Cutting Teeth: Speed of Success
Leeds hardcore band, CUTTING TEETH, have only been a band for just over a year. In that year they have achieved great heights by bagging the opportunities to share the stage with the likes of LOATHE, LOTUS EATER, BLEED FROM WITHIN, and releasing some of the best music in the genre of the year in 2019 with their EP Fracture/Decompose. Just after the EP release we spoke with guitarist Adam Jones about the EP, their successes and more.
“It’s [release] been phenomenal, we’ve had people reach out to us that have never heard us before. – We can’t stress enough how thankful we are for people giving us their time and actually giving it a go. We started doing this in March and spent a real long time working on it this year,” Jones states. See, the length of the wait for Fracture/Decompose wasn’t just the writing process, CUTTING TEETH went the old-school hardcore way round and decided to self-release meaning more had to be done to ensure that they got the exposure they wanted.
“I think if bands start waiting around for labels then they start to lose certain aspects of what can be done.” Continuing, “There are bands like LOTUS EATER who are very organic in what they write and they’ve got a label like Hopeless, which is huge, and they’ve gone ‘Yeah, we’re all about it, let’s get it’, but then there are other bands that don’t care and they just want to release music for the sake of releasing music. We weren’t ever going to wait around for a label or anything like that.” The determination for releasing music is something that the band do not want to be stunted at any time, and a self-release also means that the content of what they release, in their eyes, won’t be held back in any form.
A self-release isn’t always the easiest option, but as the hardcore scene has grown in recent years, Jones has expressed that it has certainly been easier to be scouted out because of the dedicated and ever-growing scene in which most fans of the genre are generally open-minded. “I think the hardcore ethos, people are happy to support that. – No matter what people say about live music, the music scene is incredibly strong at the moment.”
It’s evident to see that the bands hard work has paid off, and that they’re in an extremely lucky point in their career where they’ve been able to do things their own way. Because of this it’s meant that they’ve sat and had their own time to get the material that they are happy with, and cut out what they aren’t. Jones admits that it is a time-consuming process, but they aren’t worried about falling behind anytime soon as they’re already writing again, even prior to the release of the EP. “We’re now writing new, new, material for whatever comes next, so it’s kind of annoying aswell because people are sinking their teeth into this whilst we’re sinking our teeth into whatever comes next for us.”
Why CUTTING TEETH seem to be so constant with their writing and ahead of the game however is down to the speed of how the music industry is changing, “The state of the music industry, more so the underground, because it is so vibrant, there’s so much going on all the time we’re very lucky that we’ve got people who are interested in us and we want to maintain any interest and grow as much as we can and get people to hear as much as we can. I think you’ve got to have something ready to go at all times. It’s tough, you see bands that take a few months off and people tend to forget, that pressure is always lurking in a way, it’s odd, that’s what we tend to work on.”
Their efforts clearly seemed to have paid off, as they’ve bagged opportunities that others can only dream of and have been scouted and named by some of the biggest talents in the hardcore scene right now. Their idea as a band wasn’t ever imagined to hit these current heights, but after a snowball success, the band aren’t short in giving their thanks to all those that have helped them achieve it, but for them it’s all about what they’ve put in aswell. “We’re lucky to be in the position that we’re in but it doesn’t come without hard work and some sacrifices.”
With their momentum and drive to work hard, it can’t be seen why CUTTING TEETH won’t be breaking down anymore barriers into becoming one of the best UK hardcore bands of recent years. Fracture/Decompose is a shining example of why dedication pays off, they’re as authentic as they get.
Catch CUTTING TEETH live with RAIDERS on the following dates:
Fracture/Decompose is out now via self-release.
Like CUTTING TEETH on Facebook.
