Band Interview: Flush
Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging life are pleased to bring you an interview with alternative punk rock band, Flush.
1. How did you get started as a band?
On the 13th day, the Master of all creation – insert your favourite belief or theory here – decided it was time to make things dark, loud and melancholic, with a twist of dry sarcasm thrown into it. The Master was a big fan of fast and melodic punk rock, but also liked various types of alternative and hard rock/metal. And so it was that four guys were sent to this earth to form the band Flush, and to forever roam around playing music for their Master.
2. How would you describe your sound?
That is one of our definite improvement areas. How to describe our sound, that is. Category wise we mostly go with ‘punk rock’ or ‘alternative rock’, but our music also includes elements of metal, hard rock and even classic rock. Some stuff is also borderline power pop. It is very rare that two different people would describe us the same way. We have a few fast and melodic punk rock songs, and that is probably why we get the punk rock label. Plus, that label kind of allows us to be anything as punk has no rules.
3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?
The really big influences in the early days were Bad Religion, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Helmet and most of the early 90s Seattle scene. But we also grew up with hair, speed, and trash metal, and today we listen to everything from Americana to hip hop to black metal to hardcore. The most influencing aspect of any type of music is authenticity. When the artist is genuine, it just simply works. That is what we aspire for as well.
4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?
Obviously, there is no simple, black-and-white answer to this question. If we expand this to also include other elements of digitalization, it becomes an even bigger question. Let us explore this great question a little deeper:
When streaming started with Napster and a few others, the music industry was poorly prepared and reacted even more poorly. Instead of finding ways to use the new technology, they started fighting a pointless war against progress and evolution. In a way, one might say the industry (essentially record companies) got what they deserved. The problem is that the individual artists were also not prepared and stood no chance in that battleground. Artists do not have the knowledge, experience, or capability to look for good strategies in this type of a business model war. So the real losers in this war were the artists who got properly shafted.
Enter tech savvy companies looking to leverage the chaos of the battleground and having a good approach to knowing what consumers will use and how they will behave. And here we are today. The business model was completely re-designed to favour the technology platforms. Music has become a commodity, or even worse, a service. Think about that for a second. Music as a service. Art as a service. We are literally and technically only a few years from a world where most “music” is made by computers to only serve as a commodity and a convenience service. And you know how computers work, right? They will try to learn and imitate, but they cannot create true art.
But we should not mix the business model change with the change from physical device to digital streaming. The fact that we consume less physical CDs with those horrible jewel cases is not a bad thing. I mean, who the hell decided that CDs were to be sold in those nasty plastic cases? We know that digital streaming also consumes energy and destroys our planet, but no more plastic cases, ok? There are many convenience aspects to digital consumption. Mix tapes were great and we all miss them, but there are so many more opportunities now. Music can be spread much faster and easier to listeners around the world. That simply cannot be a bad thing. So the digital and/or streaming format itself is fine; the problem is the associated business model transformation that screwed over the artists, turned them into “content providers”, and made music a service and a commodity. Music is an artform. We must fight to protect that.
Ok, that turned into a long answer. Maybe we won’t now go into the other big digital transformation i.e. studios and instruments becoming digital. Can we discuss that in another interview?
5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?
We drink quite often and a lot. Alcohol, that is. Not great and not healthy, but it is a way to get by. Some of us read, some play games, some watch TV, and then we have boring daily works that we try to survive through. We welcome all ideas and suggestions for good strategy and mindfuck games. Any format will do.
6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?
When we were sent on our mission by our Master, nobody told us about pandemics. We are still trying to figure out how to adjust to this situation.
Our debut album, ‘It Began as a Mistake’, was just released and it is getting good exposure, but we cannot obviously tour right now. We have a few shows booked for November and then we will have to wait and see what the new year brings. Our hope is that by summer 2021 there will be festivals again, in some form, and we will be able to play shows properly again.
