SURFING MAGAZINE: HOW DID CUT COPY GET STARTED? TIM HOEY: We were all friends for a while and had been writing music at home in Melbourne, Australia. Dan came from more of a DJ background and hadn't even really played any instruments, but I was staying with him and I played guitar. Then Dan's housemate Mitchell bought a drum kit and we started working together. It was all a pretty random occurrence, really.
HOW DID YOUR SOUND DEVELOP? I think it's all of our personal tastes blending. We don't really sit around and talk about it; it's more just how it comes out. And I wouldn't even say we have one sound. There are similar things that pop up, but our style allows us to implement all our favorite things, which draws in a lot of different sounds.
WHAT'S THE MUSIC SCENE LIKE IN AUSTRALIA? There wasn't really a scene for the kind of music we made at the time. There were a lot of bands, but not like us. Now there's a lot bigger audience and a lot more fans. Oz has built itself as a country of rock, but I'd say it's slowly changing over time.
WHAT'S ON YOUR NEW RECORD "IN GHOST COLOURS?" We spent a lot of time on the detail and it's as much a dance record about the party side of life as it is ambient. It comes at you from a few different angles. I guess that's what our music is about: giving you a bit of both, and not keeping it to just one style.
WHEN YOU'RE CONSTANTLY ON THE ROAD, HOW DO YOU STAY OCCUPIED? You kind of find you'll get obsessed with strange things like television shows and you'll go buy all of the DVD box sets and obsess over little things. Like I know when Pavement came to Australia they become obsessed with cricket. Wherever you are, you find these weird things to grab onto.
ANY OF YOU SURF? Well, Mitchell (Drummer) and I grew up in a surf town but we used to get beat up by the surfers. We were skaters and it was funny because when we started skating there was a weird division between the surfers and skaters. It was a small country town and then all of a sudden the surfers started skating and now everyone is like one big, happy family.
In a genre that is constantly weeding out copycats, Cut Copy's latest stands alone. From the ice-cold space jam "Out There on the Ice" to the dance-inducing "Lights and Music," they make new wave sound brand new.