that we recorded ourselves at home. From winning the JD Set we got to record a few songs in Grouse Lodge so we stuck those on that EP as well but we really haven’t done anything to justify the nice things that are being said about us. So now we’re just finished our first record and we’re very exciting about getting it out so that we have something to be judged on.. sort of’.
As a two piece it’s incredibly easy for people to pigeon hole the band to automatically sound like The White Stripes. Does this bother We Cut Corners? ‘Every time I look at a band’, says John, ‘without even thinking about it, you compare them to another act that they are similar to in terms of how many are in the band or if it’s an all female band. Like with a band like Warpaint, you’re sort of compelled to compare them to The Bangles. Maybe because they’re from L.A. as well or see some kind of lineage there so I think its a really obvious thing to do and totally understandable. But it is just extremely frightening being compared to The White Stripes because they are such a powerhouse.’
The debut album has now been recorded and is getting the final sprinkle of fairy dust. They chose Jimmy Eadie (Jape, Valerie Francis) to be at the controls. Why did you pick Jimmy? ‘First off Jimmy had worked with friends of ours, Mail Order Messiahs and had made a really interesting record that really didn’t get the exposure it deserved when it was released.’ John continues ‘We really liked what he had done with that, the sonic palette that he was drawing from was something that we were were really interested in. He seemed to take their songs in directions that we found really stimulating. We were lucky we got in touch with him, he had just moved into a new amazing studio. He came to one of our shows and liked what we were doing and agreed to work with us. We’re very chuffed.’
One of the advantages of being is two piece is that there are less voices and opinions to put up with when you’re going through the writing process. How does it work out for We Cut Corners? John explains ‘We tend to write separately and then just bring our separate parts to rehearsal and work through them there. There was no writing in the studio, everything was done before we got in there. It’s more individual, less jamming than other bands? I don’t know, I’ve no idea how other bands write. You have tussles over songs, trying to get your way and trying to get your opinion heard, I can imagine with a bigger band it would be all the more difficult.’
The band are hoping for a Spring release but what way are they going to release the album, full CD release? Online? Give it away free? ‘What The Cast of Cheers did last year really shook everybody up and they released this really amazing album and didn’t charge anyone for it. I think that threw things into a new light completely because here you have a quality record, that’s just been nominated for the Choice Music Award and they were giving it away on Bandcamp.’ John continues ‘We’ve been discussing this a lot and considering what we should do and the death of the CD.. We’ve kind of settled on an online release and doing a vinyl release. You are cutting yourself off from the CD buying public but I don’t know who the CD buying public are any more. I mean none of my friends buy CDs.’
With the closure of so many record stores where are you supposed to sell CDs anyway? ‘It seems like sites like Bandcamp seem to be viable places where you can sell your songs and you’re not going to be subjected to an iTunes sort of landlord/tenant relationship, so I think that’s what we are going to pursue’.
‘In terms of pricing we’re going to keep it as cheap as possible because our songs are very short. People have said that to us in the past that we better be charging less. They were members of our family though’. What? Quality over quantity no? It could be two minutes of greatness or five minutes of crap! ‘We try to have them as short as possible so there is no moment of fluff that shouldn’t be there.’
As one third of The Certain Three tour, do We Cut Corners know the other bands and get on with them anyway? ‘We have played shows with the Ambience Affair for like, the last year and we played with Windings once before. We would be quite close to Jamie and Mark from Ambience affair and we’ve met Windings a bunch of times too. When we were ironing out the details there was no kind of awkwardness. We’re on a pretty nice standing with each other. It makes for easy logistics’.
With less cash in our pockets these days, three decent acts on the one bill makes it easier to get punters in the door. ‘Totally!’ says John. ‘Hopefully there’ll be something for a wide demographic that even if we’re not to someone’s taste that they might pop along of Ambience Affair or Windings, then they might like our live show. It’s really putting you on a strong footing, financially, sharing the costs and then opening yourselves up to the others audience’.
Check out We Cut Corners on MySpace