Interview : Flashguns
The Little Stalkers : You're pretty young, and still at school, so how do you deal with your education and your musical career ?
Sam Felix Johnston (vocals, guitar) : We don't, really. We play on weekends, but we have to turn down a lot of shows, which is really frustrating. Especially like now, we've got our A-levels coming up, so we've had to come on a hiatus a little bit. But in a month we’re done, and then we're free, and we're just going to do some music.
TLS : Do you study music at school ?
Sam Felix : I did music AS level, and I got a B – odd enough. But it was quite hard ! Lots of classical music and stuff. But Olly (Scanlon), our keyboardist, is a very experienced young man. He played in the National Youth Orchestra, so he's got a lot of musical background.
TLS : And are you planning to study music or to give up school to focus on the band ?
Sam Felix : No … I think we're going to have a gap-year, to do the band as it is. And then think about university after that year.
Giles (drums) : See what happens …
Sam Felix : Yeah, obviously see how it is going, and if the ball is really rolling, then we might think about postponing uni a for little bit.
TLS : So, how are things going at the moment ? I saw you’re playing Hoxton, pretty hype place !
Sam Felix : We've actually played that place before, quite a while ago – it was one of our first shows. (Oh my god, there's a whole crowd coming out, shhhhhhhhhhhh !!!! We're doing an interview !!!!) Hoxton is going to be really good, it's a great venue. We're going to play the 93 Feet East on Wednesday (April 9th) as well, with Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle club - good friend of ours. We're recording a few demos – the plan is to release a cover single before the year is out.
TLS : Have you been approached by labels ?
Sam Felix : Basically, we've got a kind of informal thing going on which is like a sub-label, at the moment – maybe with the hope of releasing an album next year. We've been having a lot of interest from different kinds of majors, but our manager, Ferdy, he's like “just wait, just keep it focused on the music, see how it goes and wait a couple of months” at the moment.
TLS : Ferdy told me you had “good songs in the pipeline” and “enough material to record an album” – is this true ?
Sam Felix : I've got about 2 or 3 albums worth of stuff going on in my head, which is kind of frustrating at times, but obviously as I kept writing as we kind of learnt how to write as a band and stuff, it's really progressing, so, I mean if the chance arises, then we’re going to make music for a very long time.
TLS : You just said “I have material for 2 or 3 albums” – do you write all the lyrics and the music ?
Sam Felix : I'll write it and then I'll kinda think on it like, elistically and then we come together, put our heads together and then it becomes more of a team effort. And we build it up from there.
TLS : Is it your first band, by the way ?
(They all laugh)
Sam Felix : Waoh, no ! Giles and me have been playing for about five years together now, but it was just – we played a couple of gigs at school and stuff, you know, Battle of the Bands, stuff like that ! Jokes - but I think that's how we really got into that. But I think in the first band we had, we'd never thought we'd be playing gigs – it was just for fun, when we were bored at boarding school.
TLS : What are your influences ?
Sam Felix : Crikey !
Giles : Too many !
Sam Felix : With the synth element and the kind of sounds that we create, I think you got like a big eighties, like a kind of post-punk synth kind of pop. We're really big fans of The Smiths – people say I sound like Morrissey – and The Cure, but then I'm also a massive Killers fan, which we're excited to see at Reading ! We like Mystery Jets, Biffy Clyro – they have a more heavier element which we don't try to avoid, and a couple of songs that we are writing at the moment have got some really powerful choruses.
Ollie : But we also have influences in terms not of music. What people do …
Sam Felix : Yeah, we've got a lot of non-musical inspirations, but kind of like, a lot of motivation, especially in the bands that are really breaking through at the moment. I think we all have broaden musical taste, I like jazz and blues ... Olly plays classical, stuff like that … We’re quite eclectic. I think you can hear our influences in the sound we have, but then at the same time I think we probably have something like, you know, the X-factor – the Flash kind of sound, definitely.
TLS : What are your aspirations ?
Sam Felix : 2009 is going to be our year, I reckon.
Olly : We hope !
Sam Felix : My ultimate dream is to play Paris and Barcelona, and ultimately I'd love to play New York.
TLS : Why Paris ?
Sam Felix : I love the town, and I love the way the kids and the people there, approach the music. And they have a really open mind.
TLS : I saw you have Katty from Plastiscines on your TopFriends on Myspace – what’s the connection ?
Sam Felix : I think she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. That’s pretty much the connection. Because Plastiscines … Errr …
TLS : Well, musically speaking, it's pretty poor.
Sam Felix : (Laughs) Yeah. But I mean Katty … I kind of stalk her a little bit. Anyway. I'd love to go to Europe, I love Europe. We played a couple of 14+ gigs, you know the All Ages kind of thing going on at the moment ? The crowd there … They're the only where the crowd is really into the music. And that is for me the thing which makes us love it – when you just have these kids who are appreciating music in the same way than we're appreciating music. That gives us the biggest source of satisfaction, when kids just dance to our music : crowd-surfing, etc – I just love that. It's just got that element of surprise, and that's what I want more – a lot more crowds !
TLS : So is “Flashguns : 2009's next big thing” the final word of this interview ?
Sam Felix : Yeah ! I mean just look out for us in 2009, but, sure !
CB. & JT.
