For the love of indie pop
“I think my sister lent me $100,” he laughs. It’s been 15 years since then and he’s come a long way, touring extensively overseas with his indie pop band Cut Off Your Hands and working on multiple musical projects. The band is just about to start a five show New Zealand tour for second album Hollow, which Harris says is about the fun of making music.
“It’s about not taking it too seriously. In the past we had a lot of pressure to be the next Blur or something and a lot of people invested in us. We recorded and produced this one ourselves,” he explains.
The band members are old friends from school and Harris hopes there’s no embarrassing footage floating around from his years in the high school band competition Rockquest.
“I had a band with our original guitarist Michael and we got to Rockquest regionals; I think we got ‘Most Original Song,’” he laughs, “Heaps of Kiwi bands started that way.”
Music is just something you grow into once you’ve been hooked, says Harris. He was really keen on music as a young child and it’s a familiar tale: his parents made him take piano lessons.
“I’m really thankful now, though, it’s been helpful for the band,” he chuckles.
The band was originally called Shaky Hands and released an EP called Cut Off Your Hands. When they received a cease and desist letter from a US band with the same name, the four-piece swapped the EP name with the band name. Since then it’s been all go, though after performing 200 shows in 2009, the band went on hiatus. The itch to record brought them back together at the end of 2010 to create Hollow.
“We were jaded from the constant touring so we took a break, but the time apart invigorated the natural, child-like desire to make music,” explains Harris.
Each band member is now pursuing a separate career and music is a hobby not a full time job. Harris says that now he’s grown up a bit, his aim is not take the music too seriously, but he’s still going to keep his fingers in lots of musical pies.
Cut Off Your Hands, San Francisco Bath House, September 16.










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