Who are they? Sounds dangerous.
A four-piece post-punk/power-pop outfit from Auckland, New Zealand, Cut Off Your Hands are that country’s most promising non-comedic musical export since Split Enz (sorry Bret and Jemaine). After spending a few years on their high school band scene, the idea of playing music full time became a serious prospect for the quartet under the moniker Shaky Hands when, according to singer Nick Johnston, they found “a common goal to just get outside of New Zealand and see if we could kind of use the band as a platform to travel.” A tour of Australia and subsequent signing to Frenchkiss Records landed them a trip to South By Southwest (SXSW) in 2007, which attracted both critical attention and the ire of a Portland band with the same name. An impending lawsuit forced the Kiwis to rename themselves, with Cut Off Your Hands being the closest thing to the original that the suit would allow.

So the obvious musical influence for a band from New Zealand would be the DC punk scene, right?
Totally. Especially after first hearing At The Drive-In’s Relationship of Command, an album that had Johnston, along with many of his friends and bandmates, mining the proto-Mars Volta’s influences and discovering Washington, DC’s Fugazi, Q & Not U and the DIY teachings of Fugazi/Minor Threat leader and Dischord CEO Ian MacKaye. “We had a big punk, post-punk and post-hardcore influence,” says Johnston. “That was kind of the background to which we started.” DC’s self-created hardcore scene provided an intriguing parallel for the young musicians, “because in New Zealand there’s no other option,” he says. “For a band, there are no labels that are into punk music and there’s no booking agent or anything like that. So it’s DIY in the true sense.”  

Always look on the bright side of DIY.
Sometimes it’ll net you a de facto frontman. As the band’s singer, Johnston cuts one of the more exciting profiles in the indie-rock world, lithely posturing his way through Cut Off Your Hands performances with an impressive air of snotty confidence. Though he cites Iggy Pop as the main inspiration for his vocal aspirations, as the band’s principal songwriter and an accomplished musician, Johnston’s role as lead singer is something of a compromise. “I’ve played [guitar] live a few times but it’s mainly just a logistical thing,” he says. “It’s a lot easier to just have one lot of amps to hire and one guitar to lug around when you’re flying around the world. When the record came out, I said, ‘Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to play guitar on these tours now,’ and then it didn’t happen because we just realized that we couldn’t really afford the extra baggage and stuff. Also, watching a band is a lot more captivating if, for one guy, that’s his whole thing.”

Is there a line between captivating and catastrophe?
Being an excitement-inducing singer is definitely not a job for the faint of heart. (Just ask Fucked Up’s Pink Eyes or COYH labelmates Les Savy Fav’s Tim Harrington.) In fact, sometimes it’s downright detrimental to both your health and your career. “Last year was an interesting year because I broke my foot twice,” Johnston says. “I was trying to do that trick of scaling up to the top of the balcony with my mic cable, and it snapped while I was coming down.”

“I got excited and jumped into the crowd a few times and one time I broke the nose of that guy who works for Drowned in Sound, the English blog,” he says. “They’d been really supportive of us up to that point, but that got them really angry. I just started to realize, especially when I broke my own foot, it’s probably not the coolest thing to be doing. So we’ve taken it easy lately. But then again, watching Monotonix last night....”