Alabama rock band prepare to release third album

A conversation about The Replacements started Delicate Cutters. The story goes that vocalist/guitarist Janet Simpson’s and drummer Chance Shirley’s conversation about music eventually started an argument about which Replacements album was the best one. Then they decided to just start a band, which include members bassist Brian Moon and fiddle player Kevin Nicholson.

This band from Birmingham, Ala., is currently on tour with an Austin stop on Jan. 25 at Beauty Bar. Simpson chatted with UWeekly about their upcoming album “Ring” and how they incorporate a fiddle player into the music.

You’ve been together for almost ten years?
Janet Simpson: Almost ten years.
Oh wow. What do you think is your secret to stay together for so long?
JS: We hadn’t had any reason not to. We keep writing new music. We keep enjoying playing. There’s just no reason not to play. I couldn’t think of life without the Delicate Cutters at this point.
You have a fiddle player. I’m assuming when you write a song, it’s like another instrument to add to the mix. It’s not like rock band and fiddle player. How organic is the writing process?
JS: It feels really natural to us. The only challenge we have sometimes is having a good PA so he can hear himself on stage. But in terms of songwriting, he’s almost like another vocalist to me and not just another instrument. When I’m singing, I feel like I’m singing with his violin. I guess that’s the best way to describe it.
I read on your website that you are in the mixing stage of your upcoming album “Ring.”
JS: Yeah. Actually it just got sent off to be mastered this week, so we’re done with all of our hard work and now it’s in somebody else’s hands. This is great.
How long ago did you start recording that?
JS: I think we started officially in late October. We finished recording in December and finished mixing just last week.
Oh wow, that was quick. And this is your third release, did you notice a change in your songwriting style?
JS: Um, yeah, a little bit. The first album is about half songs that I wrote before Delicate Cutters and half songs that I wrote while Delicate Cutters was trying to be a band together, and so it’s just a collection of songs. This is a group of songs that I wrote from a very specific time in my life about a very specific thing that was happening. Those songs are really cohesive, and I think “Some Creatures” works really well at telling this one particular story. It really just tells a story musically as a band as that’s really where we found our sound. But in both of those cases, we were doing everything ourselves in terms of recording. Brian did all of the engineering. He did a great job, but it took us a really long time. It was really hard. So this time, we found ourselves over to someone else. The songs are very different, much more straight-ahead rock and roll. I don’t know, it’s just a very different feeling. It’s much more honest and raw, I think. Less romantic.
Do you feel having someone else record it instead of one of you do it had an influence on it or was that just the direction you were going?
JS: I think it’s a little bit of both. The songs that I had been writing for the last year had a different feeling. I’ve been in less of a nostalgic mood and just a different mood. But also I think that recording with Les Nuby in Ol Elegante Studios, we really just heard ourselves differently. Hear ourselves through his ears, which was nice. Allowed us to let go a little bit and have fun. So we recorded all of the tracks live, and it sounds like a much more bare, exposed version of ourselves. It’s very appropriate, I think, for where we’re headed.
How did you pick the producer?
JS: Les actually came to me one night when I was playing a solo show. After I got done, he had taken notes on every song I played. He was like, “I want to record you. I really want to record your band. I know that you and I like the same music, and so I’m really into it.” I had recorded with him a little bit with another band that I was in, and I really liked working with him. So I went to him and said, “Yes, let’s definitely do it.”

Sarah Vasquez