Cut Copy's Dan Whitford on Design, Dance Music, and 2000s Nostalgia

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it.

Cut Copy have a great new album out this Friday, Moments, that finds the band indulging their psychedelic side alongside their capacity for delivering the glowy, rave-adjacent dance-pop that they've long been known for. I've mightily enjoyed their music throughout the band's career, and it was a pure pleasure to have Dan Whitford on the horn to talk about the new record, the long arc of time, and much more. Check it out:

Dan, it's morning for you right now.
That's right.

What's your morning routine?
Wake up maybe, like, quarter to seven, make my kid breakfast, go do some laps at the pool, and then head to the studio. Sometimes that means heading to the studio to make music, and other times—like at this moment—I'm heading to the studio to do admin and press as my place of work.

You said you do some laps in the pool. Where do you swim?
There's a local swimming pool, Fitzroy, which is sort of my suburb. It's an outdoor pool, and at the moment it's winter, so it's definitely separating the men from the boys a little bit, but it's kind of nice. The pool itself is actually heated, but getting to the pool when it's winter is a mind-over-matter-type exercise.

I asked because I live in Brooklyn, so going to an outdoor pool every day, is a foreign concept.
It's exotic, yeah.

One thing that jumped out immediately with this new record is that you guys are getting a bit more jammy in a dance music sense. It's an overused term, but I'd go as far to say that there's some Balearic vibes at times. This also marks the longest time between Cut Copy records. Walk me through the creative gestation of this one.
Part of the reason why it's taken a long time is a few life and world events. The last record was in 2020, and we were gearing up to tour and do all this stuff—and then, obviously, our plans went by the wayside. Things got delayed a little bit, and eventually we did tour our previous record—but it was two years later, so everything is on a bit of a delay. To add to that, I had a kid since the last record, so that went from one lockdown to a whole other kind of lockdown.

It's been a bit stop-start as far as actually rolling the sleeves up and getting into making a new album, but in the beginning I had this process where, each day, I'd sit down and set myself the task of writing a song idea. Sometimes it would end up being a fully-fledged song, sometimes it would just be a loop with some sounds. Over time, I built up an archive of ideas, andover the course of or a year or so, some ideas started to form and it turned into the skeleton of the album. Then it reached a point where I was feeling really happy with some of these ideas—or, at least, it felt like there was potential there.

Usually, making Cut Copy records, I'll send stuff to the other guys and get their take on it. Some of them have like their own home studio setups as well, so they'll send ideas back and we'll have a bit of back-and-forth until we reach a point where we're like, "I think we have an album here, so maybe it's time for us to all get in the same place and bash it out." So we booked some time in one of the most beautiful places in the world: This area behind Byron Bay in New South Wales. It's this little studio in the hinterland, on the verge of this rainforested area, that's sat there since the '70s. We worked there for a few weeks finishing all the songs and jamming out some of the ideas, which was a really cool kind of experience. From there, we took what we'd recorded and went to Sweden to do mixing.

How important is locale when you're recording?
It helps. It's one of those things where you almost need to go away, or put yourself in a different environment to be able to really focus and complete something. For me, half the time it's like an expedition. You're going somewhere a little bit unknown with this task in mind. Going somewhere else adds a richness to the music itself. You're in a place that's not familiar, your senses are heightened, and everything is a little bit more vivid.

We've done this with a lot of our records. We went to Paris for the first album, we've been to Atlanta a few times to finish albums. It can be different depending on the situation, but being in a different place just seeps into the DNA of the music.

Several songs in the back half of this album almost push the eight-minute point. Talk to me about embracing a lengthier mentality when it comes to this record.
On this record, we felt like there were some songs that that felt like pop songs, and we treated them like that. We live in this short-attention-span world for music these days, so let's give people these little bite-sized nuggets. Then there were some other ones where it felt like the point of the track was the journey, so we were like, "Well, let's go the absolute opposite direction." They extend, stretch out, and go as far as we could take them. Our feeling was to listen to the song itself and ask, "Where does it want to go? What feels natural?"

Sometimes, there's a loop running in one of the songs and we just want to listen to it for seven minutes. We don't want it to fade it out or have a quick ending—we want it to really wash over us, to get lost in that world for a while. That's one of the things about dance music that I really love—you lose a sense of time and space when you're on a dance floor. It's really amazing. You're just locked into this thing with everyone else, and you could be there for 10 minutes, but it doesn't feel like it. You're in this zone or state. That's one of the things that we really love about dance music.

For me, I love to paint a world for people. It's not just a song—it's this whole other space that you're going into, with little details and atmospheric sounds, these things that give you clues as to where this is. You're going on this real journey to somewhere else, and that's one of the things I love as a music fan. We always try and bring that to our songs, particularly with the longer ones where you can take that a lot further.

What's your relationship been like with clubbing over the years?
There was a point in time where it was just my life. As a teenager, I was into more indie music, and at a certain point I discovered dance music and became obsessed. In my 20s, I was at the club every weekend—and during the week as well, if there were things going on. I became obsessed with electronic and and club music.

Obviously, as time's gone on, I don't always have quite as much time or energy to be in the club all the time—but I still try to keep an eye on what's going on and get out and see people where I can. In Melbourne, there's amazing DJs here, as there are in most cities. So it's still something that I try and keep my hand in from time to time.

One sensation I've had over the last 20 years or so—whether it's from you guys or different artists on labels like Modular and Future Classic—is that I'm hearing a fair amount of euphoric, gorgeous dance music come out of Australia. Why do you think that is?
I mean, it wasn't always the case, to be completely blunt. I think maybe we came a little bit late to the party—we didn't have the 1989 "summer of love" thing like they had in the UK, or even the late-90s dance music niche. But in the 2000s, there was a crossover moment around probably us and Modular, and all of a sudden this kind of dance music was being played live—not just being DJ'ed. There was a lot of personality to the music as well, whether it was with us, the Presets, or the Avalanches—and following on from that, there's obviously been huge stuff like Tame Impala. That emerged maybe 20 years ago and has flourished since then.

You referenced Balearic music before, and maybe there's a little bit of that about Australia, where the climate and natural environment—the beauty—somehow resonates within the music, resulting in euphoric, carefree, outdoorsy stuff. For me, it it started with a little kernel in the early 2000s, and one thing led to another and now it's just this huge thing here in Australia.

You mentioned having that first spark when you were younger with regards to dance music after previously being an indie listener. It was certainly my trajectory in the mid-2000s as well, and for people whose trajectory that is, you often recall what that first hit felt like. What was that for you?
One of the first things that made sense to me in terms of electronic music was DJ Shadow. Entroducing... is obviously maybe more hip-hop in some ways, but the sampling aspect of it was so musical. I was like, "Wow, I don't know what this is." All the sound that he pieced together to make that record—it's so elaborate, and done on this rudimentary equipment. It was like hearing something almost impossible: "How did he even do that?" That was mind-blowing to me.

When I came of age and was able to go out to the clubs, I remember "Da Funk" by Daft Punk wasbig at that stage, pre-Discovery. I was like, "Whoa, okay, these guys." I mean, I wouldn't compare them exactly to DJ Shadow, but there's something similar in a level of knowledge about music history and drawing together music beyond the genre that they might be placed in. Daft Punk had, like, Kiss and the Beach Boys in the Homework record sleeve, and it was almost as much about '70s rock and pop as it was about techno. For me, that was really exciting—this idea that, suddenly, dance music has all this personality and a story to it, rather than being an anonymous with white-label 12"s. It was a real lightbulb moment for me.

You mentioned becoming a parent uh in the period of time while this record was coming together. I'm always really curious to hear about how musicians adjust to touring post-parenthood. A few years ago, Spencer Krug was telling me about how, when he had a kid after a Wolf Parade tour was cancelled, he was almost grateful because it meant he could spend more time at home.
I've had that same moment where I've thought, "Well, look, if the tour gets cancelled or we've got to do fewer shows, then it just means I'm at home more with my kid." That's definitely not a bad thing. Everyone in the band now has a kid, or kids, so we're all on the same page with that. We all still want to play and make music as Cut Copy, but also, one of the great things about being a musician is the flexibility—being able to be at home and be there when your kid's growing up is such a cool thing.

But realistically, when I think back to touring previous albums like Zonoscope, we'd be away for six months at a time. Two weeks at a time would be the preferred option these days—smaller bursts of touring. But we still want to do it.

You've seen the music industry change 30 times from the first record to now. Tell me about what's changed from your point of view.
It's weird. Obviously, streaming is a major thing that's changed the way the industry works, but also social media, which has changed the way the world works. These days, the industry has been become so focused on on content, and being an artist and trying to develop your own business as a musician is so much more about a brand than the music.

Before MTV, you wouldn't know what an artist looked like, necessarily. You might look at the record cover, but that wasn't important. You'd hear the song and go, "Wow, this is incredible." A lot of those records in the '70s—Toto, some of those yacht rock records—were made by guys that obviously weren't cut out for MTV. They didn't have that look, but they were amazing players—and that was the way the music industry worked.

But over time, it's become so visual, and now that social media is such a focus, the branding is almost more important than the music. The music used to be the main thing, but now it's another kind of content that artists can leverage to engage fans—just another thing to talk about. It's a little bit sad, because obviously you'd want the music to be number one—but it's shifted a little bit, where it's almost more important to be fueling your own kind of social media machine and what's going into people's feeds. At the same time, it also allows people with different skill sets to come through in that environment and play with the different channels that you can reach people.

The one thing that's sort of remained the same is live music, which is probably more important than ever. Being able to go and see an artist playing is something that even AI can't really replicate—well, certainly not at the moment. That's almost become more special.

You guys have never seemed like a particularly "online" band—snd I think you know what I mean when I say that. Would you say that's a correct assertion, or do you guys have private accounts where you're secretly following everybody on Twitter?
We're probably more quiet observers than people wanting to throw our opinions around, if that's what you mean. I'm definitely not starting Twitter wars with people. Maybe we're just sort of old school. I've got a design background, and I love just making a record—making the artwork for it, telling the story, and creating the world in the music and the artwork for people to really just take in. All of this is part of the art—and, for me, the online side maybe doesn't seem quite so much part of the art. I know that, for some people, it probably is. But I like to keep a little bit of mystery and put real effort into the important aspects. The other stuff—I don't know, that's just not as much of interest to me. I'm happy for people to make up their own minds.

Tell me more about your graphic design background, especially with regards to the album covers.
This record is the first time that someone else has actually done the artwork for one of our records—I was basically the art director in this process, coming up with the concepts for it. But as far as the artwork and connection to to the music, when I started out in design school, early on I was like, "I want to design record covers." It seemed like the coolest thing in the world, because I was a big music fan, and what a great kind of canvas for ideas—the sky's the limit, creating something exciting that's going to really reflect the music.

When Cut Copy got signed and we were going to put out music, it was the ultimate dream for my design brain—the dream of my younger self—to be able to do that. It allows me to tell so much more of the story, on the conceptual side, behind the music. Even just the weird ideas in the back of your brain can come out in the artwork—sometimes even more so than the music. You almost give people all the clues as to whatled to the music by drawing out visual elements that relate to it.

There was a long period, early in Cut Copy's existence, where I had a full-time design job and ran my own graphic design agency. I reached a point where the touring was just a little bit too crazy, so I had to step away from it—but it's something that I still love. If I buy someone else's record, I go straight into the artwork and the sleeve to see where they were coming from, particularly when it's musicians that do their own artwork. I's something that I've always been pretty passionate about.

I came came of age in the 2000s, and it's surreal to see younger people already mine that period of time musically and otherwise. It feels way too soon for me, but I'm sure this is how people 20 years older than me felt in the 2000s about '80s nostalgia. I'm really curious if that has reached you guys and extended your fanbase yet.
To be honest, it's been a while since we played shows, so I can tell you after we've done a few around this album release. But I've definitely noticed that we're at a stage where people have literally grown up on our music. People would say that in the past, but now it's actually physically possible to come to our shows and have almost been born when we were touring our first album.

The nostalgia for that time period—I probably feel a bit like you do. It just feels too soon. Wasn't that just yesterday? There's just something that doesn't quite sit right. But I've got to suppress that old man feeling inside me. When I think about it, what's probably appealing to kids now, looking back to that time, is that it was a time before social media and smartphones were really dominating. It's probably the last era in recent memory where people could actually be outrageous, party hard, and wear ridiculous clothes without being turned into a meme. The worst that would happen is maybe VICE would put you in their "don'ts" column.

When I look back on that time, compared to now, obviously things are progressive in a lot of ways with younger people these days—politically, emotionally. But I think there's also things that are a bit conservative—a fear of things blowing up in people's faces if someone posts a picture of them doing something stupid, or if you go on the dance floor and get a bit too crazy. I think people look at that time as a freedom that people had which isn't available now, withthe all-seeing eye of smartphones and technology. People were just out having a good time, and there were never going to be any major consequences.