The following is taken from an interview appearing in Japan's Music Daily News November 16h 2005


Interview Andy McCutcheoen

Andy McCutchen’s music is a multi-faceted sound that explores the depths of lyricism and that captures melodies reminiscent of the early 70s. This vintage rock sound captures listeners of all ages, from teens all the way to their parents.

So, your name is very unique, it’s really hard to spell too, what are your origins?

Uh, it’s uh, Scottish.

Oh, alright…

You know, cause it’s like Gaelic, you know…

Where did you grow up?

I grew up outside of Washington D.C.

Oh, wow! So, on the east coast. What was that like?

Yeah, oh it was pretty cool actually. Where I grew up it was like a little tiny resort town at the turn of the century where like a lot of tuberculosis patients and people like that would go in like the 1900s. There were lots of wooden houses and an amusement park, but you know, by the time I came along all of that was sort of like long gone. It was you know these remnants of this old amusement park in this little town that centered around a little general store. It was like something out of a totally different time period. So it was a perfect kind of backdrop to getting into you know, all kinds of mischief (LoL)…

So I know you have kids from talking to you a little while ago, but how many kids do you have?

I have two. I have a two- year- old and a nine- year- old, Garland, and Clayton is two, he’s my son.

Garland, as in flowers?

Yeah, and like Judy Garland

Oh, Judy Garland, that’s really cool. Do they like your music, do the
It’s great when kids can grow up with music in their house. Well, speaking of music, when was the first time you picked up a guitar?



I was listening to your CD and you have really catchy melodies, especially in “Hello.” Where do you get that kind of inspiration?

I think it’s probably just because I grew up so saturated, you know listening to a lot of late 60s, early 70s rock. I think my first memories, musical memories, around the house were listening to The Beatles. Again, it was all my older brother’s stuff, and he had all these records around. When they were all off at school I would be home, my mom would be home, you know she stayed home while my dad was at work, and she’d usually be off doing something around the house. So I would just be there in the living room with one of those real 70s types of stereo consuls, that were all built into a big cabinet, listening to Beatle’s records, other stuff too, Steppin’ Wolf and Three Dog Night, and Iron Butterfly, and Grand Funk Railroad, and Cream. But you know, so much of that stuff was so melodically driven, especially The Beatles.

You play with words a lot in your lyrics, are there multiple meanings to the song “Hello”?

Yeah, in fact I’m pretty much you know, probably because of my literary background, when I write a song, sometimes its like maybe a couple years later until I figure out what it’s about, you know…I don’t even worry about what I think its supposed to be about when I’m writing it usually. I think for me writing is almost more of a kind of a weird exploratory thing, that’s almost maybe more akin to like channeling or something than it is to any kind of art you know…

Is it kind of like the words just flow out of your pen?

Yeah, I’ve sort of learned to just shut up and listen and let them come. You know, I’ve written lots of stuff that’s all me, and me playing with words and sticking stuff in there, but those never really, you know, stand up to time, those always kinda fall by the waist of it. It’s always the ones that kinda happen, sort of like a happy accident that are the ones that always seem to stick. So if I have any kind of a skill or an art it’s just that I’ve kind of learned a self discipline of sort of working myself into a state of almost kind of self-hypnosis where I’ll hear like a melody or riff, or like a little phrase and I’ll just kind of let it keep going. Most of my writing I do just in my head, usually I don’t write with an instrument, I mean, I’ll figure stuff out after the fact so I won’t forget it, but usually I’ll just hear it all in my head so, actually, most of my writing happens when I’m driving or when I’m doing something, like some kind of activity, you know, if I’m doing something that’s just distracting enough to you know, keep me in that state.

You are a very talented musician—you write your own songs, you play the guitar, you sing lead vocals, and I noticed on www.andymccutcheon.com, that you also teach English 101, 102, and 302, how do you find the time to do all of this?

Oh, God, well you know, that’s my day gig, you know…I was really interested in literature kind of in my late teens and early 20s. Actually I went through this whole phase where I thought I was done with music, I just wanted to be a poet and so I got my masters degree in English. And it’s interesting, once I started teaching full time, I kind of found that I stopped writing. Whereas you know, I used to write constantly. After I was teaching for a while, I kinda got the bug to go back and do music. Because I stopped really pursuing music I would say from about ‘87up through about like’90…

Where did you get your degree in English?

Two Lane University, which is now under water so…

That was such a tragedy.

Yeah, that’s such a cool place too, I mean, you know, I hate to see that happen anywhere, but pretty much any other place in America that could happen, in terms of the culture, and the architecture, and the landscape, you could replace it all, but that’s one place where you really can’t, it’s really a cool city in terms of it’s, you know, it had a certain kind of grit to it, you know, it had all these cultures coming together, and it had all the old architecture. There were all these different things converging there that made it kind of magical. That was a cool place to live. And oddly enough, even though it’s such a musical town, that’s where I was living when I wasn’t doing music really, I did a little bit, but I was mainly just writing, you know, doing poetry readings.

I saw pictures of you in the editing studio on www.jetspeedrecords.com, do you also like being behind the scenes of the music industry?

Yeah, that’s a pretty big part of what I do, cause a lot of the stuff that I do…um, right now I’m happy actually to be working with the band on the stuff we’re recording for the CD, but most of the stuff I’ve done in the past has all been self recorded, you know, so it kind of forces me to be the engineer, musician, producer, you know, all that. So it’s been cool actually, you know, to work with Brad [Gilderman]and not have to be so, you know, to be able to sit back a little bit and look at it in terms of the content and to not be worried so much about patching a chord from some effects (LoL). That can get distracting, you know in the creative process, when you’re trying to do all of that too. But I really love being in the studio, it’s a whole thing unto itself. There’s the live thing. And I like the live band and the energy that has, but there’s definitely, you know, a lot happens here. Even though I write a song, and I have all the words and the chords, and maybe all of the different parts when I go into the studio and start recording, still some other element happens in there, and I’m always fascinated with that, in terms of the editing and layering things up, and the whole mixing process. Often you end up with something very different than what you expect, which I always find cool, cause usually by that point you’ve put so much into the song, you’re almost sick of it, so it’s kind of nice to have that surprise.

Do you remember your first time in the studio? What was that like?

Yeah actually, it was pretty funny, it was with my old band, The Skeptics, it was kind of an 80s garage punk band, with a lot of 60s psychedelic influences, but definitely we were kind of categorized as new wave or punk in the mid-80s. I was really young. And I remember, we all scraped together our money, it was something like a hundred bucks, or something laughable, and this guy came to my parents house, to our basement, with a big reel to reel—I don’t think it was even a four-track, I think it was like a two track, and he set up a bunch of microphones, and actually recorded us live, vocals and everything, all in one shot. We were rehearsing and rehearsing and rehearsing. We did like this five-song demo. That was pretty cool though, I mean I fell in love with it, cause there’s something really gratifying when you’re a teenager and you’re in your basement, and you’re playing this music, and practicing, and all of the sudden you have this product, this finished product in your hand. You have this tape that’s your band. Shortly after that we went to a “real studio” in Arlington, Virginia, you know, right outside of D.C. at a place called Inner Ear Studios, which actually, Minor Threat recorded in, a band called The Velvet Monkies, who the lead singer and guitarist of the band went on to produce Sonic Youth. So it was kind of cool, I mean like a lot of stuff was passing through that studio. We went down there, we actually recorded a nine song cassette that we released ourselves, that’s what actually landed us our first actual record deal, which was actually a record (LoL), you know, a vinyl album.

If you have anything you want your fans to get out of your music, what would that be?

I guess I would hope that my music would do for people what music that I’ve always been drawn to does for me, which is, it sort of has this ability to remain new or relevant to wherever I am, like you know, I go back and listen to the same stuff I listened to when I was four and five, and when I was a teenager, and it’s always new to me. It’s always, you know… I hear some new level, or I hear some new meaning that I didn’t get back then. So I guess I would hope that it’s got that same multi-faceted thing, that if you listen to a song now, and then ten years from now, it would seem like a totally different song.


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