Interview with Mathew Morand of No Hands January 14, 2016 15:30
I want to say congratulations on the release of your new single, "Left To Our Devices". The response has been great. How are you feeling about the song now that it has been out for a couple weeks?
Thank you. This is one of my favourite songs from our recording session with Josh Korody back in the spring. I'm happy to have people listening and responding to it after all of this time.
Have you been playing the track on your recent tour dates?
We've played this song on and off since early in the summer. As time progresses the structure of the song gets looser and looser which has made it a lot of fun to play. I love watching a band work to hold it together and come out on top.
The sheer length of "Left To Our Devices" makes it stand out to the majority of punk rock out there. Was the length of the song a conscious decision or something that just felt correct while writing?
I like simplicity. If you can write a song that feels good and holds up without having to play to short attention spans then I would consider that a success. All of us share a very diverse background and taste in music and No Hands more or less functions as a broad means of artistic expression for all of us. Songs aren't going to be put on the chopping block because they don't fit in with other material. We play in this band because these are the people that we want to play music with, not for the sake of being a 'band' that is pigeonholed by a genre or a scene.
What is the lyrical subject matter of your new single?
A lot of shitty art has been created on the topic of cell phones and social media lately but here we go: In our time it is very easy to create and present only your best-self through text messaging and social media. You're able to sit on every thought and work on it until it fits in with the leaning of your social circle, prospective partner or whatever else you see fit. I find that to be very fucking boring. I'd rather hear an honest thought, ugly and imperfect as it may be. The song is a frustrated response to that.
The lyrical content of "Left To Our Devices" is an observational based piece of writing. Would you say it is also interjecting an opinion on the current state of western culture?
It is my opinion but it is also something that I am very much guilty of perpetuating all the time. Even after saying this I had my partner proof-read this email to see if I sound right.
Interview is between Mathew Morand and Stephen Beebout.
Photo of Mathew Morand taken by Yosh Photography.