“We find that we go down a lot better in America. We can populate a show better in New York than we can do here. They immediately got it. They just like what they like and don’t worry about what is cool.”
It’s easy to understand why vocalist and guitarist Scott Hutchinson thinks that. If it wasn’t for his wavering Scottish brogue, you could easily place the trio among the illustrious figures of New York’s anti-folk scene. Songs like ‘The Modern Leper’ from their forthcoming album, ‘Midnight Organ Flight’, are such as you could imagine Adam Green abandoning his bunny dance to perform.
Ferocious, jangling folk acoustics merge with scuzzy garage guitars to frame their eccentric and macabre lyrics, “So I cut out all the good stuff / Yeah I cut off my foot to spite my leg / You must be a masochist to love a modern leper on his last leg.” The eccentricity of their music is also continued in their promotion from their unique biscuit marketing ploy to their often-bizarre promo photos. This will be their second year in a row at SXSW so it’s more an opportunity to augment the excitement they generated in 2007.
“Our album is coming out, so obviously this is a chance to air some of the new songs. But the festival is more than that. There’s all these industry types wandering around, checking out what’s going on. People are just wandering about, with no point. And you’ll play lots of gigs and some will be shite and others will be amazing – it’s a weird one.” Weird is absolutely no problem for them though – it’s their bread, butter and biscuits.
