Having recently supported US heavyweights Pelican and leading up to their launch show, Matt from These Hands Could Separate The Sky was nice enough to answer the following questions for us.
Having recently supported US heavyweights Pelican and leading up to their launch show, Matt from These Hands Could Separate The Sky was nice enough to answer the following questions for us.
Interview with Matt (drums) of These Hands Could Separate The Sky
By Cameron Chambers
Matt, how are you this evening?
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Yeah, I'm awesome man. How are
you?
Great mate.
For those of us who are new
to the band, can you please tell us how These Hands Could Separate The Sky got together and what you guys are all about?
Um, basically we were just sort
of formed from the ashes of a band that three of the members were in
before this The band was called Anchorage Alaska.
The guitarist from that band decided
to move on so we got a new guitarist and instead of keeping the name
we scrapped all the songs and changed the name and went for more lengthy
approach to our music... a more drawn out, more sparse sort of music.
We are all into post rock sort
of stuff so we tried that on and yeah... I don't know what else to say,
I've never done this before! Ha ha
With Anchorage Alaska we
were pushing towards the longer side of the songs so it was pretty natural.
When you were putting the band
together was this the sound you were aiming for or did it take on a
life of its own once you started jamming?
Um, like, we sort of... we were
always fond of writing riffs and seeing where it took us. We just let
the song take us on a natural progression. Seeing where the song would
take us was just the way we did things.
In our minds we knew where we'd
want to end up but we follow the natural progression of the songs...
the songs always take us where we want to go.
I know you’ve come from a
background of playing in hardcore bands, did you find it was harder
to engage an audience when you don’t have a full time vocalist?
It was daunting at the start.
We always said people will either like us or really hate us but yeah,
we were either going to be really boring or people will get us.
It was daunting at first but now
it's sort of... well, kind of comforting.
You’re launching your split
12 inch with Arrows this Friday night. How did the release come together?
Basically we toured up there and
then a run of east coast shows with Arrows and yeah, we got along with
the guys really well. We've become really good mates and basically we
organized a split and yeah... that's that!
The record is almost 40 minutes
in length but yourselves and Arrows were able to track it in less than
a week. Are you able to tell us a bit about the writing and recording
process?
Basically we'd already writte
the songs we were gonna record. We had some ideas that'd we'd already
put together for some of the songs as well. Basically we nailed down
and made sure the songs were ready for the split.
We rehearsed flat out until we
got the songs the way we wanted them to sound. Once that was done we
organized studio time and just nailed them.
Do you have any plans to do
a joint tour to support the record?
We played in Brisbane probably
two weeks ago, so we've already done a Brisbane launch and obviously
Melbourne next weeknd. We're looking to push on to Adelaide but we'd
love to take it further and check out Perth and Tasmania and try and
get some new fans.
Yeah, we've just sort of been
playing in Brisbane and Melbourne. We did Sydney as well on the last
tour so we'd like to get back there as well.
The line up for Friday night
is quite diverse. Do you think all the bands on the bill are capable
of engaging each other’s audience?
I think so. We all have the sort
of... shit, I don't know how to answer this question, ha ha. We all
feed off each other's audience.
We've played with Blacklevel Embassy
and The Nation Blue before and we went down alright so hopefully people
who've seen us at those shows should like it hopefully! Ha ha
Have you found that people
at These Hands... shows are more willing to embrace different
kinds of bands compared to say, when you used to play in The August
Reign?
Definitely. People coming to see
this band now that we don't have a vocalist. They know our sound is
long and sparse so people know what they're in for in a certain respect.
It's kind of different because
you have to watch the band rather than have a few drinks and get sort
of crazy. We're playing music that you can't do that to. It's kind of
good because everyone sort of focuses on what we're doing.
It's good and daunting at the
same time.
These Hands… were
lucky enough to support Pelican on their recent Australian tour, how
was the show for you guys?
It was fantastic! For a band doing
what we're doing it's a dream come true. To share the stage with Pelican was an honour really.
They were really nice guys and
it turned out really good.
What have you guys got planned
for the rest of the year?
Just to promote this release and
get back to Sydney and Adelaide... and hopefully Perth.
Basically we want to be touring
that record and we're trying to organize shows to the end of the year.
We're looking at writing an EP or album to followup this release as
well.
We don't want to... we want to
keep the releases coming. We don't want too much time between. So yeah,
just writing and doing shows when we see it to be necessary.
Who are some Australian bands
that have caught your attention this year?
A band from Sydney called Sleep
Makes Waves. They're doing a similar style to us and they've caught
my attention so far. I just think they're doing really good things.
Majorca are another band. They're
doing really good things with the DIY all ages scene.
There's too many bands! Arrows
and Hope Springs are doing fantastic things. They're doing the mid 90's
emo sound that you don't see much anymore so it's really refreshing.
And your three favourite releases
so far in 2007?
Pelican is up there. Their
new record City Of Echoes was great. I really enjoyed that album!
Explosions In The Sky and Mono as well. Both their new records were great.
That’s about all we’ve
got time for mate, is there anything else you’d like to add?
No, no. I'm lost for words, ha
ha.
See you at the launch on the
2nd then mate.
Cheers mate!
These Hands Could Separate The Sky launch their 12" split this Friday, November 2nd at The Arthouse in Melbourne. For more info on These Hands
Could Separate The Sky head to: http://www.myspace.com/weareblackswans