Cutters - Trying Not To Die (EP TRACK BY Track)
It’s always weird explaining songs but here we go.
1. Pterodactyl (The P is Silent)
Pierce (vocals): This track was just supposed to be an intro track for our set but I started using it to warm-up also so there’s some yelling on it. Definitely channeling Molly from Ponytail a little bit. I miss that band.
Brian (guitar): Stumbled upon the riff, it's just notes out of an E blues Scale. I really wanted something fast to introduce the band, and perhaps lead into young gods (as it does). Added some chords to fill it out, figured it didn't need any lyrics, so Pierce just yells, which I love. I also wanted John to use fills as a beat as much as he could. I was listening to a lot of Ponytail at the time.
2. Young Gods
Pierce: We started this band in the summer and we didn’t have a fast song so this needed to be remedied. Brian is a saint for dealing with my obtuse way of trying to get him to write music. I can’t play anything so I usually just use adjectives that don’t generally describe music to get him and I on the same page. It doesn’t always work. Luckily, I liked this chord progression already so I only had one suggestion: play it faster. This song is about my brothers though it is a little dated. I don’t think either of them really like what I’m insinuating in it. I wrote it about the things that keep us going and how sometimes it feels like music is really the only thing I’ve got.
Brian: Had the progression in the key of A, and it was actually played really slow at first. Once the idea to speed it up came into fruition (That’s always Pierce’s fucking suggestion for every song ha), it was pretty apparent this song would be the soul of the project. Fast, catchy, relatable, and simple. Once Mike got on the track though, it turned into something more. His bass runs in that song make it for me.
3. Beginnings
Pierce: This song took way too long to write. I think we actually forgot how to play it once and sort of had to start over. This is the one song that’s really about my ex. She had left for grad school and I helped her move in. I ended up taking a 24 hour bus ride back from Illinois to New York. I wrote most of the lyrics then. When we were recording, I realized how bitter I was about how everything ended between us. This song is always a tough one to play because I thought I wrote it to help me feel better. I think maybe I wrote it because I wanted to torture myself. Oops.
Brian: The last song written for the album, originally acoustic. The "Never settle down" portion of the song was a back and forth with Pierce and I whilst mulling over some brews. The rest of the song was a result of playing around with chords, different voices, Pierce’s lyrics about his last relationship, and more beer.
4. X-Cutioner's Song
Pierce: This is easily my favorite song of ours but it wasn’t always. I thought at first that the guitar was a little too bouncy and clean. So I tried to rough it up a little bit with my vocals. I ended up somewhere between Laura Jane Grace and all those 90s emo revival bands that are around now. this song is about just being frustrated with where you are at any given moment. I feel like I have a tendency to beat myself up a bit about being stagnant. I guess it comes through sometimes.
Brian: Had some chords, was jamming them out with John. Originally was just driving, and down strumming, but John's suggestion of making it more rhythmically dynamic is what made it. Came up with the picking pattern, John came up with a corresponding beat that everyone immediately fell in love with, and the whole layout of the song was John’s idea. Shortening the verses until the song burst into the fast/distorted area. Mike uses some really cool sounding harmonics as oppose to following the drums or guitar directly. It's our dance song for the time being.
5. Excitable Liefeld
Pierce: This song was kind of born out of frustration for me. I had been scribbling down tons of lyrics but I didn’t have a band. Brian and I had played together in the past but didn’t talk all that much. We reconnected and even though I don’t love my work on this one, I know it had to happen this way. I had been talking about starting something new and this was kind of my put up or shut up moment. And it ended up working out. I loved Brian’s initial ideas and we futzed around with a line-up until Mike and John really brought it all together. The lyrics are pretty indicative of the themes I tend to visit in my writing. Lots of stuff about the end of the world. Some stuff about dying. I think that’s because whenever you reach certain points in your life, you begin to realize that you can only go up for so long. Eventually you have to go down. And what does that mean? Should you embrace it? How do you deal with it? That’s what I write about a lot.
Brian: The first song, the start of the band really. Started working on this one before Cutters, wrote out some parts, again, jammed them out with John. Pierce came over to my apartment, we got drunk and nostalgic, decided we wanted to start a new band. I told him about this song, played it for him, and we met up a week later, with a few different members actually. I knew what I wanted on drums, called Kevin Cantone (Skull Kids, The Phantom and The Fox), we worked out the parts, and then Mike laid down some bass. The original demo has Pierce’s brother Connor playing keys on it, something I'd still like to bring to the song. Mike left for a cross-country trip, and then Pierce, John, and I officially started the band, called it Cutters, and played it at a few awkward shows. It's still a pretty meaningful song to me. Pierce’s vocals took it from a post rock jam to a structured thing, something that happens a lot ha.
6. In Conclusion
Pierce: Our producer Cody had some fun with some of the extra stuff we recorded. In this case, cracking open some beers to celebrate the end of the record.
Purchase the EP as a pay what you want on bandcamp. You can also order the limited edition cassette tape:
http://cuttersmusic.bandcamp.com/
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