Flyte are the British duo of songwriters Will Taylor and Nicolas Hill, who started creating together in grade school before signing to a major label (Island Records), leaving that for indie labels (Nettwerk), working with producers such as Glyn Johns, and collaborating with the likes of The Staves, Laura Marling, and Madison Cunningham. We talk with them about a lot of the inner workings of their songwriting practice and approach to record making, classic British emotional repression, coping, creative confusion, commodification, and a whole lot more.
Flyte are the British duo of songwriters Will Taylor and Nicolas Hill, who started creating together in grade school before signing to a major label (Island Records), leaving that for indie labels (Nettwerk), working with producers such as Ethan Johns, and collaborating with the likes of The Staves, Laura Marling, and Madison Cunningham. We talk with them about a lot of the inner workings of their songwriting practice and approach to record making, classic British emotional repression, coping, creative confusion, commodification, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:20] Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are on episode 128. This week we're featuring our conversation with the UK Band Flyte.
[00:00:28] Aaron: Yeah. Flyte is the, songwriter duo of Will Taylor and Nick Hill, who both met as, we lads as they would say at a council run theater camp.
One that was. More so for their parents to get them outta the house on the weekend than, uh, actually musical theater nerds on their account. But from there they played in separate bands and eventually started writing songs together. Their first record of song that kind of got a bunch of traction over in the uk and they signed Two Island records, which they've put out a few records with them some of which are produced by Ethan Johns.
They are critically acclaimed and they've collaborated with people like the Staves, Laura Marley. Madison Cunningham they are working on or have worked on a musical in London as well as writing for other artists.
[00:01:12] Michaela: we talked a lot about songwriting in this conversation more so than other episodes.
I think we talked about the intimacy of collaboration, writing itself, being outlets for emotions that are. More generally culturally repressed, specifically in the way that where they are from and how they were brought up as well as the nuts and bolts of writing for a record. It was like a bit more kind of craft.
Mm-hmm. Heavy. But we also got to talk about being on the conveyor belt of the major label industry side of music What a detriment that can be, and finding your way back to your own path and the bravery it takes to be yourself and make the records and the songs that you wanna make.
[00:01:51] Aaron: Yeah. Maybe we spent so much time talking about songwriting 'cause we've been listening to a new podcast that our friends at the bluegrass situation told us about.
It's called Finding Lucinda and it follows singer songwriter Isme while they trace the roots of their musical hero, our musical hero. Uh, everyone's musical hero. Lucinda Williams. Isme takes a road trip from Texas to Louisiana to here in Tennessee to meet Lou's early collaborators and dig through family archives and visit places that Lucinda got her start.
They have conversations with Charlie Sexton, buddy Miller Mary Gaucher, who is a past guest of ours here, and finally available on the Bluegrass Situation Podcast Network. Wherever you listen, which is probably right here where you're listening to us. And in addition, there is a Finding Luc end of film that is coming out this season fall of 2025.
[00:02:41] Michaela: Yeah. Before you finish this episode, we would so greatly appreciate if you would go to the link in our bio and check out our Patreon. Patreon is the one and only place that you can financially support this podcast. Even for a small endeavor like ours, it does have a financial cost and we greatly appreciate, help in sharing the toll of that financial cost. some of the questions in each episode come from our patrons. They get early access to find out who we will be interviewing and that community is ever evolving. And we really appreciate that support.
[00:03:15] Aaron: and if hearing about that, finding Lucinda film.
Excited you and you are a visual person. We too are in the visual medium. We are on YouTube. All of our episodes are there. We have playlists of topics that you can search through to find one of the 127 other conversations we've had, and we invite you to dig through all of them, spend a lot of time with us.
But without further ado, here is our conversation with Will and Nick, better known as Flight.
[00:03:39] Flyte: well Thank you then for taking time out of your rehearsal time. Yeah. Preparing.
we're finished.
[00:03:44] Michaela: Oh, perfect. Nice.
Okay, day.
great. How long, how many hour rehearsals do you guys do?
[00:03:49] Flyte: We probably spent about eight hours a day, maybe 10. '
[00:03:53] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:03:54] Flyte: it's expensive to rehearse so,
[00:03:55] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:03:55] Flyte: get it all like fired up, get the engines fired up. So
[00:03:58] Aaron: for sure.
[00:03:59] Flyte: make most of it.
[00:04:00] Michaela: Do you
like rehearsing?
[00:04:01] Flyte: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not as much playing as you'd think and it's a lot more like admin, admin, like making sure the cables are all working
[00:04:09] Aaron: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:04:10] Flyte: and making all the pedal board all meat a lot of boring stuff really.
Once we actually managed to get playing about 40 minutes ago,
[00:04:17] Michaela: Oh, nice. Yeah. So,
[00:04:19] Flyte: But tomorrow we'll come in early and we'll like
play all day and it'll be great.
[00:04:22] Aaron: yeah. Are you guys doing like full tech and production rehearsals then too? Do you guys travel with front of house and
monitor and all that?
[00:04:28] Flyte: This is very much like a tech. We are here in the, in the land of Marshall Stacks
[00:04:32] Aaron: Yeah,
[00:04:32] Flyte: rehearsal.
[00:04:33] Flyte: we have our own little humble space back in Hackney where
[00:04:37] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:04:37] Flyte: we will like, get the band together and, out what everyone's playing and, Yeah, this is a lot of tech stuff.
[00:04:42] Michaela: we both love Hackney. Yep. That's, it's our favorite, favorite part of London.
[00:04:46] Flyte: you're saying the right things. where do you, where are
[00:04:49] Aaron: are you guys
[00:04:49] Flyte: now?
[00:04:50] Aaron: we're in Nashville, Tennessee.
[00:04:52] Flyte: Yeah.
[00:04:52] Michaela: you guys are four records in right?
[00:04:56] Flyte: As of Friday. Yeah, as of last Friday.
[00:04:58] Aaron: Okay. Yeah. Congrats.
[00:04:59] Flyte: Thank you. Thanks.
[00:05:00] Michaela: Can I ask how old you guys are?
[00:05:02] Flyte: I'm 34.
[00:05:03] Michaela: Okay.
[00:05:04] Flyte: I'm around that age.
[00:05:05] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:06] Flyte: Oh my God. back.
[00:05:09] Aaron: you guys have been friends since you were kids? Yeah.
[00:05:12] Flyte: Yeah, since we, were like prepubescent, in like a council run, musical theater, company.
[00:05:18] Aaron: Wow. I love that.
[00:05:19] Flyte: not that we were like prominent child musical theater actors. We were just like children that our parents were trying to rid of on a Sunday
and give them some space.
Like, do
this.
[00:05:30] Aaron: Yeah. Here, check this out.
[00:05:31] Flyte: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:32] Aaron: Have you guys been making your own music together for about that long?
[00:05:36] Flyte: no. So the story with Nick and I is that we were actually in different bands as teenagers and then we pied together when we were kind of in our early twenties.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, And do you guys consider other friends still? Or does like having to
[00:05:51] Aaron: run a business together? Yeah,
[00:05:54] Flyte: This is all for show. There's like a glass screen here that you can't see.
[00:05:57] Michaela: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:58] Flyte: we are the best of friends. Yeah. And it's amazing how that can somehow sustain itself. think that bands like, as in, three to four piece, you know, and onwards so hard to have a kind of an equilibrium, a kind of a good balance.
You can, certainly have one, but very difficult for all the, elements of life. Not to throw it out of whack eventually.
[00:06:16] Flyte: But there's something about two people is,
something manageable about it.
[00:06:19] Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. And so I take it then you guys hire out the band from there, or have you worked with the same people for a while
[00:06:28] Flyte: I was just waving just then to Blackaby. He was just leaving. It's a guy called Will Blackaby.
[00:06:32] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:06:33] Flyte: mainstay in the Flight live band, and he is a great artist too.
[00:06:35] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:36] Flyte: called Blackaby and he just got a, new drummer too. Yeah. Blackaby, he's kind of on the keys and guitar and he's the kind of utility
[00:06:43] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:43] Flyte: he is got a beautiful voice so he can harmonize with me and Nick who harmonize a lot together already.
And then we've the new live member. We were just talking about you. Yeah. All good stuff. Don't worry. Um, the new edition is a guy called Roy Lowe, who was a family friend of mine actually. he's a young guy. He is 20 years old. I met him when, at my mom's wedding.
He was an old nipper. He was a like 14-year-old or something with scuffy little ginger hair. but has been drumming since like a little kid. His dad an artist called Nick Low.
[00:07:16] Aaron: Oh yeah.
[00:07:17] Flyte: i've met Nick before, ' we both put out records on Yup. Rock the, indie label in the us. So I met him at a party at the label Heads house in North Carolina. we talked. A lot about Italy, because I lived there when I was in high school, and I guess he likes to vacation there a lot, but he was wonderful and so lovely and kind.
[00:07:38] Michaela: And his whole band was,
[00:07:39] Flyte: That
makes sense. I mean,
[00:07:40] Michaela: yeah.
[00:07:41] Flyte: beautiful man. And so is Roy and he's got his dad's musical jeans obviously,
[00:07:46] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:47] Flyte: was playing with a bunch of old Cs in a skiffle band when he was like 11,
[00:07:51] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:07:51] Flyte: got this, extraordinary level of kind of musical connection to almost anything.
So like he's just just slipped in so naturally and perfectly, and he sings So we've got our kind of four-part harmony, thing that we very much had on the first So we're able to cover all of the four records really. We've kind of got everything we need now with those four.
And our guy, Bob led me to, who's been working the last five years out of real World Studios. That's Peter Gabriel Studio in the West Country. used to be our sound guy, and then he got gobbled up by Real World Studios 'cause he's so handy. So
[00:08:23] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:23] Flyte: like, you know, maybe changed to the radiator, just like fixing, desks, fixing consoles, fixing tape machines and stuff.
[00:08:31] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:08:31] Flyte: finally left that job now. And so we've got him back and he's come back with a vengeance. He's built all our amplifiers, he's built our pedals. He's built the di, we're putting the bass and the
[00:08:42] Aaron: Mm. Mm-hmm.
[00:08:43] Flyte: and it's all sounding just maybe, yeah. just feels like we've finally the thing that we've always wanted to have.
Yeah. Just this
[00:08:51] Aaron: Ooh. Yeah.
[00:08:52] Flyte: organic cohesion,
you know?
Mm-hmm.
[00:08:54] Aaron: yeah. That helps. I've seen pictures of that control room, and it must take a lot to get somebody outta there. 'cause it's completely unreal.
[00:09:00] Flyte: Oh God. Yeah. we were doing a masterclass for Berkeley
[00:09:04] Michaela: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:09:05] Flyte: with Ethan Johns and Clin Johns too.
maybe two months ago. And we'd actually never been there before. Beautiful Summer's day. Just in that place. It's like, it's this ridiculous like, fuck off,
[00:09:15] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:09:16] Flyte: Swans everywhere.
And, you know, and they have like a, like a French man cooking the meals
[00:09:21] Aaron: What?
[00:09:22] Flyte: long or.
[00:09:23] Aaron: Yeah, so that's like something that I kind of wanted to touch on. You guys, being from the uk, and I would assume touring predominantly there, and in Europe, when we're over there, like the level of just the kind of baseline level of hospitality on that side of the Atlantic is much higher
[00:09:39] Flyte: we have a different take on that.
[00:09:41] Aaron: Okay. Okay.
[00:09:42] Flyte: well,
certainly when you're in mainland Europe,
really feels like that.
the Germans, the Dutch Swiss, everyone, they just have like a, I think they consider the quality of life like a basic human kind of,
Right.
You know, and
[00:09:56] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:09:57] Flyte: oh, you should have a nice meal You are here to
[00:09:59] Aaron: And you've traveled.
[00:09:59] Flyte: people
[00:10:00] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah,
[00:10:01] Flyte: Must be tired, you must be hungry.
you get to Birmingham in the uk and they just it's like a packers of Walker's, crisps and four warm curling.
And they, and they throw the crisp in your face.
[00:10:10] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:10:11] Flyte: One moldy banana.
[00:10:12] Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:12] Flyte: and maybe it's gone a little better than that, but we certainly felt when we'd been around America for the first, it was quite a while ago now, but we did quite a sort of extensive run of, the states and then came back to the UK to carry on in the uk on, the road.
And it felt to us like the opposite of what you said, like Oh, interesting.
Like,
I mean, hospitality's interesting. I think more just a bit meaning, isn't it? Here in the uk it's just, oh God. Oh, and there's, nowhere nice to eat. There's a kebab house again than, you know. like I say, Cardiff disparagingly, I there nothing, we love carding, nothing against Cardiff or Birmingham the Welsh, but like I, I would extend that to almost everywhere in the uk. It's just that, oh man, you, we just, everything's gotten so g Grotty great. Yeah.
were at the nine 30 club and we were at like Meow Wolf and we were at kind of interesting cool places I think on that trip.
So maybe it was, sense of adventure, maybe
[00:11:06] Michaela: like, tour in America, I feel like is informed by what size club and venue you're playing. But I feel like in the small club world, the UK feels very similar to America of just like, maybe they probably didn't fulfill your rider. You're not gonna get a meal. I remember when I toured Scandinavia for the first time, I was like in shock that they provided like a nice meal and hotel rooms.
I was like, wait, what? I don't have to pay out of pocket and like every single night of this tour. but also the US is so massive. Mm-hmm. That mm-hmm. I mean, touring the West Coast to me feels like the conditions can be anything. 'cause it's just so beautiful that it's like fine versus touring parts of, I don't know.
Toledo, Ohio comes up for me of a, historically bad place to tour. So it's different. You don't go to Toledo. But being a professional musician, there's so many different compartments and phases of like the home time where you're, writing, if you write at home, the, in the studio time, the promotion time, the album release time, the touring time, and you guys are kind of in the thick.
we typically say for this podcast that we prefer to talk to people when they're in the kind of off cycle time.
[00:12:21] Aaron: Publicists hate us,
[00:12:23] Michaela: But publicists reach out to us when you're in promotion time so you're kind of in the time that like. We try to talk to people in the opposite time of this, but can you speak to what this period of just putting a record out, preparing to be on the road, what that feels like for you guys?
Is this a specific time of the cycle that you love? how does touring impact you personally and what that is like in this particular moment for you?
[00:12:48] Flyte: when we're in the downtime bit, we should come back on 'cause, you know,
we can cut out the middleman this time.
[00:12:53] Michaela: Oh, yes, please.
[00:12:54] Flyte: ' I like that premise and I can completely understand why you prefer that. And I completely understand where publicists hate you.
[00:12:59] Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:01] Flyte: I think the phase we've just been through as in like the, purely promotional, you know, we haven't traveled
[00:13:06] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
[00:13:07] Flyte: haven't really gotten, you know, save for some you know, like an album party we did. And the odd thing here and there, we haven't really been getting out in front of crowds either.
So we've been kind of that little chunk of, time when is coming up, record's been made, we would love to have been writing new songs and being inspired and exciting in this, bit. But really there's no space in your head for it because,
you're just doing everything that comes with putting a record out and promoting a
[00:13:35] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:35] Flyte: And my to that is really down to like the, I think the diminishment of love for the thing you've made because you are, you are, you are having to think about it. I guess I'll give an example. It's like you made this album and you made it purely to make a record.
when you are taking it home and listening to it or you're playing it to a friend you're playing a whole song and then you might play a, another whole song,
[00:13:57] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:58] Flyte: play, you know, sit down and listen to the whole record. And you start promoting it, you just hear these little 22nd, ten second clips of what you've made and suddenly the value of everything just sort of plummets.
And it's and, and it sort of becomes this sort of, chunk of content.
Yeah you, you have to say goodbye to the art and the thing that you love. Yeah. Like, Here you are wild and say hello. It's a social media thing that we did to promote this. So it's a bit, and it's a bit so soul destroying,
but I do think that once we get on the road and on Wednesday, will all be kind of washed away.
Mm-hmm. Because we'll be suddenly in front of people, playing in a long form way. and we're playing purely to our own audiences. We're doing 50 shows in a row,
[00:14:38] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:39] Flyte: be headline shows. They'll all be the same gig over and over, you know, we are not on a backing track or we're not using any strict sort of set rules you know, so we can improvise a lot we can be incredibly loose and creative and will return to the art, It's just that in-between thing where you kind of go how many digits are on this, play count
how many people engaged with that 15 second clip of that bit of that song and what's the most like effective 15 seconds in that song and oh God, should we have thought about what the most effective 15 seconds would've been while we were making The
[00:15:12] Michaela: Oh my God. Mm-hmm.
[00:15:14] Flyte: you know,
and it's like, and obviously all of that is sort of version of mania, but I'll be glad to leave that little phase behind.
And I must say that is kind of the prevailing feeling of, That bit we've just come out of,
I think the best bit is when in the downtime and we just go to the house and we just, every day we just get together. We just spend four hours and if we write a song, we go to the pub and celebrate.
And if we don't, then we go home and we try again tomorrow. It's, an absolutely lovely time to, to do it.
the swelling feeling of that seasonal shift of ah, creative times the promise of the new is returning.
Mm-hmm.
[00:15:48] Aaron: Yeah. Do you guys write like that exclusively, like always together or is it start separate and bring in and go from there?
[00:15:57] Flyte: last record, certainly we were really getting together like a nine to five, almost. But more of a kind of 11 till four, 'cause we try not to spend too long chasing the dragon on that
[00:16:07] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:08] Flyte: feeling. And the longer we've done it together the, shorter the time is, allocated to the working
[00:16:13] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:14] Flyte: Not out of laziness, I mean, obviously out of laziness no, out of, out of like learning But anyway the, kind of like evenings for me, if Billy, my partner Billy is a touring musician, so we'll be away a lot of the times and we, live together, so there'll be a, kind of an empty flat, sometimes
Full of guitars, sometimes kind of confusingly tuned guitars. And it's in the evening maybe Nick and I are meeting up regularly, that sometimes like little magic things happen But it's really a, it's a really a co-writing thing. Absolutely. And we write for other people too. And we have other projects. We are kind of working on a West End musical So there's lots to get together and do. And it feels a bit more timan esque these days, which is
[00:16:56] Michaela: Oh, nice.
[00:16:56] Aaron: do you guys approach those outside writing projects and musical projects as flight or as individuals writing together, that
makes sense?
[00:17:05] Flyte: Bit of both. Yeah. I mean, We didn't put our name on the, play did we? As flight? We think we'd put it as our individual names. Mm-hmm. with the, with the play, we just don't want it to be like band does play.
[00:17:15] Aaron: Yeah. for sure.
[00:17:16] Flyte: we're just, we are just wanting to do this.
You know,
[00:17:18] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:18] Flyte: do with like, same with the co-writing. you know, 'cause we haven't done that. Kind of Get a publishing deal and climb the ladder of the writing
[00:17:25] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
[00:17:26] Flyte: is a big thing in, your town.
when we do jobs, it's often because people liking the flight records. So we do kind of go in as flight a little
[00:17:34] Aaron: Right. Mm-hmm. whether you use flight publicly, but like for yourselves, are you able to put behind you that experience of writing together for flight, for this project that is your musical thing and right past that, or does it always kind of come from the same spot?
[00:17:49] Flyte: I think we're not
like exercising a different muscle, really. when people write with us, they come to World's Flat and we just do it like we always do it.
[00:17:56] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:56] Flyte: most comfortable state. And you know, we don't use any computers or anything, it's just sort of guitars, voices or pianos and voices and just sort of, we write a song, we finish a song.
don't go home with a demo, you just go home with a song. Publishers hate us, publicists hate you, pub publishers hate us. Yeah.
there was one project that I'd done early this year in, Norway with a pop artist called Sigrid. And that was like very different. Knit wasn't there
[00:18:20] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:21] Flyte: like a midi keyboard and a laptop and stuff.
[00:18:24] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:24] Flyte: I definitely like learned how out of water. I'm in that situation, but like,
[00:18:28] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:29] Flyte: learned a great deal. And every time we, Nick and I, or I've gone into a situation like that, it's just cemented how important we feel our process is, which is to put song first and then production second.
[00:18:39] Michaela: I'm always so fascinated about, co-writing relationships and just the intimacy of songwriting when you write together. And sometimes that intimacy can come very easily with people that you don't have a relationship with at all. Like, if you just have a writing friendship or, you know, there's almost like a safety in digging deep because there isn't like deeper knowledge of each other outside of just the writing room.
And I'm curious for you guys, I've, read, especially your current record is very, personal. And, the interviews I read were, was talking about like self work and stuff, and I'm wondering how that plays out in your approach to writing together when you guys are friends, within the context of writing for your soul satisfaction and your internal work.
And also being a band that is a business that is going to try and sell it. Is that ever a thought or does it just naturally come from, we write as a way to self investigate, self synthesize, self express. Are those ever conversations or is it just kind of an organic process for you?
[00:19:50] Flyte: Incredible question.
Many layers to that question. I think a pretty straightforward answer, which is that we are not really saying anything out loud. We're certainly not thinking about what or why or what for. It's just what comes out really.
If there was a different thing that came out, we would say that's what it is. But pretty powerless I'd say in the writing phase.
[00:20:10] Aaron: Okay.
[00:20:11] Flyte: I think we'd spoke about this a few days ago about kind of a need really when the good stuff is coming.
I mean, there's a reason we are named after, you know, a character in a very stuffy English novel. that we love it remains of the day or kind of Jane Austen and all that stuff so much is because that's maybe where our mo lies.
It's just like complete asset, British emotional repression.
[00:20:35] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:36] Flyte: so it's really our only opportunity is songwriting.
[00:20:39] Aaron: Ooh.
[00:20:40] Flyte: And sometimes we won't know what a song is about until it's finished or even six months to a year later and it's like, oh yeah. 'cause it's so,
[00:20:47] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:48] Flyte: it was soly shoved down.
[00:20:50] Aaron: Yeah. Is that something that reveals itself in the studio, or is that something that might reveal. In the face that you're heading into now, when it's like night 10 of a tour, the the drew maybe, and you're in the middle of the song and you're like, oh This is what it's about.
[00:21:05] Flyte: I think
sometimes we might have been that slow.
[00:21:07] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:21:07] Flyte: Sometimes it's years and it's like, oh, this, sometimes it takes on a different meaning about something that's
[00:21:11] Aaron: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:21:11] Flyte: you now. It's like, well, that's kind of amazing. And maybe it had less of a meaning, when you actually wrote it.
It's an interesting thing.
I think that's the sign of a good, song if it's prophetic and can adapt in terms of what it means to you. But I do think that also there are some very clear and blatant things that one, one is feeling and that a song is required to tell you,
[00:21:29] Michaela: I am fascinated by just how context and culture and all of the variables around us, how it informs our own creative practices and like that you said, being specifically where you're from and the culture that you're from, that it's like emotional repression. So that songwriting is your chance to connect and express these feelings and that sometimes you don't even know.
how conscious of that. Are you guys, or is that also something that you don't wanna talk about that much? Like in the kind of context of emotional repression of like, let's leave it in the songs. Let's not talk about the emotional process of the songs or the really underlying emotion that's being expressed in the song.
[00:22:15] Flyte: we're articulating it to you
[00:22:16] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:17] Flyte: not um, mystery. We're not in, denial or anything, you know, and I have, I, I see a weekly therapist
[00:22:22] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:23] Flyte: very interested in help and improvement and a, very difficult, background in lots of ways.
So there's just like a lot of practical things to just stay on top there. I'm all very aware of all those things. you know, and we've been writing songs since we were little, boys. Um, Maybe because of that, you know, and it's just a very familiar coping mechanism.
even after all that, it's still just very difficult to actually feel difficult feelings and lean into them and actually be present in them or even sometimes understand emotions are, that kind of sat there right at the forefront.
there's a particular sense of and value and satisfaction when we do the music out and we feel like know, in our community, people similar to us are able to feel seen or, helped as well.
By just hearing, it is that we are articulating, people will, occasionally they'll tell us that know, it has helped
[00:23:13] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:14] Flyte: And so when that
[00:23:32] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:36] Flyte: the,
with the songs
[00:23:36] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:37] Flyte: sharing, we were never gonna be those kinds of writers that. Withheld things, or, you know, made, music and then didn't really put it out.
[00:23:43] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:43] Flyte: it was a lot to do with, putting it and selling it, selling it off into the, the ether.
[00:23:47] Aaron: Yeah. One thing I like to say is mold grows in the darkness. You know, it's like if you keep things kind of tucked away, it's, it's just going to continue to fester and multiply and pervade everything. But you kinda also just touch on something. Just another little question how much of your writing output ends up in the trash can and how much ends up, out in public.
[00:24:05] Flyte: Barely any, yeah. Lands in the trash, we're not super prolific. We don't write that many songs. No. But we try, when something good comes along, we just, we know. we go through sort of, what do we call it? We call it harvesting or something where we kind of like, start an idea and instantly we know about an hour later like, we shouldn't pursue this.
when we know, we know, and we just sort of, we don't pursue the thing. we wrote 12 songs for a 10 track album, I think, and two of them
really. Yeah.
Yeah.
if Nick and I have written 10 songs, we go, great.
[00:24:33] Aaron: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:24:35] Flyte: and we'll go and record it,
[00:24:36] Aaron: yeah,
[00:24:37] Flyte: I think that there's that. way I've seen people do it where they're like, I've got 40 songs in a Dropbox folder.
[00:24:43] Michaela: yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:24:43] Flyte: and then they'll be like, oh, I haven't got anything yet though. I haven't got an album yet.
[00:24:47] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:24:47] Flyte: have you not got an album with 40 songs? And it's like, maybe do less then and do them better.
[00:24:52] Michaela: Yeah. We, this question is so fascinating because we've interviewed, over conversations or something. Yeah. And, you know, we've talked to. Dan Reeder recently.
[00:25:02] Flyte: we just saw that. And I wanted to ask you about Dan Reer, we're huge. Dan Reer fans.
[00:25:07] Aaron: Yeah. Okay.
[00:25:08] Michaela: Dan is amazing. And he was just like, someone asked me to write a song every day, and I was like, why the fuck would I do that?
[00:25:15] Aaron: he, I mean, the way he explained it, he's like, you're striving for mediocrity at doing that. Like, It, it's guaranteed. there are, when, when you're focusing on, quantity over quality.
[00:25:23] Michaela: But there are other incredibly successful songwriters like Rodney Crow or Mary Gaer who all shared how much they wrote, that they would maybe like write a hundred songs and 40 would be okay.
[00:25:37] Aaron: well, even Dan said that it's about 10 to one on songs that he writes versus what. Is released.
he's a painter, as you guys know, and so he's like, it's a lot like my painting. Like I work really quickly. I know if it's working or not. So like, I think he's counting like the little scraps and tails that you were just saying like, after an hour, we know like, this isn't good.
put that as a tally of a song that doesn't make it,
[00:25:57] Flyte: someone gave me quite early on like the advice of finish the song no matter what
and I actually don't like that advice.
[00:26:03] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. See, it's it, from what you're saying. it's not my taste, but I heard Ed Sheeran say that in that his viewpoint is you need to get the shit out. So the good stuff can come. we've all been there. When a song's not working, it's like it feels laborious to finish it.
He's like, just keep going. Finish it. Push the block through the pipes, and then there's room for the good stuff to come through.
[00:26:24] Flyte: I think for us we've struggled sometimes to write songs, the lyrics of songs, and sometimes we can really be up against it, but we know, that it's good. That's why we
[00:26:32] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:33] Flyte: then when we finish that song, suddenly another song will just
yeah, I think a good example of that on like our third album when we were writing that.
'cause we, gave ourselves a much longer space of more like six months and say like solidly writing to write that
[00:26:45] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:46] Flyte: And there was a song called Tough Love that was really like giving us grief. we were having a meetup kind of very regularly just to bash
[00:26:53] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:54] Flyte: prod around in every dark corner see how we could get that song to work and in the, in the act of, doing that, other songs spark off.
Mm-hmm. Then
there was a song called Even On Bad Days on that album that we did, and it Took almost less time than it takes to listen to that song, to finish that
[00:27:08] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:08] Flyte: And I don't think there's a qualitative difference necessarily in, either of those songs.
but if it hadn't been this sort of big juggernaut tough love
mission if we weren't exercising Yeah. we'd done the workout
[00:27:19] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:27:19] Flyte: bad days was just free to pop
out.
[00:27:21] Michaela: the thing I love about all these different takes is that there's not one way to do it. and some songwriters feel, or artists feel like, is the best practice for me, but that will. Be very off-putting and not helpful for the next songwriter. And I think that's helpful, especially for younger artists to continually hear that, you know, you don't have to fit in or like, there's not some secret path to do it.
yes, you need discipline and, consistency and all that stuff, but finding your way is the way, it doesn't have to be the way that it's been done or that somebody else is doing it.
[00:27:57] Flyte: I love that.
you know, up writing songs from the ages eight to sort of 16 say. First of all, I never kind of went, I'm gonna write songs. I just started writing
[00:28:06] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:07] Flyte: I never once was like, I need to write, read a book or listen to a podcast on like how to write
[00:28:11] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:11] Flyte: But just being shit for ages and just learning and, trial, by fire. And I think that's probably what most people are doing. It's kind fun and interesting and transferable via conversation, the kind of pontificating the we
I
it's massively
useful.
[00:28:27] Aaron: Yeah, I think having that space to fail is so important. in just about any venture, which like, makes me wonder, like you guys got, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys basically like went viral and then signed to a major label.
Uh, What was that experience like on your creativity, on your wellbeing?
'cause I can imagine, especially in a situation where, like from the industry side, expectation need, we need to capitalize on this momentum, the match is lit. We need this to turn into a bonfire. That's my assumption. I personally have not gone viral, so I'm speaking only just from
stories I've heard. viral we went either, to be honest. But like we had a song called Faithless was on our first record. And we'd written that quite early on. We were really young, we weren't really young. We were in our early twenties. and at that point already, I remember feeling like, oh, I think we might gonna passed it.
[00:29:11] Michaela: Mm-hmm. we might have dropped the ball. I gotten too old. I guess 'cause we've been writing and, making, you know, silly. All albums after school and stuff, you know, made four albums, I think. Yeah. Already after school, 14 years into our career.
[00:29:25] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:29:25] Flyte: Um,
And um, taking it really seriously, in a pathetic sort of way.
I think that we were quite fully formed in terms of like creative entities at that point, we had absolutely zero. I'm not gonna speak for you. I had zero, run-ins with the music industry and had absolutely no idea how it worked. And, you know, there were some artists who were writing and for, you know, in the last few years who were about the age we were then or even younger, they seem to know how everything works.
It's like, well, how do you know how everything works? We just didn't know a goddamn thing and we had no followers and we had no, you know, this is late 20 13, 14. Mm-hmm. and there was a different landscape then there was, the UK at least, there was a huge. On, being on the radio not just played on the radio, but like on a playlist, you
[00:30:10] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:10] Flyte: BBC radio one playlist.
[00:30:12] Michaela: Yep.
[00:30:13] Flyte: you weren't doing that then you didn't really have a shot, and Spotify, the streaming was a thing, but I don't think it was being taken hugely seriously. Certainly not by the major labels. And we were signed by a major label really early on. And we had a record we could have made, and I wish they'd put us in with a producer, some like Ethan John, who produced our last record because we were a good band.
young and, game for it and ready to work. And we had, nice four part harmony arrangements and, decent songs at that point. Songs we still play. And if they'd just put us in front of, of no-nonsense producer who would've just been like, cool, this the raw elements of this thing.
Recorded it and put it straight out. I think it would've been a very different start for us in our
[00:30:52] Aaron: Hmm.
[00:30:53] Flyte: but what actually happened was it was like no, no, no. Everything you're doing is not what we want. everything you are doing, we won't be able to sell. We need it to be more like this, or we need it to be more like that.
Or maybe it's not like this, or, you know, or maybe you should wear this instead. and immediately you're just confused, creatively confused. And in terms of like to write songs dunno, it's just red herring after red herring. I found early on.
[00:31:15] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:15] Flyte: took a second for us to get our bearings and we put a kind of string of singles out and things and went on a few tours, but we were really figuring everything out in front of people by the time we put our first record out.
the music industry in the UK is very, you get your shot at the beginning and you can see if an artist gets it, is delivered perfectly to them straight away. They'll be like, brilliant. We'll tick all the boxes for you. We'll put you on the conveyor belt.
You'll go straight down, you know, you'll
[00:31:39] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:39] Flyte: Jules Holland and we'll put you on the playlist and we'll put you out on all those festivals and we'll make sure you win a kind of Critics choice award or something at the Brits.
and we have all the infrastructure waiting and ready for you.
And it's almost like the UK has one of those artists per year. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
now, okay, Arlo Parks, you'll be that now.
[00:31:55] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:55] Flyte: there was like Jack Garrett in like 2016 or there was the last dinner party last, you know, that the UK has this funny way of just being like it's this one now we are gonna pile everything into it.
[00:32:04] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:32:05] Flyte: it's like, why would you do that? you're gonna like, make this person probably have a nervous breakdown
and you're gonna probably make the population, get a bit sick of that person and, kind of wanna see a downfall or something and get the next one.
do wish that when as a, there's a young artist that has, promise there was a, a little bit more trust in being able to just say, okay, you are what you are now let's capture that. Let's put
[00:32:26] Aaron: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:32:27] Flyte: have to shove it down people's throats.
We'll just put it out. And I think, there'll be an audience for you and the right people will find you and we'll put you out on the road and we'll, go gently will get you a career. And that is effectively what we did.
But inadvertently and you know, much to the disappointment of our major label and everything we met, it's funny, there's an article called Matt Maltese. There's my, girlfriend Billy. She's called Billy Martin. Another article, Willie j Healy. We were all kind of signed around the same time, two major labels.
And we were all the same. We were all kind of these sort of. Kind of alternative artists really there was no place for alternative artists on major labels in 2014. And we all just about survived, being, shoved into the wrong spot and then kept going and persevered.
And then I think, and all the artists I just mentioned are all now on, fourth, fifth albums and have an audience and stuff. But my god, it could have been made. to be a bit
easier.
[00:33:17] Aaron: the image that you use of like the conveyor belt is so apt. I mean, That happens here too. it's the commodification of a band,
[00:33:24] Michaela: well,
it's also 'cause they want profit fast. Yeah, exactly. the music business is a business, it's not an artistic endeavor.
Like, it's not something that is honoring or trusting artists. It's trusting the business people that they think somehow know better than the actual creators to like package and sell. So I think it takes a lot of personal work to then decide, okay, what do I want my path or our path to be to align with what feels right and also artistic?
Or do I wanna just do what they say and go on that conveyor belt Because I want what I think is success then you burn out the story that we hear all the time of, then you burn out and then you're disheartened by everything and then you have to find your new way.
So it's such a challenging balance to be like, I want to survive and be affirmed and make a living, but also I want the space and respect and trust to have my artistic path and like, not shove it down people's throat and also have a life, have a whole life and relationships. And I'm curious what you guys have found on this path, especially when you are, not like playing party music, but like playing introspective emotional songs, like what you do.
In your personal lives to kind of fill up your cup, for lack of a better term, to recenter, refuel away from this, whether it's another artistic endeavor or a hobby, or what is your life like outside of this that helps keep it all
in good perspective?
[00:34:57] Flyte: Yeah. I mean, I'm a parent too, that's sort of the thing
[00:35:00] Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
[00:35:02] Flyte: sort of takes up all the other space
[00:35:04] Michaela: Yep.
[00:35:04] Flyte: in life. but I mean, it is an amazing thing. It's an amazing way to sharpen your mind as becoming apparent because it's like, okay, I have to look after these things.
And when I go to write music, it's like I'm pretty, focused on doing the thing. 'cause it's like, this time is very, very precious to me
Yeah. Really focusing. And I can live vicariously off that as well and feel that
I can live vicariously through your lovely life.
[00:35:27] Aaron: Yeah. We have two kids ourselves, so Yeah.
[00:35:29] Michaela: it's like laser focus and then, I remember shortly after we have a 4-year-old and a seven month old,
[00:35:35] Flyte: Exactly the same as me.
[00:35:36] Michaela: Oh wow. Awesome. Boys, girls, what's the.
[00:35:39] Flyte: girl. Older boy,
[00:35:40] Michaela: Same. Yeah, same exact. Yep. Crazy.
I remember a friend came to co-write with me and we just had one of those days, which would've been no big deal before kids, where you don't write a song, you just sit and talk. And I was so anxious.
I was like, I do not have time for this anymore. Like, we are paying for my child to be taken care of. This is a workday. We can't be hanging out right now. And it was just such a switch for me of like, oh, I can't bullshit anymore. If we're writing a song, we're writing a song. If we're hanging out, that's a different time that I'm gonna account for.
I'm not paying for daycare or babysitting for us to just shoot the shit all day. we are doing something. cause I could shoot the shit all day. Oh. Long time. And now it's different.
[00:36:21] Flyte: there's a lot fewer dry, days between us. We, We, because of, I guess what you just, almost exactly what you just said. That's kind of why we made the last record the way we did. It was the end of last year. We had been working on a totally different project with Manny Cunningham and then with the musical also.
And had a month or so before the studio that we booked in with Ethan was happening. And so we just gave ourselves, basically a little less than a month to write the whole thing. This baby's
coming in February, we've
[00:36:49] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:36:50] Flyte: before. Yeah.
[00:36:51] Aaron: Oh yeah.
[00:36:52] Flyte: time maritime go.
And just to kind of almost like, call back I guess to the kind of repression thing we were talking about and the reveal. It's like that's the best way to do it. You just, completely smoke everything out. you don't even give yourself a chance to think. Mm-hmm. And we didn't give ourselves a chance to think when recording the, record either.
Cause that was an incredibly condensed space of time that we made it in. And everything was live and basically no more than two takes and you know, and it was just like a, shock therapy version of creation. And
[00:37:18] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:18] Flyte: largely due to that kind of just like, can't spend too long away from family otherwise in trouble.
[00:37:26] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:37:26] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:37:27] Flyte: it's done, the best thing to us creatively, I'm kind of off, yeah. Like doing the opposite and being very, connected with, friends and with art and films and music and my partner and, kind of, why partnership is great.
We can kind of make everything come together in those precious moments
[00:37:43] Aaron: Yeah, having those limitations in that focus, you know, what I've learned in, my experience is like there are so many points in the creative process that you can tweak endlessly, whether it's on the right, especially on the recording, on the mix, like all of that. And it gets to a point that it's like once you're doing your due diligence like, is this song good?
Did we capture the song? Is it impactful? Is it moving? Did we do the song justice? Once you cross that general line, to me, any change after that? It's not necessarily making it better, it's just making it different. when you put these self-imposed, whether it's from a family or you know, self-imposed like, we're gonna take a month to write this.
It allows you to strip away, at least in my experience, that BS and it's like, no, let's make a decision, decision serve the song great. Are there eight other decisions that would also serve the song? Yes. But this one does, and it feels good and it
speaks to what I'm speaking to.
[00:38:32] Flyte: the thing that's instinctual that we, you just first
[00:38:34] Aaron: Yes,
[00:38:35] Flyte: it like, do that then. 'cause that's the thing that felt right at time.
[00:38:38] Aaron: absolutely.
[00:38:39] Flyte: that to the recording. We just don't have any demos. We don't have any versions of it. We have no idea of how the song is gonna translate as an arrangement or a recording.
And when you're in the studio, it's like, is what's happening now. And that's it.
[00:38:51] Michaela: I love that. And I also love that like as then the songs live. Live on tour and stuff. They might change and shift and like how exciting that is. we have this version documented, then we get to have this living breathing version that might shift and change. they're all wonderful.
I like that approach, rather than do it exactly like we did it on the recording and that's the only way, and, keeping it in between the lines.
[00:39:18] Aaron: we do have one question at the end that we like to ask everybody. for each of you choose your own adventure, it's basically like, what would you tell younger you what do you wish you knew when you were 18 and just getting started and like, oh, I'm gonna do this, this is what I'm doing. Or is there something that somebody has told you along the way that continues to reverberate in your head and kind of fill up your cup?
[00:39:38] Flyte: Oh God.
I'd say to my younger self, try less hard.
I think that's my advice for myself to stop trying so hard. Chill out a little bit.
[00:39:47] Aaron: I feel that,
[00:39:48] Michaela: yeah,
[00:39:48] Flyte: Yeah. I wonder if, that's maybe 100% of all people in their thirties.
[00:39:54] Aaron: yeah, I can hear it in recordings that I made when I was younger. I was like, I was trying, listen to me. Mm-hmm.
[00:40:00] Flyte: I would say, yeah, say the same. it's the sort of stoicism is required. I think going into the music industry, it's like, nah,
find it with like bands that I think have either considered themselves or have been dubbed or encouraged the act of being dubbed cool.
I think, which I think often comes from a competitiveness and it's like just whatever it is that you actually are, be that as fast as possible
[00:40:21] Michaela: Yes.
[00:40:22] Flyte: what everyone wants, including you. it's weird how long it takes sometimes for people to, but maybe some people need.
Cool. That's the cool jacket to put on
because they're not very
cool. I don't fucking man.
[00:40:32] Michaela: But I do, like, the sentiment I'm hearing is like, be let's just live a little bit and stop trying to be good, be cool, get things like, just
[00:40:42] Aaron: as you said in regards to the major label. Like there's an audience out there, for whatever,
[00:40:46] Flyte: if you can be brave in terms of making records, you can be all right with the sound of what you sound like
[00:40:52] Aaron: Mm.
[00:40:52] Flyte: have to try and do another take or comp your vocal or edit that bit that was a little out of tune or, you know, whatever. Like that bit will be the best bit
think the minute you get to that point,
then you're really somewhere.
[00:41:03] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:41:03] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:41:04] Michaela: Beautiful. Uh,
[00:41:05] Aaron: man, thank you guys so much for taking time after such a long rehearsal day to sit with us.
[00:41:10] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:41:11] Flyte: when needed to blow off some steam with some Yanks.
[00:41:13] Michaela: yeah.
[00:41:13] Flyte: Well, thank you guys so much for sharing and taking the time, and it was lovely to meet you both.
Thank you. So lovely to talk to you Yeah. So nice to talk to some good civilized people.
[00:41:22] Aaron: Hey, likewise
[00:41:24] Michaela: Thank you guys.
[00:41:25] Aaron: Take care.
[00:41:25] Michaela: Bye.