These Hands Could Separate The Sky

29 October 2007 | 7:55 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

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