Cut Copy: 20 Years In And Exactly Where They Need To Be

The Music catches up with Cut Copy's Dan Whitford, who recounts the impact of 20 years of music and seven albums.

Cut Copy(Credit: Ashley Mar)

It’s 2007, and an early version of Hearts On Fire has just been released, and Cut Copy were off to New York to record their second album, In Ghost Colours, unaware of the impact they left at home in Australia.

Before long, the then Melbourne-based group were told by friends that their music was blowing up at home, getting serious radio time and showing all the hallmarks of an instant cult classic. By the end of that year, Cut Copy were playing for more than 50,000 people as the support to Daft Punk on the Australian leg of their Nevereverland tour.

Songwriter and frontman, Dan Whitford, tells The Music, “We had no sense of what had happened to that song after we put it out. We just sort of thought, ‘Oh, that's cool, that's a song that we thought was pretty good, and hopefully people like it.’”

“This is a bit pre-internet. We were very much in a basement studio and had no idea what was happening outside of that. So, yeah, it turned out that once we finished recording the rest of the album and came back, all of a sudden, we'd gone from playing shows at a half-full local pub to, you know, a few thousand people, and we're getting offers left, right and centre, to do festivals and stuff. So, I think that was probably the moment where we thought, maybe we are kind of something bigger than our own little niche idea. It's crossed over.”

It’s hard to detangle Cut Copy from their breakout album, In Ghost Colours, with hits like Lights & Music cementing their stardom and giving buoyancy to their five albums that have subsequently followed it. However, Cut Copy and Whitford’s path started long before In Ghost Colours, and arguably before their debut album Bright Like Neon Love.

Hearing Cut Copy for the first time felt like a portal to a new sound entirely. When considering Whitford's background and early career, it’s clear why the group has been at the forefront of experimentation.

Whitford’s university education was in graphic design, while also DJing and hosting a radio show at the same time. This culmination of technology and design led to Whitford co-founding the Melbourne design agency Alter, which, to this day, is responsible for all of the band's album art and visual content.

These settings, on the decks, in the design agency and in radio, provided the ultimate sandbox for Whitford to train his craft before he would introduce it to the world under Cut Copy. In fact, even the group's name came from Whitford tinkering away at a keyboard and being struck by the combination of cut and copy and their almost opposite meanings.

Few artists have storied careers such as this, which is largely due to Cut Copy’s ability to ride the wave of indie electronic music, or what Whitford says they started as, which was “post electro clash”. Inspired by Daft Punk, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Kraftwerk, Cut Copy aimed for a niche while staying faithful to their sound and remaining dynamic enough to stay current and catchy.

This is evidenced by the latest album, Moments, which was released at the tail end of 2025. Solid, the first track released from the album in April 2025, features Whitford's familiar voice, but you can hear that the group has explored greater depth in their sound. Whitford admits that their process for creating an album these days is pretty established, as you would expect after twenty years in the business, but he says there is perhaps greater joy there now.

“There's a certain fondness to it. It’s nice to sort of get back into that, and I think, particularly having had a bit of a gap between this most recent album and the previous one, I think it was really comforting to have great shows when we actually went out and played shows after the album came out,” Whitford says.

“It's going to be different each time. Otherwise, what's the point? We were working in a place [when recording Moments] that was really pretty amazing. We found a studio in the Byron hinterland, up in the hills, that was just an amazing studio, and I think being in that environment as well was just a really nice environment to be working in and to feel creative.

“To open the doors to the studio and get a nice warm breeze coming in the afternoon, and to see all the beautiful greenery of the Byron around. It’s nice being in that kind of environment and working on an album, I think everyone just immediately felt relaxed and was hopefully kind of doing their best work, definitely.”

While it might not be strictly rock and roll to say so, the realities of working in music for decades mean that lifestyles and priorities have changed, and Whitford commented that much of their lives are more mundane these days.

Late nights out have been traded for early mornings sorting kids' lunchboxes, not to mention the group living in different parts of the world, so more logistics are required if they want to get together for a jam. Rather than seeing this as a barrier or an inconvenience, Whitford is convinced that it makes these recording sessions so much richer and more productive, with the shared knowledge that this time is a privilege.

“It's almost a bit like you're leading a double life,” Whitford admits. “Making your kids’ lunch and then you're kind of putting a Superman outfit on and getting on stage and playing in front of a few thousand people or something.

“It's a funny kind of existence for us, as life kind of rolls on, but I think just generally, we're feeling grateful to be able to continue making music and playing shows and having these experiences, because we've been doing it for a long time, and not everyone gets to do it even once, but we've had a really great run where we've put out so many records and done so many tours, and we still kind of seem to connect with people and and it still feels like there's a purpose behind what we're doing.”

Even the group's touring schedule is designed with intention, seeking sets and locations that maximise connection rather than simply volume. Next month, Cut Copy will embark on their tour, playing at Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Beach Hotel in Byron Bay, Golden Plains in Meredith and then finally a home show in Live at the Gardens in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

Whitford jokes that he was initially shocked when punters would approach them at the end of the show to tell them what their music meant to them and their parents. With their music immortalised within multi-generations, attached to special events or moments in time, it’s a compliment that Whitford does not take lightly.

“It's definitely a privilege of being a musician that you somehow, without knowing the people that are listening to music, you're part of their lives,” Whitford notes. “So, it's a strange kind of relationship and a strange situation.

“But when you see people at shows without knowing these people, you've been there for all these experiences that they've had and soundtracks to the years at uni, or when they met their partner, or got them through some tough times. There's something kind of amazing about that: that music has a kind of magical effect that can transport you back to those times when you hear a song again. So, it's great.”

He continues, “At our shows, we see people who have obviously been into our music since the very beginning, and then others who have come on board more recently. And they're sort of connections to people at all different times. So, that's nice too, that it's not just one story. It's everyone's got a different time when they discovered our music, and it's no less special to them.”

Through the group's trademark custodianship of their sound and identity, Cut Copy have always chosen support acts that are cohesive to the experience they bring to their performances. Their upcoming Australian tour is no different, with Harvey Sutherland selected due to his ability to make “amazing music”, with Whitford having children the same age as Harvey's. So catch-ups happen on stage and in the park.

Additionally, Drifting Clouds were a group Cut Copy had discovered and liked, and they were delighted to learn the group was a fan of theirs too, and asked to play together.

“Harvey - he's amazing. I love his music, and his latest record is killer,” Whitford shares. “So, we're very excited to ask him to open up. With Drifting Clouds, we were just totally stoked they were on board. And so, it's one of those ones where we're booking Drifting Clouds for almost selfish reasons, just because we want to see the play. Everyone else gets the benefit from that.”

Moments is still making the rounds on the radio and was named the 35th Best Australian Albums of 2025 by Double J. Tickets are available for their upcoming tour.