Take
a Geordie, an Aussie and a Scot and what do you get? Answer, The Cut
Outs - a new rock n roll force that debuted on Britain’s festival
stages this summer and are aiming for the top.
Three girls (Stevie -guitar,/vocals, Jess - bass/vocals and KT - drums,
from different places with one thing in common, a desire to rock out!
But all rock journalism clichés aside The Cut Outs are looking
to make a big impact on the rock scene. I meet the girls in a barn (how
rock n roll!) after their main stage opening slot at this years Truck
festival Jess explains the bands musical ethos, “We live and breathe
music as friends and as a band. If you don’t love it then why
do it? We write about sex and circumstance, the good things in life
and difficult things we’ve all experienced together and generally
just what makes us ‘us’. We create an energy and an experience
that people latch on to and to share it with the crowd at our gigs is
probably why we do this.”
The band have a mish-mash of influences as far-flung as Tori Amos, acoustic
music, Brit-pop, Pixies and 80s classic rock. KT, in a somewhat defensive
manner, assures that she no longer listens to bands like Def Leppard,
but they are an influence none the less. You can hear all their influences,
but it is hard to pin-point them directly, making The Cut Outs sound
familiar and new in the same note.
Asked to compile a imaginary super-group Stevie makes the wide range
of influences apparent, “Robert Plant, me and Jess on vocals,
Ray Manzarek on keys, Jess and Krist Novoselic on bass, me and Prince
on guitar, KT and Taylor Hawkins on drums… and Chrissie Hynde
and Karen O on backing vocals just for a laugh!!”
Even today rock is a patriarchal society, have the girls found it a
battle to get taken seriously?
“People take one look at us (girls with guitars rockin’
up to a sound check) and they’ve already made an assumption about
how we’re going to sound and what we’re all about. ‘Oh
fuck it’s a girl band’ has been our favourite greeting so
far!! It doesn’t take long for them to realise that we’re
just us, doing what we do and doing it bloody well. Of course we work
hard but just as hard as anyone else trying to be a successful band,”
explains Stevie.
Live the girls have certainly been turning heads especially as their
festival cherries were ‘popped’ over the summer - turning
unsuspecting festivals goers onto the sound of The Cut Outs.
As well as gaining fans live the band are well aware of the power of
the internet in gaining them prominence.
“Myspace have been brilliant to us!! Since playing the Myspace
stage and being interviewed by the crew at the festivals we’ve
set up a fortnightly video blog to document The Cut Outs and our antics!
It’s really important for new bands like us to have an outlet
for people to hear their music and sites like Myspace give us all just
that,” says Jess.
The conversation turns to more frivolous subjects and it gets interesting.
The girls offer the advice that you shouldn’t take a photo of
the moon out the window whilst recording vocals in the studio - which
one of them apparently did. Also, one for the lads, Stevie ‘likes
to undress in public when drunk’, and we might want to avoid Jess
as she has a ‘tendency to shake people violently when dancing’.
KT owns five alarm clocks and still fails to wake up in the morning.
Whether it be for drunken dance-floor violence and nudity or their balls
to the floor rock n roll, its likely that we’ll be hearing much
more about The Cut Outs in future.
The Cut Outs are managed by Siu-Anne Marie Gill at 11th
Hour Artists Management-London
