Getting To Know Floodlights

All photos by Maclay Heriot.

There aren’t many bands that I can say my friend group collectively agrees are brilliant, but Floodlights is one of them.  

When I saw them opening for Pavement, the third or fourth time I’d seen them play, it only clicked for me at that point that they were in town and that I should probably try to get an interview with them. Hailing from Melbourne, the band is known for their stripped-back lyrics that really get you in the feels, and impressive harmonica riffs played by Ashlee that instantly make you a fan of the instrument even if you weren’t before. Their music and stage presence makes them feel like the kind of people you’d instantly become mates with which became entirely true when they came into the Monster Children office to have a beer and a chat about their upcoming album and tour.

Congratulations on supporting Pavement, who by the way spoke highly of you, except for you waking them up at 3 am to let them into your hotel. Big night?

Joe: (laughs) yeap. 3 am? That’s probably right. The drummer was walking around at like 2 am like do you know how to use this it’s so hot here. Do you know where the aircon guy is?

How did you get on as the support act, and how was it hanging out with them?

Ashlee: We saw that they were touring and were really keen so we put our name forward.

Louis: After seeing them live too, it was just, like, woah. They’re such characters.

Melbourne copped the roughest lockdown in the whole world. Now that you’re out the other side of that, how is the music scene going down there?

Archie:  It’s changed a lot. It’s interesting what bands survived and tapered off. A lot of people starting new projects. Shows are well and truly back. Constant gigs, almost to the point of burnout. There are four or five gigs that you want to go to every weekend.

Joe: Kind of hard to sell tickets for that reason. Sort of gotta get lucky.

But it’s positive vibes?

Joe: Oh, it’s popping off. It’s great. Spoilt for choice.

Louis: There has been such a bottling up of so much new stuff, people sitting on stuff for over a year. So, I think this year, along with us, we’ll see everything coming out.

In my opinion, ‘Small Town Pub’, and ‘Tropical Fun’ are very political songs. It’s one of the reasons I like you because I feel as though so many artists try not to have a stance for fear of losing a certain audience. Can you just tell me about that approach?

Louis: You can’t please everyone. It’s important to have your own values and beliefs that we hold personally and as a band. So I don’t think we ever go into the process thinking that we might piss someone off. We just write honestly and from our perspective, the way we see things in the world. That’s all you can really do.

Is it just you Louis that writes the songs?

Louis: Ashlee and I write the lyrics, yeah, but the whole band contributes to the writing of the song.

Archie:  It’s a very collaborative process. With the new album, everyone put something forward and we just refined it from there. No ideas are not explored.

Ashlee: Yeah, lockdown you didn’t have all the external influences you would usually have as a musician. We had so much more time to think. You’re just naturally more reflective in those situations.

Because you’ve got the time to be.

Ashlee: Yeah. I mean I spent so much time walking along the Mary River, not as distracted as I usually would be so lyrically things would come to me easier. I think the lyrics of albums now will be a lot more personal because there isn’t all that noise. It was for us anyway.

Tell us about the new album then.

Joe: Well it’s ten tracks. It’s a good mix of different genres and tempos. We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from lots of different bands—the upbeat songs from Fontaine D.C. and then the slower songs when we were listening to a lot of Black Country, New Road.

Archie: Yeah, when we reflected on our old album—as you do in lockdown—we knew we really wanted to make this one a lot more dynamic and diverse. More theatrical and intimate. We got really ambitious emailing producers and sound engineers all around the world. We ended up getting Andy Savours from the UK, who did Artic Monkeys and Arcade Fire records, in to help us. Just fucking good albums. He was classic.  

So was the album made specifically to be played live?

Louis: Yeah exactly. We wrote a lot with that mindset which we didn’t really do with the first album. I mean with Nullarbor, we love that album, but naturally, as musicians, you want to evolve while keeping what makes you, you. And we created it in a way that it has those slow vulnerable moments to big marching rhythms almost like a set when you listen to it all the way through.  

When I told my sister I was chatting with you guys she wanted to know the story behind the Nullarbor.

Louis: I was working a job that I hated at the time, so I thought, fuck it—I’m quitting my job and I’m going to try and meet my friends, who were traveling Aus before they did the Gibb River Road. I drove across the Nullarbor for six days, solo. I thought I downloaded all this music but turns out I didn’t, and because there’s no reception and no radio, I just did the whole thing in silence. I’ve never driven that long with that much solitude. It was a special solo experience and a time I hold really close to my heart.

My sister had a similar experience, so that song really means a lot to her too.

Louis: Yeah, that was a real stamp in my life.

What about your newest song ‘Lessons Learnt’?

Ashlee: That was one of the songs where the lyrics came all in one little walk along the Mary River. I guess it’s just about how easy it is to say that you’re going to change things but then how often you end up repeating past actions and mistakes. The idea is that maybe if you recognise that you can take a different path. Straight away when we played it was really fun, that’s a really good sign. It was probably one of the quickest songs to come about.

How long is quick?

Louis: Just one rehearsal. I remember I left my amp out the front for two seconds while I was rehearsing at my mate's place and someone stole it. But then the very first riff I did on the new amp was ‘Lessons Learnt’. Just like that. Then the concept for the video came up in a night too. The concept is the first easy step but then bringing that to life is a whole new ball game.

Joe: Yeah we wanted to have a boat, a horse and all this stuff and got really fucking excited about it all. Stanger Paradise helped us out with it all and they were just amazing and bringing all of our ideas to life.

Archie: Then for the choreographed part we had to learn how to dance. I mean we know how to play music but we definitely don’t know how to dance.

Joe: I got my friend Harrison Ritchie-Jones, who is an amazing contemporary dancer, to help teach us. It was pretty funny. We went to this dance workshop session with Harrison at this spot near Imax in the city; a pretty famous skate spot. It was a winter's night and we were just trying to learn this dance with our song blasting repeatedly on a UE boom.

Louis: People coming out of the cinemas just looking at us weird. But yeah that worked out.

So, when do we get to see you live? And what’s on the horizon?

Joe: We’ll be touring in June around all of Australia.

Archie:  Next week, we’re going to America and doing South by South West. It’ll be our first time overseas as a band, so hopefully, that launches our overseas following. Then we’ll be going to the UK in July and living over there for a couple of months, and hoping to build our audience over there.

Oh, amazing. If you can go anywhere go to South West France. It’s amazing over there.

Joe: Yeah that’s on the list. Although then we’ll just get distracted by surfing. That’s probably one of our biggest issues actually.

Really?

Ashlee: Yeah the surfing gets in the way always (laughs). We get too tired after, then don’t practice.  

Joe: But, yeah, June. Our new album Painting of My Time will be out on April 21st.