Q+A: Knives At Noon
Dunedin band Knives At Noon have been garnering an audience lately with their much talked about show at Homegrown as well as their opening gig for Vampire Weekend earlier in the year. The band are about to release their brand new EP Glitter Guts and we hit up keyboardist Oli Wilson to ask him a few questions about their songwriting process, Creative Commons and when we can get expect to see them play.
1. There’s not to much information about you on the net – how did the band get started? At what point did you realise that it was time to take it seriously as a profession?
About a year ago. We had previously been jamming on and off for a few years, but everyone had their own things to do (e.g. work, study, travel) and it wasn’t until a year ago when we all ended up living back here in Dunedin that we decided to knuckle down and prioritize music making. At the time, Tim (McCartney, the singer) was living in Timaru playing Buddy Holly in a local production of Buddy, I was traveling to and fro from Papua New Guinea doing fieldwork for a PhD, and our then-guitarist Andy moved to Auckland to take a job as a suit-wearing government slave. So about a year ago I moved back from Papua New Guinea, we dragged Tim back to Dunedin from Timaru, and found a new guitarist Paul, and started to practice and write regularly. A few months later we recorded Glitter Guts and began playing regularly.
2. Tell me about the process of writing the songs that ended up on Glitter Guts.
For most of the tracks Tim McCartney would come up with an idea, and record it onto an old 4-track tape recorder, usually just with a piano or guitar. Then we’d structure and arrange the songs as a band, adding drums, synths and electric guitar. For example, ThunderVeins was originally written for just voice and piano, and when you listen to it most tracks, I think you can kinda tell, there is a hierarchy that prioritizes melody and lyrics, then everything serves these in some way or another. We are not a ‘jam’ band, in fact we have never written a song by jamming – our approach is more structured and I guess, in a way, a bit clinical.
3. I understand that ‘ThunderVeins’ was recorded back in November. Was that a different mix to the one that’s on the record?
In fact, all the songs were originally recorded in November last year, they have been tweaked a bit here and there since then, but mostly have not changed too much. It has taken a while to get this EP out, but we are proud of it, and wanted to do it right – through the right avenues and with the right label support, and this all takes time. Also, we wanted to do a video as well, and ended up choosing Violins and Violince for this, and again, we wanted to do this right, with the right individuals, which meant things took a while to get completed. But we are very happy with the results we have achieved through not rushing, which meant not compromising. It also means we have a large catalogue of songs ready for the next release, and we have just started recording again…
4. How has your songwriting process changed since you formed back in 2007?
Mainly, when Paul replaced Andy last year, the songwriting shifted from an Andy-and-myself collaboration, to mainly Tim McCartney. Actually, I suppose you could say with only two original members (from four) the band is a very different band to what it was in 2007 – we don’t play any songs from then, and our sound and approach is completely different.
5. Why have you chosen to release an EP? Was there a temptation to just keep going and record an album?
This was the first recording project with then-new lineup; with Paul on Guitar, and Tim McCartney spearheading the songwriting, so it just made sense to do an EP and not the massive undertaking that is an album. The EP is a snapshot of the music we were making for just a few months leading up to recording that EP, whereas an album is a much bigger and definitive creative statement. As musicians, only now are we even considering doing an album.
6. I read that you chose to adopt a Creative Commons licence with your debut EP. What motivated you to do that? Will you be doing the same thing with Glitter Guts?
Right back at the very beginning, we decided put out our music online under a CC license, as our efforts were not commercially oriented whatsoever, the whole idea was that people could remix, mash-up and sample our stuff freely. It was a kind of an experiment in a way, to see how the life of a recording could exist outside of the studio. Interestingly, it failed. Some uses of our work were great, but mostly people destroyed these songs with horrible versions that we’d be happy if they never saw the light of day. It sounds a bit purist now, but it was soul destroying hearing your hard work being butchered. The ideology behind it was good, but the results not so much, so we decided this was no longer for us. While we are still open to the idea of doing remixes, now we are highly selective on who we let near our music.
7. When can we expect some tour dates to be announced?
Knives At Noon have no immediate plans of a ‘nationwide tour’ where you go from one town to the next, but instead have a bunch of unconnected shows booked around the country (and in Australia as of next week), support slots, headlining slots, maybe a festival or two…
