With *The Paper Scissors*’ debut album having already been released into the wild last Saturday 18th of August—and available much earlier on the iTunes online store—singer Jai Pyne was probably never going to leak their music onto the internet. We are quite far into the first decade of the new millennium, and although the internet has mainly been a burden for Major Labels, the Independents are taking hold of its capabilities, roots and all. You could say it’s akin to the blue and grey coats in the American Civil War, the battleground having moved into the World Wide Web, a defining moment at Gettysburg. Or we could stay clear of analogies involving the Americans and war (oh it’s so topical!), mainly because The Paper Scissors are much more concerned with not walking (we fly) than land-based battle.
Mr Pyne, quite down to earth and reserved over the phone, prefers to let his music do the walking. To tell you the truth, one could be walking, sitting, standing or indeed flying while listening to their debut long-player Less Talk, More Paper Scissors, because it encompasses such genres as folk, indie rock and soul, taking the listener through a varied and joyful musical experience. Suffice to say if one was walking, it may feel like flying.
It is not hard to picture Jai Pyne walking the sandy main street of Byron Bay, so I asked him how growing up there may have influenced his approach to music.
“I wouldn’t say so much of an influence. I mean, there are always good bands coming through there as well as festivals, and there’s always that organic element in Byron with roots music being the mainstream there. I dabbled in that for a bit, but more than anything I think the isolation was the greatest influence, in terms of song writing. I wasn’t in Sydney with a million other bands I hadn’t seen. I was just doing it myself, spending a lot of time at home. I was in bands in high school and everything, but being in the country meant I could have space and time, staying in my bedroom to write music.”
Jai moved to Sydney and started song writing before forming The Paper Scissors. Having only been in the city for a few years I wondered whether he had noticed a change in the underground ‘indie’ scene. It is fair to say the live music scene is currently embracing indie bands like nothing before, and with more opportunities come more bands. Can this only be a positive situation?
“It can be bad sometimes. Look, most of the time its great, but occasionally I’ve seen a band and thought there are too many bands out there. But rock is very much now and in the zeitgeist of everyone. Oh you know, Sydney’s great at the moment, it’s a really good scene. Sometime’s I’ll see a band and think they’ve fallen into the trap of being in it for the fashion side of things rather than writing and playing music. But that’s in stark comparison really to the amount of bands I see and think ‘f*ck, they’re good’. It scares you and makes you write better songs and work harder.”
It seems working hard may be a defining attribute of Jai’s music ethos; The Paper Scissors have been working on their material in the studio since the start of this year, and perhaps the many months spent on the album have as much to do with their label status as their effort.
“It’s always a bit longer—that’s one of the problems when doing things independently. When you’re doing it yourself, you’re juggling everything—money, music, time—and there’s no one giving you twenty grand just to go and record. You learn a lot more from it though.
I’ve been writing the album for the past 2 or 3 years I suppose. But we just decided to put aside two months to record and went up to Byron Bay. My Dad has a studio so we basically just went up and said ‘we’d like two months to record’. I was there for the whole two months, but the drummer came up for only a few weeks, and then the other guys came for certain amounts of time. We grabbed children to come and sing on things.”
The Paper Scissors Day Care?
“Yeah we had to organise a few games. It was fun.”
Having worked on Less Talk… for the best part of this year, The Paper Scissors are finally touring extensively.
“We’re doing fourteen shows from Brisbane down to Adelaide. I like playing live, you know, it’s good for the band. You get to see places where you haven’t been. I don’t want to be a slogging it out on the road kind of band, really. I want to get overseas and keep writing, not be a touring band. But at the same time it’s definitely necessary to get out there and also for the band to tighten up. I want to play different cities other than Sydney too; I get sick of playing here sometimes. It’s fun, and we have a good audience here, but I want to get around as much as possible. I would really love to play more all ages shows, but it’s a lot more difficult. It’s a lot harder than playing a club show. MySpace is kind of solving that. If you combine it with iTunes you nearly have a label.”
So what does Jai Pyne think of iTunes and the digital revolution?
“It’s made it a bit more accessible for people to make music and distribute it, to get it out there. At the same time it’s made it easier for people to get access to that music. Then again, I buy some songs on there and most of the time I regret it and wish I bought the album. You miss the whole physical aspect of it.”
Thinking of it in the same way as hardcover books or collectors edition DVDs, if a band really pays attention to the artwork and the packaging, it’s worth owning rather than having a folder of mp3s on your computer.
“Very true. I think that’s where this digital revolution has made it harder for bands. If they’re going to have the physical packaging, it needs to be better, it has to stand out more. This is ultimately a good thing. I did all the artwork. I wanted to make it tactile, sort of like a little record, so hopefully people will enjoy that side to it.”
The Paper Scissors’ debut album Less Talk, More Paper Scissors is available now in music stores and on iTunes. They are playing the Manning Bar in Sydney on Wednesday 22nd and will be touring for their album launch in September.
