George Ward
Freelance journalist and online editor for CLUNK. Can be found out and about in Bristol, finding cheap records or having a pint on King Street.
With their new album ‘Between You And Me’ out on Friday, we chatted with Flyte about their stripped back new approach and collaborations
All the way back in 2014, I went to my first festival, the lovely Blissfields, and saw my first live bands too. One of these bands was Flyte, a four-piece indie band with gorgeous 4-part harmonies, catchy indie pop melodies and clear chemistry, even through the eyes of a 14-year-old me. 3 years later, the band would go on to release their debut album ‘The Loved Ones,’ featuring Flyte experimenting with a wide range of genres, from indie to folk to synth pop.
Now a duo, Flyte are rapidly approaching the release of their fourth album ‘Between You and Me,’ out on 29th August via Nettwerk. Compared to their previous 3 albums, it is clear that Flyte have taken a different approach here, trying their best not to overthink their songwriting. Two weeks before the band were due to record the new album, Flyte had no songs at all, despite their producer and studio time being booked and ready to go.
“We had to change up our methods completely because normally we’ll ponder over things and we’ll take time and whittle,” Will tells me, “It was really an experiment for me and Nick to learn whether or not we could do it in the first place and I think because of that, there’s a real immediacy and a freshness to the songwriting and a very under-thought aspect to the songs themselves.”
As songwriters, Will and Nick have often found themselves dragging out the process to an agonising degree, but as listeners, they found themselves wanting the opposite of those they admire: “As consumers, we don’t want creators to overthink things. We want them to spill their guts out as quickly as possible and have a look at what that looks like”.
This stripped back approach has led to the most consistent-sounding Flyte record yet. Will describes it as “the easiest one to listen to” but is quick to add, jokingly “I’m not describing it as ‘easy listening’!”
On ‘Between You and Me,’ Flyte worked with producer Ethan Johns, who encouraged the band to continue their stripped back ethos to the recording of the album as well as the songwriting. As opposed to insisting on real strings or other orchestral instrumentation, Johns encouraged the duo to experiment with Mellotrons or Solina Strings.
“There is something more interesting about hearing the intention of orchestration or the intention of big sounding lavish ideas translated through very restricted means,” Will explains, listing Kraftwerk as an example of how ‘artificial’ sounds can sound almost orchestral in the right hands, rather than being a lesser alternative. “Having real strings has got a certain hit-you-in-the-stomach emotion, but having things that are a bit shit can be kind of haunting and sad in that way,” Nick adds.
Luckily, there was no tension between band and producer, with Johns feeling relieved that the band were ready to fully commit to his production vision of the project. Nick describes the process of working with a producer as “giving someone your baby. It’s like, “Here’s my baby. I don’t know you, but look after it, please.” And look after it, he did.
This theme of trusting their collaborators came up a lot in our conversation. As well as Johns, Flyte learnt to entirely trust their other collaborators, both musical and visual. On the album cover, masterfully shot by photographer Aidan Cochrane, the band were just as surprised as you may have been the first time they saw it: “We wanted to give the creative reins over to the individual people working on it, rather than wanting to hold everything very, very tightly.”
“We gave (Cochrane) the lyrics before we gave him the music because we don’t make demos or anything so you can’t listen to the songs until the record’s been made,” Will explains. “The way he did it was fascinating. It was a very misty morning on an open field… and we had this wonderful body model with a very kind of classical body and he posed for the picture in front of a medium format film camera.
“He posed in the first position and he was heavily exposed by a really intense light, which made him overexposed and become this astral glowing man, and then he posed again in the other position, but this time with the light lowered.”
Much like their previous musical collaboration with Laura Marling, Flyte had complete faith in Aimee Mann this time around, who features on the track ‘Alabaster’.
“One of the benefits of being a duo is that it allows for all this room for other people to come in, not just on the records, but in the live sphere and the writing sphere. I think the result has been an immense kind of creative renaissance for us.
Bringing people as heavy hitting as Laura and Aimee and Madison Cunningham and Billy Martin and all these really, really seriously legendary people just serves as another reason to be absolutely thrilled at what we’re doing and just how silly lucky we are,” Will shares, clearly immensely grateful for these opportunities.
As well as the new album, out on Friday, Flyte have an upcoming tour, heading across the UK before tackling the US and EU in October and November. “We’ve sort of been honing a lot into this tour. We have our own amazing amps that have been made specifically for this tour, all these incredible players with these incredible instruments that we’re sort of specifically using,” Nick excitedly shares.
While the band has certainly developed since their debut, it’s refreshing to hear that they haven’t left their earlier material behind in their efforts to strip back their sound. Will tells me “The best thing about the live show now is that you can get all the worlds. You’ve got this four piece band for male vocal harmony that the first record was, and then the drama of the second one and the third and fourth with the collaborations and the reduction in the musical components.“
Though the core band now consists only of Taylor and Hill, their touring band still contains four male voices, leaving opportunities for rawer duos, guest appearances and the lush male harmonies that fans have grown to love on tracks such as ‘Cathy Come Home’ and ‘Archie, Marry Me’. The latter, a cover of the classic Alvvays track, was originally uploaded on their social media without too much thought at all; it wasn’t until Flyte’s label encouraged the band to include it on their debut album that they finally, reluctantly agreed.
However, 8 years on from the cover, it remains a firm fan favourite, that the band have grown to take on as a staple in their set, despite it being “really, really difficult!” Though Flyte have never had the chance to hear Alvvays‘ thoughts on their cover, they don’t seem to mind, instead getting a certain joy from the fact that their version is a “wildly different interpretation of a contemporary band, rather than covering an old classic”. Nick adds, jokingly, “I wonder if they think it’s rubbish”.
“For us, we’ve never had a hit, you know, so to some people, we’re the band that did that version of ‘Archie, Marry Me‘ or that record or that video we made with Florence Pugh. There are lots of different points of connection that people could have with us.
“So it keeps us on our toes for the shows because it’s like, “oh god, we’re going to disappoint someone,” Will explains. “We always hope that people coming to the shows for one reason will then leave liking it for many other reasons.“
After hearing the new album ‘Between You And Me,’ we’re sure you’ll have yet another reason to fall in love with Flyte. If you’re looking for advice for your first listen on Friday, know that producer Johns took the pressing of the vinyl especially seriously, ensuring this would be the perfect way to experience the LP.
“I think because it’s been so well engineered by him and it’s got such a lot of space in terms of frequency, it kind of allows for the physicality of the vinyl itself to sort of be an extra character in the way you hear it,” Will explains.
Nick, meanwhile, drifts away in a daydream: “Listen on vinyl, great headphones, through a great system in a nice armchair, with a fire…”
Will quickly brings him back to Earth: “The fire is too much. Get rid of the fire”.
“Yeah, get rid of the fire. It’s too fancy,” Nick agrees.
New album ‘Between You And Me’ is out on Friday via Nettwerk.
Listen to the singles here:
Catch Flyte at the following:
UK TOUR DATES:
Sept 09 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
Sept 11 – Bristol, UK @ Trinity
Sept 12 – Nottingham, UK @ Rescue Rooms
Sept 13 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
Sept 15 – York, UK @ The Crescent
Sept 16 – Newcastle, UK @ The Grove
Sept 17 – Glasgow, UK @ St. Lukes
Sept 19 – Belfast, UK @ Empire
Sept 20 – Dublin, IRE @ Button Factory
Sept 23 – Liverpool, UK @ Arts Club Theatre
Sept 24 – Leeds, UK @ Stylus
Sept 25 – Oxford, UK @ O2 Academy
Sept 26 – London, UK @ O2 Kentish Town Forum
NORTH AMERICA TOUR DATES:
Oct 06 – Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl
Oct 07 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
Oct 08 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Oct 10 – San Francisco, CA @ Brick and Mortar
Oct 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
Oct 13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room
Oct 14 – Denver, CO @ Ophelia’s
Oct 16 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s
Oct 17 – Fort Worth, TX @ Tulips
Oct 18 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
Oct 22 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East
Oct 23 – Asheville, NC @ Eulogy
Oct 24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Oct 25 – Durham, NC @ Motorco
Oct 27 – Washington, DC @ Pearl St
Oct 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Oct 29 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Oct 31 – Boston, MA @ The Red Room at Cafe 939
Nov 01 – Montreal, QC @ Bar De Ritz
Nov 02 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake Underground
Nov 05 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Nov 06 – Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club
EU Tour Dates:
Nov 20 – Bern, CH @ ISC Club Bern
Nov 30 – Munich, DE @ Strom
Dec 01– Cologne, DE @ Club Volta
Dec 02 – Hamburg, DE @ Bahnhof Pauli
Dec 04 – Oslo, NOR @ Parkteatret
Dec 05 – Malmo, SE @ Plan B
Dec 06 – Stockholm, SE @ Nalen
Dec 07 – Berlin, DE @ Hole 44
Dec 10 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix
Dec 11 – Amsterdam, NLD @ Melkweg
Dec 12 – Nijmegen, NLD @ Doornroosje
Dec 13 – Paris, FR @ Les Etoiles