Alt-J Wrote "The Least Alt-J Song Ever" To Please US Label

Like The Rolling Stones and many other artists before them, Alt-J have written a song simply to get their label off their backs. The British indie trio admit they wrote their new single, Left Hand Free, to appease their American label and recently referred to the track as “the least Alt-J song ever.”

Discussing the latest single from their new album, This Is All Yours, with The Guardian, the band say the song was written in 20 minutes after their American label did not think the recently released Hunger Of The Pine, which features a sample of the Miley Cyrus track 4×4, was a “big single.”

The band told the paper that Left Hand Free was actually based around a “joke riff” that frontman Joe Newman started playing one day. Meanwhile, drummer Thom Green admits he “tried to make the drums as cliched as possible” and that there is “none of my personality” in Alt-J’s new single.

“And I say, ‘Gee whizz’, which I’m not sure is a phrase I’ve ever uttered before,” adds Newman. “I can imagine it appealing to American truckers with ‘Good Riddance To Bin Laden’ stickers!” Keys man Gus Unger-Hamilton, on the other hand, is concerned it will be used at NRA conventions.

Recently, homegrown rock and roll heroes Violent Soho revealed that they had to record a censored version of their breakthrough single, Covered in Chrome, in order to release their album in the US. Frontman Luke Boerdam joked that taking the cusses out of the song lessened its impact.

Listen: Alt-J – Hunger Of The Pine

http://youtu.be/k_EhHcZzUoE

Photos: Alt-J, Snakadaktal – Melbourne, Festival Hall 30/07/2013

Photos by Aleksandar Kostadinoski