Floodlights On Breaking Out Of Australia And Finding Fans On The Other Side Of The World

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We caught up with Floodlights on their UK tour, discussing grassroots funding, touring with Pavement and more

Ahead of their headline show at the Village Underground in London, I had the opportunity to sit down with Louis, the vocalist and guitarist from Floodlights. Over the next 30 minutes, we shared a beer, spoke of the band’s third record, ‘Underneath’, and how they’ve been bringing it to life in performances around the world. 

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For those readers out there that don’t know Floodlights, tell us how you started and what that’s evolved into over the past 7 years?  

We started in 2018. Ash and I were watching a gig at a local, iconic pub, called The Tote in Melbourne. I’d played and written music for a lot of my life, but had never really formed a band. 

Then one night, we went to watch a band playing at the pub and we were pretty drunk at the time, we looked at each other and said fuck, we’re getting too old. We’ve got to get a band going before it’s too late.

From there, one of my friends, Jono, who had never played drums in his life, just said, “Yeah, I’ll get lessons tomorrow”. So he was the spark that really ignited the band. He’s since left and we’ve got Archie on the tubs now.

But yeah, we just started like that, playing around with ideas in our shared houses and over the years that’s grown to what we are now.

That’s one of the most wholesome ways to start a band. Just have a couple of pints and say fuck it. 

Earlier this year, you released your third album, Underneath. Tell us about the writing process for the record – did it differ from the previous two? 

The writing process was pretty different to the previous couple records. This one had a sense of transience about it because a lot of it was written on the road touring the UK and Europe. 

We were here for three months. It was our first time we’d been here and that made it such a novelty to us. We wanted to make the most of it, so we came over three weeks early and were just rehearsing and writing songs. I think all those experiences together, personally and as a band, bled into our music and writing along the way. 

It gave the album a sense of being outside of Australia, whereas maybe our two previous records were much more inwards looking.

With the record, there’s a few references to ethereal imagery. The front cover looks like another world, some of your press imagery shows you guys floating underwater, ‘Buoyant’s‘ video is split between the party and in the pool. Was there a strong creative vision for the visuals of this record from the get go?   

Once we decided to call the album ‘Underneath’, which Sarah came up with, we liked that it had a rather open meaning. I like the idea that everyone can listen to it and apply their own sort of interpretation to whatever that means, whether it’s speaking about turmoil, things going on inside or whatever. 

I have to give credit to Ava Clifforth and Henry Gosper for creating the imagery and the visual world of this album. They’re our friends back in Melbourne who created the three video clips and the live clip. Ava really conceptualised this whole world of starting off in a state of hibernation and throughout the album, you break out of your idle state. Sort of like a butterfly really.

Do you ever write tracks with the live experience in mind? 

Yeah, we definitely do. For ‘Painting of My Time’ and ‘Underneath’, we definitely wrote with the live performance in mind and that’s something that we love doing. 

However, you do get songs that are more palatable in a recorded sense, but they might not translate well to the stage. Every time we’d try and adapt those, we’d end up making a chill song turn into this sort of anthemic triumph. Which isn’t quite what we set out to achieve when we wrote it. 

It ebbs and flows, depending on the track, but we definitely have a big emphasis on our live performance, just because it’s a cool form of expression for us.

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You’ve toured the UK, EU, Aus and US extensively over the last couple of years and in between you’ve supported the likes of The Killers, Amyl & The Sniffers and Pavement, after all of those shows are there any particular fond memories or moments that you look back on? 

The Killers show was random, it was one show at a winery in South Australia that we got the last minute call up for. So that was sort of bizarre. But it was very cool.

The Pavement tour was pretty special. After playing with them and meeting them, they were such outgoing, funny, quirky individuals. I didn’t really appreciate the sort of impact that they had on that 90s era of music. When we told people that were a little older than us that grew up with them that we were touring with Pavement, they were just like, “fuck that’s huge.”

I distinctly remember playing Anita’s theatre in Thirroul, which is this really cute little coastal town in-between Melbourne and Sydney. I think the theatre opens once or twice a year for a big gig coming through and almost everyone from the area flocked in. It was all makeshift seating and a little chaotic, but it was just such a rambunctious, fun crowd there. I’ll always remember that show.  

Obviously with each new record, bands need to switch up their setlists. What song has been a favourite of yours to play live from ‘Underneath‘? 

It’s getting hard. With three records to choose from, there’s a bit of tension when we’re choosing set lists, but I think my favorite to play live is ‘JOY’. I really like the lyrics and the heaviness of that song. It’s one of those ones that you don’t really need to think much about. You get immersed in it and it’s just you in yourself. Some songs are a bit more naked and you’re very conscious of things going wrong when you’re performing it, but ‘JOY’ is just like, get yourself into gear and just go for it. 

With new tracks making the list, are there any songs that you had to rotate out and you’re sad to see go? 

We try to rotate songs in and out so we don’t leave too many out. Like any band, you have these songs that you thought would stay in the setlist forever, but you find they start to fall out as new albums come along. 

But I’ve got a special little place in my heart for ‘Colours’, which is off our second record. Unfortunately I don’t have much support from the band with that one though.  

You’re in the middle of an EU/UK tour, how do the audiences differ in the UK compared to Australia? Do you see a distinct difference in atmosphere? 

I think the main difference is there’s a bit more curiosity for bands that people don’t know here. 

I feel in Australia, everyone has that mindset of having to know the band to buy a ticket. Whereas people here can see a post or just trust the venue’s taste or hear a word from a friend and they’ll come along and just see if they like the band. 

That’s sort of what you rely on as a touring band coming over from Australia. You have to get people that don’t know you to come and see you, and who knows you might convert them.

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At CLUNK we’re all about championing rural communities and ensuring that live music reaches them. As an artist, is there anything you’d like to see change in the industry to help get bands out to play further afield? Whether that’s breaking out of their local scene, or touring on the other side of the world?  

The obvious one is more funding for the arts. I’m not sure what it’s like over here, but it can be pretty hard to get your band over from the other side of the world. And the bigger the band, the harder it is to come. 

Sometimes people don’t realise just how much money it costs, so funding is vital. We got a grant last year that really helped us get here and do all the tours that we really wanted to do, so seeing more bands receive those would be amazing. 

Alongside that, in general, artists should get a bit more of the profit. You put all this hard work in and I know it’s just the industry, but you see what’s left and it’s just peanuts. That can really be a bit disheartening. Not that that’s why you do it, but if you are getting paid, it can be sustainable and you can do it for your whole life. That’s unfortunately not the case at the moment. 

Talking of Australia, there seems to be a particularly exciting crop of fresh talent there at the moment, especially in the alternative world. Who are some Aussie bands or artists that you think our readers should check out? Is there anyone in there you think people are sleeping on? 

I feel like I’m definitely gonna miss people here, but here’s some amazing artists:

Spike Fuck, if you haven’t heard of them, they’re incredible.

kisses.

Mouseatouille.

C.O.F.F.I.N. They’re from Sydney. Sort of harder rock. That’s a real experience to see them play.

There’s also The Belair Lip Bombs.

Yeah there’s heaps of crazy good artists coming out from Australia. It’s just getting their music over here and into this scene. 

For anyone travelling over to Australia and over to Melbourne, do you have any music venues or local spots you’d recommend to people? 

The John Curtin hotel. That’s awesome. Also, The Tote’s pretty iconic. 

I mean, there’s heaps of small venues. A lot of venues shut down in Covid, but then it’s starting to slowly build back up. 

You can sort of just take a walk around the streets in Melbourne and pop into any bar and most nights there’ll be some form of music.

What’s next for Floodlights after this tour? Dare I ask if you’ve started working on album four while touring ‘Underneath‘?

We’ve got a new song that we recorded just before we came over. It’s been getting mixed while we’ve been in the van, so we’ve been listening to them and then giving feedback on the road. So keep an eye out for that sometime soon. 

Then we’re going to go home and keep writing. We’ve half-written another album already. So yeah, we’ll just keep working on that and see what happens. 

Check out ‘Underneath’ below and read our review here. Spoiler: we think it’s fucking brilliant.

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