{"id":1613,"date":"2015-06-16T11:49:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T10:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2011-04-08T11:23:24","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T11:23:24","slug":"flats-kick-it-%e2%80%98til-it-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/flats-kick-it-%e2%80%98til-it-breaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Flats: Kick It \u2018Til It Breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

With two blistering EPs and their eardrum shredding new single \u2018Never Again\u2019 behind them, Flats<\/strong> have established the most credible punk sound for donkey\u2019s years. On the eve of their eleven night UK tour, I caught up with frontman Dan Devine <\/strong>to find out more about what could well be The Only Group That Matters (2011 Edition):<\/p>\n

Dick: I understand that you got the band together with Luke when you were sharing a flat \u2013 what made you want to start a band in the first place? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: The same reason that every young kid gets into music, probably idolization if anything, from when you\u2019re a young kid watching bands on TV \u2013 you wanna be on the screen. From a child, that\u2019s what I wanted and I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s what 90% of people in bands wanted.<\/p>\n

Dick: Was getting Flats together a continuation of what you\u2019d been doing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Vaguely \u2013 I was in one band before, but it wasn\u2019t really a band. We played one gig. At the time, I was listening to a lot of ATV and DAF, so it was a bit more noisy and post punky. I was into that, but I was definitely leaning towards just punk \u2013 I was listening to a lot of really abrasive American stuff, I started to get into a lot of Three One G bands like the Locust, Arab On Radar, and a lot of the Justin Pearson stuff \u2013 pretty much every band he\u2019s worked with I was amazed by. We played our one gig and it was atrocious, so we fucked that off. Then it took me about a year or a year-and-a-half to really do anything else, but I\u2019d always been adamant that I wanted to do a punk band \u2013 I\u2019d be at parties, pissed up, going on about how there hasn\u2019t been an important punk band in the British music scene for years and I\u2019m gonna be the first one doing it.<\/p>\n

Dick: You are one of the very few contemporary groups that actually convince as a punk band, and I pointed out the ATV influence in the review of your last EP, when I said that you sounded a bit like Mark Perry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: That\u2019s fantastic \u2013 I\u2019ve actually got [the cover of] Mark Perry\u2019s solo record tattooed on my wrist. I\u2019m a massive, massive Perry fan.<\/p>\n

Dick: Did you get into the Good Missionaries?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, I love \u2018em, Fire From Heaven <\/em>is amazing \u2013 and \u2018Fellow Sufferer (In Dub)\u2019 \u2013 there was an ATV version of \u2018Fellow Sufferer\u2019, which is really good, but the Good Missionaries version is amazing \u2013 so creepy and so dark. I\u2019m actually really into Snappy Turns<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Dick: That got dismissed by a lot of critics as their \u2018pop\u2019 album…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: It\u2019s not \u2013 It\u2019s got that one pop song that sounds like Patrik Fitzgerald, but the rest of the album\u2019s really dark and intense. It\u2019s actually spurred me along, when the label gave me some equipment budget, I bought some equipment and I\u2019m building a studio in my living room. About two years ago, I went through a stage where I collected every ATV seven-inch, then I left my record box on the bus one night, and I\u2019ve spent the past two years trying to rebuild it \u2013 I\u2019ve managed to get most of it, but I haven\u2019t got any Good Missionaries stuff, so I\u2019m still collecting.<\/p>\n

Dick: \u00a0In a way, ATV fed back into the anarcho scene \u2013 the cover of the Mob\u2019s Let The Tribe Increase<\/em><\/strong> was based on the Vibing Up The Senile Man <\/em><\/strong>sleeve, and a lot of their songs have the same vibe as something like \u2018Lost In Room\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Without a doubt \u2013 I was always in two minds about the Mob, \u2018cos they\u2019ve got a couple of really amazing, really great, creepy songs, but they\u2019ve got a bit of tripe, as well. \u2018Witch Hunt\u2019 \u2013 That\u2019s a fantastic song. The Bullshit Detector <\/em>albums are probably one of the most important volumes of music for our band. I bought the record, there\u2019s a shop in Camden that had a whole section dedicated to all the Crass releases and I found the first Bullshit Detector <\/em>compilation. I got it home and it sent me nuts, and I went and accumulated all of them. We actually had a review written about us the other week and it said that we sounded like we\u2019d come straight off a Bullshit Detector<\/em> compilation \u2013 that\u2019s probably the highest accolade we\u2019ve got so far. I like all of them, there\u2019s a lot of weird stuff on there that they obviously just put on there because they knew no one in their right mind would ever release these songs. It\u2019s almost like they were doing a public service by helping these young kids and saying \u2018fuck you\u2019 to the industry.<\/p>\n

Dick: Penny Rimbaud often said that Crass were an \u2018information service\u2019…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, Lydon also ripped off that same quote three years later!<\/p>\n

Dick: So when you started out, you were basically a group of mates \u2013 do you go along with Joe Strummer\u2019s assertion that a band should be like a gang?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: To an extent \u2013 I enjoy the fact that we\u2019re all really good pals and we all hang out constantly, and that\u2019s an important factor. If you are that type of band and you have a gang mentality, then it comes across in the music and you can really feel \u2013 almost in a sappy, sentimental way \u2013 you can feel the love in the room. Even with bands that make very angry, antagonistic music, you can tell that they\u2019re all working as a unit; nine times out of ten it\u2019ll be better. And the music\u2019ll be better. But then again, I also don\u2019t agree with the whole Libertines\/Clash vibe of \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re like brothers in arms, and we\u2019re getting into mischief and getting into scrapes \u2013 the Jack the lad type thing. I\u2019m not into that idea of the gang\/band, I personally would take the idea of the band being a gang in how we all work together and the how we all appreciate each other\u2019s abilities, rather than thinking \u2018Right, we\u2019re gonna get lashed up and go on the pull\u2019 and pretend that we\u2019re some little gang. I think there are a couple of bands who take the idea of a gang mentality and they develop it into trying to make themselves little scallies and that\u2019s not really what we\u2019re about.<\/p>\n

Dick: Where did the name \u2018Flats\u2019 come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Our friend called Sam from a band called SCUM, he was into Japanese noise rock and there\u2019s a Japanese noise rock band called High Rise and we were all sitting around with him and he was saying how he wanted to start a band called Flats as like an English take on High Rise. We stole the name off him! To be honest, once someone puts an idea out there like that, as long as we\u2019re all friends and it\u2019s appreciated and put to good use, it\u2019s open for grabs. If I came up with an idea that he then used, I\u2019d be happy from him to do it, as long as he done a good job with it.<\/p>\n

Dick: We\u2019ve spoken a bit about the punk influence on the band\u2019s music \u2013 what does punk mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: I suppose it\u2019s a clich\u00e9 to say so, but it\u2019s like rebel music for when you\u2019re a kid. Through my entire life listening to music, I\u2019ve always wanted to listen to the anti-hero music \u2013 the voice of the unimpressed type thing. Just whatever upsets the parents, or upsets the establishment, all of which are massively clich\u00e9d things, but at the end of the day, the reason they\u2019re clich\u00e9s is because they\u2019re true. That\u2019s why 15 year old kids are obsessed with nu-metal and Slipknot is because their parents find them scary \u2013 If you turn up at your nan\u2019s house with your hair all grown out and piercings and a band t-shirt with skulls on it, you\u2019re gonna get funny looks and when you\u2019re a kid you want funny looks. I think most people in bands never grow up. I mean, I\u2019ve never grown up and none of the rest of the band have and we never intend to. We\u2019re just gonna keep that mentality of always being on the wind-up, whether it\u2019s winding up someone by wearing a t-shirt that they find offensive, or winding up someone by saying something offensive. It\u2019s all a matter of just doing it for the laugh, always appreciating that it\u2019s all a bit of fun.<\/p>\n

Dick: It\u2019s entirely healthy for people to be offended…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, especially in Britain, since the sixties, the most successful bands have been the bands that irritate people, because that\u2019s what makes them exciting and therefore means that the media writes about them because they\u2019re causing a stir.<\/p>\n

Dick:<\/strong> Most bands influenced by punk draw upon the initial art-school wave of 1976, whereas you appear to be orientated toward the sound of the early 1980s bands.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Definitely, that first wave of British hardcore bands to me is the most exciting era of music I\u2019ve ever come across, because it took the ideals of the art school punk, but it took away the art school and the art school is tacky pomposity. It\u2019s still happening today \u2013 the whole of London\u2019s surrounded by art school bands. I\u2019m not saying that we aren\u2019t artistic – After all, we are a very artistic band in the way that we\u2019re very creative, we take complete control over every step this band has taken, we\u2019ve done every bit of artwork, we designed the video. The only time we ever had to back down for anything was when we were on Loog and they made us change a lyric because their lawyers had the last say. I feel that a lot of these art school bands base the whole idea of their band around trying to impress their peers, trying to impress the other people they\u2019re at art school with and I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve really had to deal with that because I definitely knew that with this music, because their wasn\u2019t another band around that was listening to the sounds that we were listening to, there really isn\u2019t another band that sounds like us. I know it\u2019s very arrogant for someone to say that at this stage in their career, but I don\u2019t think there are any other bands in London at the moment that sound like us.<\/p>\n

Dick: One of the things that is unique is the way that you sound like you would have fitted on the bill of something like the Apocalypse Now Tour in \u201981.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, I think that because I knew that, the people that get it are the people from that world who understand why the whole art school way of being in bands is a bit trivial, and the people that don\u2019t get it are the people that I don\u2019t give a shit about, so I don\u2019t really care what their opinion is. Because we went into this band with that sort of stance and said \u2018Right, we\u2019re just gonna write this music because we love this music\u2019, rather than trying to slot into the current [thing of being] a little bit gothic, a bit of leather, a bit of winkle-pickers, maybe a pair of Doc Martens here and there \u2013 all polished up, it\u2019s all a little bit samey. Because that just wasn\u2019t what we were into, I think we come across naturally and I think that\u2019s why people are getting on it.<\/p>\n

Dick: Do you think that Flats stand alone as a band, or are there any other current groups that you feel a connection with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: There\u2019s definitely a lot of bands around at the moment that we\u2019re friends with, that I rate, but I think musically, I don\u2019t really think that there\u2019s any other bands that sound like us. As far as the British hardcore scene \u2013 I\u2019m really into a lot of those bands, like a lot of the Rucktion bands, or the Holy Roar bands, but they are heavier than us in the sense that their songs are based around the brutality of the song, whereas I definitely write a song with the intent of writing a classic song. I listen to hardcore and I listen to metal, but I also like the Kinks, who are one of my favourite bands. I still want to be seen as someone who can write a great song, I\u2019m not necessarily saying that I write a song with the intention of getting on the radio, but I definitely write a song thinking that in 20 years I want someone to look back and to hear these songs and think \u2018what a great, well-crafted song\u2019. Unfortunately with all the hardcore bands, that\u2019s not really a factor \u2013 what they\u2019re doing is more about fitting into the hardcore scene and being \u2018who\u2019s the heaviest? Who\u2019s got the heaviest ideas?\u2019 It\u2019s quite a weird scenario to be in because we also don\u2019t fit in with the whole indie crowd because we\u2019re too heavy for the indie crowd. We\u2019re too heavy for them, but we\u2019re too light for the hardcore crowd. We do stand alone in that respect.<\/p>\n

Dick: Something that I like about your sound is that you\u2019ve got a hardcore vibe, but you\u2019ve distilled all the metal out from it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: To be honest, the album is going to have metal influences, but they\u2019re not metal in the way that people think of metal, like they think of metal and they think of either Slayer, or Metallica, or Slipknot. The metal we\u2019re playing is really slow, sludgy stuff \u2013 classic doom stuff like Pentagram and Sabbath and verging toward more stoner-y sludgy stuff \u2013 We\u2019re big Sleep fans, and I\u2019m a massive Eyehategod fan. The other metal that I\u2019m into is the very original wave of black metal. What black metal turned into \u2013 I think the story of it is very entertaining and interesting \u2013 but the actual music is just like sped-up goth with a lot of really heavily chorused bass and really distorted everything else. But that first wave of Venom and Hellhammer and stuff, that was genius. When I actually listened to Hellhammer, it sounded like Discharge to me \u2013 it sounds far closer to Discharge than any metal that was around at that time and what everyone takes as black metal nowadays \u2013 they\u2019d cite bands like Hellhammer as their main influence, but when I listen to the two, I just think that the old stuff is far superior because it\u2019s more accessible. I think that what we\u2019ve managed to pull off, because we are a very heavy band, but we\u2019ve managed to have a degree of accessibility.<\/p>\n

Dick: Discharge did go thrash metal in the end…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, I actually really like their thrash stuff, I know a lot of people panned it, but I think it\u2019s great. It\u2019s really interesting. It\u2019s obviously not as good as a lot of the thrash that was coming out at the time because they were a punk band that ended up drafting in a metal guitarist and Cal had left so they had to get a new vocalist. I don\u2019t think they pulled it off as well as they could have, but they definitely had some good tunes \u2013 Shooting Up The World<\/em>, I think that must have been their first or second proper thrash album \u2013 I think that\u2019s great, it\u2019s got some amazing riffs and it\u2019s still a really good album. I\u2019m massively into d-beat. We\u2019re actually releasing two EPs \u2013 after the album we go straight in \u2013 we\u2019ve come up with two concept EPs. We\u2019re going to do two polar opposites released as a double gatefold EP; the first one\u2019s going to be a homage to all our favourite d-beat bands and the other side\u2019s going to be doom psyched-out stoner metal take on great electronic songs. We\u2019re going to pick a DAF song, a Silver Apples song. we\u2019re thinking of doing \u2018Warm Leatherette\u2019 and then either a really classic Cluster tune, or Human League. We\u2019re going to make them really slow and sludgy, but still really rhythmic, to keep that repetitiveness that electronic music has. The d-beat one is what I\u2019m really excited by, \u2018cos I\u2019m massively into d-beat \u2013 the Varukers, Disorder, and obviously Discharge who\u2019re the main hitters, but I\u2019m really into a lot of the Finnish and Swedish stuff that came out after that \u2013 there\u2019s a band called Klimax who\u2019re great and there\u2019s this band called Riisteyt, and they\u2019re the most insane thing I\u2019ve ever heard \u2013 it\u2019s just mental. We\u2019re going to do pure, insane d-beat \u2013 superfast \u2013 we\u2019ve just invested in a double-kick pedal for our drummer, so we can do 180bpm insanity, like gabba-punk.<\/p>\n

Dick: It\u2019s unusual to hear anyone referencing Silver Apples.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: I discovered Silver Apples when I was about 18, they completely blew me away. Unfortunately he [Simeon Coxe] played on my birthday about a year later, but I couldn\u2019t make it \u2018cos I had plans with my parents and stuff. I was really upset that I missed it. Apparently, he\u2019s coming back to England this year, so I\u2019m gonna definitely going to go to see him. We\u2019re deliberating over what track to do, but I\u2019m hoping to do \u2018Water\u2019, \u2018cos it\u2019s got that really great two note riff. We\u2019re thinking that of blasting that out with really heavily distorted guitars \u2013 we might even just keep the beat as it is and have everything beefed up and just so sludgy and crazy, and we\u2019ll have the feedback going so that hopefully it\u2019ll self-oscillate. It\u2019ll be a really interesting piece of music, because we really want both EPs to really stand alone from what we\u2019ve done previously, the album, and then what we\u2019re going to follow up the album with. For the follow up album, we want to take what we\u2019ve done with this album and take it a step further and push the extremes of the album further. We want these two EPs to essentially be concept records, so that they don\u2019t actually fit in with anything we\u2019ve done before or afterwards. I just really want them to stand alone and be completely their own entities. I think it\u2019s going to be quite a tricky one to pull off.<\/p>\n

Dick: It sounds like you\u2019ve got a lot of material lined up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, relatively \u2013 we\u2019ve got a lot of tracks on the album, and we had ten songs out on the first two EPs and more for the album \u2013 we\u2019ve got about eight finished and we\u2019ve got another 17 demos \u2013 we\u2019ll hopefully get all 17 songs out, and then we\u2019re going to write these two EPs. When we come back off tour we\u2019ve got three weeks in the studio to finish the album, then two weeks to record and demo up these two EPs, then a week to dust them off and finish them. We\u2019ve got about six weeks to finish the album and two EPs \u2013 so, a lot of work to be done.<\/p>\n

Dick: You\u2019re now on One Little Indian, which \u2013 in a way \u2013 makes you part of a lineage that can be traced back through Flux of Pink Indians to Crass \u2013 was this something that you were aware of?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: It was definitely a very important factor to us with signing. The way we met him [Derek Birkett] was because we were looking for someone to mix our second EP. We went to him and asked him to mix it and he listened to the record and said \u2018Look, I won\u2019t be able to do anything with it \u2013 I can\u2019t make it any better, but I do want to put it out because I think it\u2019s amazing,\u2019 and we sort of took off since then. Me and Craig, the bass player, Flux of Pink Indians are one of our favourite bands of all time. It must be quite weird for him to look us up on MySpace and see me wearing an Epileptics t-shirt, which was the original band, and Craig wearing a Flux t-shirt. It\u2019s quite good, there\u2019s definitely a degree of mutual respect between him and us. We have a lot of respect for him and I think the reason why he\u2019s taken such a shot with us is because he believes in it, which is what we want. That\u2019s why we went with him, because though there was other labels floating about, he was the one that we really trusted and we felt like he really understood where we were coming from and what we were trying to do. I think that\u2019s the most important factor with a band like us trying to sign a deal. If there\u2019s any other bands coming through that have the same mentality, then go with what\u2019s best for you in a social way \u2013 would you rather be dealing with a friend or with a business?<\/p>\n

Dick: What are your thoughts about the anarcho bands that were under the Crass umbrella?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: I like them \u2013 there\u2019s some really great stuff. Rudimentary Peni are one of my favourites, Nick Blinko…<\/p>\n

Dick: He\u2019s a strange guy…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, insane! He got sectioned, didn\u2019t he? I\u2019m really mesmerised by his artwork and everything, and the way that with his albums, each one gives such an insight into his mind at the time, and you actually see how fucked up and depressed he was, just by listening to this record. You can see how depressed and how much further he went into insanity throughout his career. Pope Adrian 37th<\/sup><\/em> \u2013 That\u2019s an insane record, there\u2019s that song \u2018Pills, Popes and Potions\u2019, which is all about the medicines that they were forcing him to take. He was writing down how he was feeling when he was taking the medicine and writing about how he started to feel his brain warp. Lyrically, if I could ever get to the standard of being able to depict my mental state in that way, I\u2019d be completely happy. That\u2019s my main goal as far as being a lyricist would be.<\/p>\n

Dick: It\u2019s as if he mapped his own psychology.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Precisely. It\u2019s also a very brave; as much as he was obviously mentally ill, he must have actually been very comfortable with himself and secure in his own mind. As much as he was losing his mind, he must have been very confident in what he thought was right, to lay himself out so honestly and so frankly on a record when people know that he\u2019s depicting his emotions to such an extent. That\u2019s why everyone views Ian Curtis as such a great musician, because everyone knows that he was writing about the hard times in his life at the time. I think that\u2019s why people are enticed by him and that\u2019s the same reason why I\u2019m so enticed by Nick Blinko.<\/p>\n

Dick: \u2018Never Again\u2019 does seem to draw inspiration from \u2018Rotten To The Core\u2019 off of Death Church<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Yeah, it\u2019s definitely a big favourite of mine. To be honest, we were listening to that song so much that we played it and then didn\u2019t really clock what we were playing until we wrote the song. The riff just sort off pops into your head. I\u2019m completely happy with it \u2013 I hope he takes it as a homage \u2013 If in 20 years time someone listens to my songs and uses a bassline, I\u2019d be ecstatic.<\/p>\n

Dick: <\/strong> Obviously, Crass, Flux and (to a lesser degree) Discharge, were all political bands \u2013 would you say that Flats have a political aspect?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: We get asked this quite a lot. I think because of the music we\u2019re making and because of our influences, I think people generally expect us to be political. Personally, I definitely have my views on politics. Samir, our drummer, he\u2019s very into politics \u2013 again, he\u2019s got his definite views about what he believes in and what he stands for, but it never comes into the band really. I think it immediately dates your band and it immediately puts you in with a certain period of time and a certain attitude to what\u2019s going on at that point in time. I think it would pigeon hole us if we did any of those things. When you listen to Crass, I find it very intriguing because obviously Thatcher\u2019s Britain was so fucked at the time. I mean, we\u2019re not living in that<\/em> much of a shithole \u2013 The British Government has fucked up massively at the moment, but there isn\u2019t five million jobless and there isn\u2019t forced miners strikes, so we don\u2019t have to worry \u2013 if anyone\u2019s stuck they can sign on.<\/p>\n

Dick: You can draw parallels, but Cameron\u2019s a very watered-down version of Thatcher.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Definitely \u2013 I can see it getting worse before it gets better, but I hope, and I\u2019m pretty sure that it won\u2019t get taken to the same extent that it did in the 80s, just simply because the people that it affected in the 80s are still around and they\u2019ve still got enough of a voice to re-iterate why we should never allow it to get back to the state that it was.<\/p>\n

Dick: With your lyrics, it seems to me that you\u2019re more concerned with personal politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: Right \u2013 Lyrically, I definitely write about what makes me angry. Whether that comes down to a fight with my girlfriend, or someone I see in the pub that I don\u2019t like, or a TV advert. I\u2019ve wrote songs about complete bullshit, but so long as I\u2019ve got the anger there, then I\u2019ve got something to write about.<\/p>\n

Dick: Lyrically, it has more in common with the kind of areas that Mark Perry used to get into.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: That\u2019s what I was saying earlier \u2013 He\u2019s a definite influence on my lyrics and ever since I started wanting to start a band it was mainly because of The Image Has Cracked<\/em>. It\u2019s such an amazing record, lyrically. It completely shows his attitude to the world \u2013 for a debut album from someone who was the same age as me at the time, to really portray his attitudes and do it so honestly \u2013 it was very uncontrived \u2013 it must have been a very hard thing to do. He managed to do it, and it doesn\u2019t sound like he forced it and it just sounds like he\u2019s writing about what he thinks and what he believes in. That\u2019s what I hope I come across as, but I think I might have a bit of a way to go before I\u2019m up there with Perry\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Dick: You were saying that you\u2019ve been considering taking the band\u2019s sound in a slower, sludgier, heavy direction \u2013 would \u2018Never Again\u2019\u2019s b-side \u2018Isolation Chamber\u2019 be an indication of where you\u2019re heading?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: I wouldn\u2019t say that we\u2019re going strictly in that direction, I think \u2013 if anything \u2013 we\u2019re pulling in three different directions, hopefully three opposite directions put into one. When you hear the album, you\u2019ll get it. It pans from simple straight punk; snotty, spittin\u2019, growling, rarararaarrgh, and then it bridges into this slower, sludgy proto metal \u2013 almost psychedelic in places, and then it also pans into a sort of thrash\/d-beat crossover; brutal, pounding drums, a wall of feedback, with me screaming over the top. The whole album is just us trying to encompass all those ideas, but still make it still sound like it fits fluidly together. Once we\u2019ve done these two EPs, we\u2019re going to start writing the second album and start pushing it further, to see how far we can push all of those elements until it goes beyond breaking point. I think we are going have to work at pushing those elements and make sure that we don\u2019t over-exasperate any one of them too much. I think that\u2019s the key to making three directions turn into one \u2013 by doing them all equally and utilising them all when they need to be utilised.<\/p>\n

Dick: It\u2019ll be interesting to hear the Silver Apples material projected through the Flats filter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: We only actually came up with that idea over the past week, and ever since then we\u2019ve been so excited about it, but we\u2019re still doing the album, so we\u2019re trying to hold back a bit and still concentrate on finishing off the last tracks on the album and not swamp our brains with a whole new bunch of ideas. We really want to keep the two separate, so it sounds like separate sessions and separate recordings. That\u2019s one thing we\u2019ve done with the album \u2013 \u2018cos we\u2019ve done two weeks in the rehearsal rooms before and then we\u2019ve done a month straight on the album \u2013 I think we\u2019ve had four days off in the past month. We\u2019ve been in every day hammering it. When we get back off tour, we\u2019re going to go straight back in so that we keep that work rate up with the same mindset and that way it\u2019ll give the sense that the whole album was done in the same session.<\/p>\n

Dick: You\u2019ve got the tour starting in Glasgow tonight \u2013 what are you looking forward to from that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: I\u2019m really looking forward to playing the new songs and seeing people\u2019s reactions. When we done the last tour, it was the first time I\u2019d ever been on tour and the first time we\u2019d ever played out of London and \u2013 I think it was at the first gig, in Birmingham \u2013 it was really great playing to people who\u2019d never listened to your music and never given a shit about your music, and then suddenly watching people starting to dig it and getting halfway through the song and seeing people starting to nod their heads a bit \u2013 that\u2019s a great feeling, to realise that we\u2019re not just playing dodgy little punk numbers, we\u2019re playing something that people are actually getting into. I\u2019m looking forward to tonight, to seeing people\u2019s reactions \u2013 especially considering people have got this view that we\u2019re just playing stripped-down anarcho punk, for us to then come out with some brutal sludge number and then panning into a sort of flashy number, and then back to the straight four-to-the-floor punk. I think it\u2019s gonna be quite interesting to see people\u2019s reactions.<\/p>\n

Dick: Is your voice going to be alright for the tour? You\u2019re sounding a bit croaky.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan: It never is! I mean, you can hear already that I\u2019ve been in the studio for a month. Last time we done a tour of 13 dates, by the ninth day I could barely speak and I was trying to save my voice by barely talking during the day. By the 13th<\/sup> it could be a nightmare, but I\u2019ll have to go for it until it breaks, and then when it breaks I\u2019ll just apologise on stage and I\u2019ll have to keep shouting.<\/p>\n

With that, I left Dan to nurse his defenestrated larynx with Guinness and milk. As their tour nears its end, I understand that his voice did hold out, although he\u2019ll probably never yodel again.<\/p>\n

Flats on MySpace: www.myspace.com\/flatsofcourse<\/a><\/p>\n

Flats on Facebook: www.facebook.com\/index.php?lh=1920eef8f6a5423cf3c3fd401285839f&#!\/flatsofcourse<\/a><\/p>\n

Flats\u2019 \u2018Never Again\u2019: www.onelittleshop.com\/product_info.php?products_id=899<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With two blistering EPs and their eardrum shredding new single \u2018Never Again\u2019 behind them, Flats have established the most credible punk sound for donkey\u2019s years. On the eve of their eleven night UK tour, I caught up with frontman Dan Devine to find out more about what could well be The Only Group That Matters …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,73],"tags":[151,121,218],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-interviews","tag-dick-porter","tag-eyeplug","tag-flats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}