Everyone, meet one of the newest female vocal forces to take the British music scene by Storm. Her interest in music first began when she was only 14, and since then she has honed her talents and a slowly but surely become one of the new fresh voices to take centre Stage. Growing up she developed quite an eclectic taste in her own musical collection, developing an interest in Rock and drum and bass. Quite interesting music combo, though she’s a rock chick at heart. Like everybody else she faced her challenges during the covid-19 pandemic but now looks too to take the stage again with her upcoming tour
“I don’t really know if it was a choice. I’ve always loved music – writing it, playing it, listening to it “You’ve been working in the music industry for over 5 years now, how’s the journey been so far?
Hey! What can I say, it’s been an absolute rollercoaster – from start to this moment. Absolute chaos in extreme highs to lows. It hasn’t been the easy journey that the click bait would have you believe artists have, and it’s definitely not been an overnight success… but I am beyond thankful that things are going so well! The new record hit Number 1 in the UK Official Rock Albums Chart last month and it’s all massive thanks to our fans, Team Razors.
Supporting an independent band is like supporting a small football team – you know you want them to win, but they face a lot of setbacks, they don’t have the budget and they all work on the side. You see them constantly outshined by teams that have big backers and world class managers. So, if that’s us, then us getting a Number 1, released on my Criminal Records label, is the equivalent of that local team then going on to win the FA Cup against all the odds. But that makes it all the more special – it was a vision and now it’s a reality. We get to bring it home for the fans and then tour it like a homecoming party.
So, while I’d say the whole experience has been, let’s say stormy, that this is counteracted by incredible people who love the music and inspire musicians such as myself to do better.
Why did you decide upon a life in music?
I don’t really know if it was a choice. I’ve always loved music – writing it, playing it, listening to it. It’s one of the only things I can do where I can simultaneously be focused and unwind at the same time if that makes any sense. My experience of playing music is probably what some people would call their ‘flow’. I mean there’s also something really expressive and personal about playing – just like the feeling you get when you sing in a pack. Music starts as a mental construct and you play it out through an instrument as though it is an extension of your body. It’s projecting or releasing energy and emotion into the world and pushing for a reaction. Or maybe that’s a bit deep?
More recently, I had to make a conscious decision about whether I did actually want to be a musician and if I had the fight in me to pursue that. As you know I have a PhD, so it’s not like I have nothing else to do, but if I do something I want to do it properly or not at all. This feeling led to me taking a moment in time to really decide if I wanted to quit or release my debut ‘Valley of Thorns’. I need to say, breaking through in music is hard – there’s a million books that will tell you it’s not, and there’s artists backed by big machines, that the industry would have you believe popped up through whichever social media platform is in vogue in an effortless way.
I consciously decided that I wanted this life after a lot of soul searching. I came to the conclusion that this is who I am, that I couldn’t stop if I wanted – and that I don’t want to stop. But could you imagine a life without music? It can be everything from dancing all night with mates or devouring a randomly discovered masterpiece on repeat because it speaks directly to something in you. There’s not many ways that you can channel and connect with the many emotions that music can touch in seconds. If I love a song and find out someone loves that song too, immediately you have a shared understanding for a moment of who they are and how you connect.
So yeah, I have thought about it – and because of the conditions of being a musician, I was very close to quitting. But then I also feel, if I can do it then surely I should? But if you didn’t love music, you couldn’t be an independent musician – not anymore. I end up channelling a lot of my emotions out into the songs I write. Sometimes those tracks are literal, and I write them straight from the gut – or maybe after a thought has built up, bottlenecked into pressure cooker level reality – and suddenly there it is in a physical form – a song, or maybe a bunch of songs that are linked in some way. It’s not forever, it’s a moment in time and sometimes I mix my own experiences up with elements of storytelling from others’ perspectives. But it’s pretty rare I’ll write an entire song without it having a real personal connection about it – something hidden in it that deeply resonates with me.
Now your stage name is an interesting one, what made you decide on it? You’ve also spelt it with a ‘K’ as well
Ah yeah! There’s a couple of reasons behind it really… there’s actually a street in London called The Cut, and I remember seeing it when I’d moved back here – I thought it was a statement, kind of like The Close or equally dramatic street names haha. Simultaneously I crossed it with a scissor necklace that my Mum gave me when I was 14 and it became The Kut. This wasn’t for music purposes though, I used it as a tag for my street art. At some point, it crossed over with my music and became a nickname for a project that was, at the time, called ‘Subsister’.
Growing up which artists were you listening to and how much of an influence did they have on your music?
I was listening to almost everything – and I love a lot of genres. Rock is where I’m really at though, but equally I’ve loved drum n bass artists and everything inbetween. I’d listened to a lot of Nirvana, Green Day, Faith No More, Deftones, 90s grunge and still rate Linkin Park as one of the all-time best (RIP Chester). Bands like BMTH, My Chemical Romance, 30 Seconds From Mars, Subways, Pendulum – I’ve seen Enter Shikari and Chemical Brothers more times than any other artist! I’d say they all had some kind of influence on me yes, in that I love their sound and it inspired me to make my own guitar sounds. I’d been writing songs long before I heard guitar music though. I’ve been compared to a lot of female artists over the years, and I am influenced by them all – because they tread that ground first and made it possible for women to be an equal force and do things like top the rock charts.
As an artist what’s your work ethic, describe a typical working week in your life when at work
I’m a conscientious person, so I have a strong sense of responsibility – live music is escapism for me – gigs – they are where I can let my hair down and be with people I love, see familiar faces, new faces and basically be a good enough reason to get me to leave my flat. Rehearsals are like a ritual by this point – I used to do many rehearsals a week with the band at one time, but now it’s less frequent and more focused, usually in the run-up to a tour or recording.
But anyway, my week is quite knuckled down, working on my day-to-day. By night I’d like to say I’m playing guitar or hanging out with friends, but ACTUALLY more often than not (and more than ever recently) I am working solidly on running the label, because The Kut is at this break-point where there’s a lot that rests on my shoulders and it could go either way if not treated with care and attention. I’m not trying to say this is a good thing; it’s not. It’s unsustainable.
It’s also hard to maintain close relationships if you are busy all the time. I have a lot of mental energy that I need to channel, and it tends to translate better into mental exertion and then jumping around on a stage for an hour a night surrounded by friends and a bar. Simply put, I like to work hard and then play hard as well, which is where I was going with our recent single and video for ‘And 1 More…’
As a female in the industry do you think that there’s been a positive change in regards to representation for females or do you think more can be done?
I definitely think there’s been positive change. Artists like Joan Jett and the Runaways had to learn how to hit bottles away from their bodies with their guitars while they were on stage because they got so much abuse for being girls! Women’s place in music was quarantined by whatever script decided that every female in a band was actually a vocalist, who had to resemble the sound of Mariah Carey, 18 and dress like a page 3 wannabe. Meanwhile, guys could take on a range of vocal personas and styles, sing speak, be 70 years old, headline the festivals and look and dress however they wanted. It’s all changing, which is brilliant. So yes, while things have dramatically changed, there’s a lot more work needed. A couple of months ago there was an article stating that only 13% of festival headliners at a range of festivals in the last year were female. I feel I can speak on this because The Kut was in the 13% in the study, having played a recent Isle of Wight headliner on their River Stage. Not every festival is as forward-thinking as Isle of Wight. There aren’t enough female headliners on our stages, and that is because the industry is failing to sign and represent acts from the grassroots circuit to the level that they can break their projects and be worthy headliners to be shared around the hundreds of festivals. It’s a problem if you go to a festival and can’t see anyone like you on those stages; it says that the festivals think you don’t matter.
But it’s really not just a festival problem, it’s a management company problem, it’s a booking agent problem, it’s an independent label problem – it starts from the ground up. Let’s have a look at the management company rosters and booking agency rosters and see how many % of instrument-playing female musicians they have. It would make an interesting read! We couldn’t find that support, so I applied for Arts Council Funding and broke the project independently. When I found out GRIT was the first album to top the rock charts with women on guitar/bass/drums though, initially I was really shocked. Like, how could this be right? It’s 2022? But actually, now I can see exactly how it could be; it’s because of the gatekeeping at every rung of the music industry. It’s women’s time to break out into rock, right now! There’s a wave of female musicians coming and if the industry don’t get behind that, it’s going to break it down.
As 2022 continues we’re officially back into the swing of things, did the Covid pandemic and national lockdown have much in the way of an impact on you?
I mean yes definitely. It still does really, as there’s quite a lot of fear still remaining around live gigs, which is sad. We took part in the Music Venue Trust tour in January and March. The purpose of it was to #ReviveLive music and it was funded by The National Lottery. Some of the venues we played had not had a touring band come through since before the pandemic. I mean, a lot of independent venues focus on bringing in travelling bands and at the same time showcasing their local talent, and that’s really their bread and butter. That’s also how bands of all sizes grow, through connectivity with each other at all points of their careers. So local scenes have taken a lot of effort to get back on track. There were too many cancellations, reschedules etc and even then, when ticket sales recovered, there were a lot of attendee no-sales recovered, there were a lot of attendee no-shows across the whole industry. So, the pandemic has definitely impacted us heavily and all the touring bands. Live gigs are very much back though. Touring is also back, but they are still not quite where they were at before the pandemic. I know it’s hard, but it’s time to let the vaccines do their job and get back out there, if nothing else just for the purposes of sanity, drinking and bad decisions.
Anyways, you’ve got a tour planned for September, I take it you’re looking forward to it?
Absolutely! It’s turned out to be an awesome run of dates. We get to head back to a few places we haven’t played since pre-pandemic, including Manchester and Peterborough with our friends Fyzz Wallis Band – as well as play in Huddersfield, which is a first for us. We’ll also be playing at The Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham where we played in January on the Music Venue Trust tour – as well as at our local Underworld Camden where we got to support Electric Six for the first time earlier this year. I am totally psyched. I wish it was tomorrow, but at least 7th September isn’t THAT far away.
What is it that you’re most looking forward to with the tour?
I tour a lot, we all do, and we are known for long tours, so this run is not a long tour by our own standards and it doesn’t span six, seven countries this time – but it’s definitely one of the biggest and most exciting Kut tours so far. We’re buzzing to be joining Japanese power-metal band BRIDEAR on a couple of their dates as part of this tour. They’ve been touring their new album across Europe and so we’ll get to join them at Manchester Academy 3 and The Parish in Huddersfield. When we get to London we will also finally celebrate our album release and its breakthrough status – so the show at Underworld is the official album release party. We’ll be joined that night by Atrocity Girl, a neat grunge band from Seattle, so it’s all really exciting.
What can we expect from this tour?
Getting the new album on the road has been incredible, and touring out with the collective this year has been epic. All seven of us have been tearing it up at different shows, and some incarnations of our live line-up have only come together for the first time this year. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve toured with each member of the collective a lot, but as we usually perform live as a three or four, then some haven’t gigged heavily with each other before. This year is a year of pent-up gigs for us. There were three years in which we didn’t play – one was due to health reasons, which morphed with two years of covid lockdowns. So, when the lockdowns ended we were fortunate to have got straight back out on the road thanks to #ReviveLive. Six months later, our September tour will be our third tour this year – so I’m really buzzing about it.
We’ve still got a lot of the big hitters from Valley of Thorns in the set, but there’s definitely a lot of punch coming in from the new track additions from GRIT – – we’ve managed to play as many as eight of the 10 tracks in the set some nights and it’s been just as strong as ever. In fact, a lot stronger. You can feel the energy lifting in the room, it’s really fun and intense. It’s an amazing feeling because the second album build-up was so long and constantly rising – so by release, the live show was like a volcano waiting to erupt.
How long did it take to put it all together?
The campaign build-up was just under 10 months in total – and thanks to the Arts Council England it could happen. I can’t put a time on how long it took to write the album really, or the songs, as they come when they want to and/or when I allow myself space to write them, but we are so tight as a unit. When you tour with a band, and I mean, I’ve done at least 15/16 tours now as The Kut, you gel quickly working on new tracks. So, there was some time in rehearsals, but it was clear early on that the tracks were sounding solid enough to spend about two / three days tracking the record. They were full-on days yes, especially with all the filming taking place, and days where we’d track instruments at the same time to save time/money, but then comparatively a lot more time was spent in the mixing and production phase of the record, and things like editing and sharing the behind-the-scenes footage, or creating merch, pressing physical releases, approval processes, artwork, music videos and so on.
Depending on the success would you do it again?
I mean, I’d say yes. Doing the follow-up record was always going to be scary, because Valley of Thorns did so well and charted at Number 7 in the Rock Albums Chart and #18 in the Independent Albums Chart – so it was almost a risk to ever release another record haha. When GRIT charted at Number 1 in the Rock Chart and #5 in Independent – I mean, wow – we are all so blown away. We are STILL so blown away, and I think I will ALWAYS be blown away. Would I do it again? Absolutely! When – I can’t think that far ahead just yet because it’s all about the gigs right now.
And where can fans hear your music in the meantime?
The new album ‘GRIT’ is out in all the stores, on all streaming platforms and there are at least 10 music videos on our YouTube, including the latest one ‘And 1 More…’. It just released and was filmed over at London’s neon museum, Gods Own Junkyard, so that was a lot of fun and 100% eye candy. The track is inspired by switching off social media and looking for fun in the real world – and being open to what the world has to offer. I guess that’s what happens on tour – and what happens on tour, you know what they say, it stays on tour! There’s nothing quite like being at a live gig. It’s just something you have to experience and our fans, Team Razors, are literally the best and most welcoming people in the world. So sure, check out the videos or get a copy of the album, but if you want to immerse yourself in that record, in the flesh, I’d say come to a show, say hey – we’ll be hanging out in the venue or over by the merch. Come say hello and check out some music in the real world.
