Interview with Dustin Lovelis of The Fling

(The Fling)

31.08.2011 von Sascha Knapek

In der zweiten Ausgabe unserer neuen Rubrik "Short Cuts" sind wir bereits auf die Kalifornier von The Fling eingegangen und ihr 2010er Debüt "When The Madhouses Appear" gehörte zu den Perlen des vergangenen Jahres. Frontmann und Hauptsongwriter Dustin Lovelis stellten wir ein paar Fragen zu seiner Band, seiner Musik und den Zukunftsplänen von The Fling. Hier sind seine Antworten.

Dustin, let’s start with a rather regular question for our readers who have never heard of The Fling: Who is The Fling and where would you position the band on a musical landscape?

Dustin Lovelis: The Fling is actually the name of the group my dad played in when he was about our age. He gave up playing music seriously after he started a family, so my brother Graham (bass) and I thought it seemed fitting to just keep the name going. We found both Justin's (Roeland on guitar and Ivey on drums) and things just sort of evolved from there. Musically I feel like we are a cross between The Everly Brothers, Supergrass and The Pixies. Sixties pop songs buried in noise and harmonies. Some of the stuff on the record has a mild country feel somewhere in the vein of Townes Van Zandt or Gillian Welch. We have been compared to Built to Spill before as well. That's fine.

The Fling was originally conceived as a side project. What made you start a side project in the first place and when did you realize that it was becoming more than a side project?

Dustin Lovelis: Well, I had played in bands previous to The Fling, but never anything that was really satisfying to me personally. Once my last group disbanded I started writing songs, assembled a group, and we discovered that everyone was on the same page musically. Now we are all writing songs individually and I couldn't be happier with the outcome. In my experience playing in bands, it's rare to find four people who really understand what the others are trying to accomplish musically. I think we all feel really fortunate to have found that.

How did you guys start out making music? Have you always been in a band with your brother Graham and how is working with him different than working with the other band members?

Dustin Lovelis: Graham and I have always played together, but I'd say in the past couple years or so we've really become more akin to each others writing styles. The same goes for the Justins. I have always really liked when brothers do harmonies too. Listen to the Beach Boys. You can't sound that good unless you came out of the same uterus.

The formation of The Fling was in 2005, if I’m not mistaken. What were some of the struggles you faced in the first five years?

Dustin Lovelis: We have only been a group since 2007. Line up changes made it pretty difficult to move forward. We'd lose a guitar player, then find a fill in. We kept practicing the same eight songs over and over again mainly to teach new members our live set. Once Justin Roeland came along he learned the songs within a day or two. Our band kind of started over from that point and we were able to finish writing a record and not stress out about new members coming and going.

Please tell us something about the process of recording the twelve tracks of your current record "When The Madhouses Appear" and what particular sound were you shooting for?

Dustin Lovelis: We decided to fund the record ourselves, so we got in touch with Raymond Richards at Red Rockets Glare. We recorded a good portion of the record there. I met a mutual friendata party and was telling her about the record we were making. We ended up talking all night about recording live, big room sounds, and the importance of being able to put some feeling into a recording. It just so happened that she workedata studio in Silverlake called The Boat. It was exactly what we needed. We brought Raymond with us to engineer. We set up, played live, and everything ended up sounding great. After we finished tracking, we gave the record to Matt Wignall and mixed it down to 2 inch. He did an amazing job. We also did some field recordings on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, and hiked six miles to record acoustic guitars in an old barn somewhere in the Los Angeles hills. All in all it was a pretty eclectic but smooth process.

Do any songs stick out for you personally on "When The Madhouses Appear"?

Dustin Lovelis: "Devil's Man" and "Dry The Rain" are my personal favorites.

Foto: Dylan Cortez

Were the twelve tracks everything you recorded, or can we maybe hope for some B-Sides or outtakes along the way?

Dustin Lovelis: There are a few songs that didn't make the record, but rather than go back and finish them we will most likely put out new music instead.

Was it hard for you guys to find a record company to release the record? How, in general, is your approach to working with record labels and the business side of the whole music thing?

Dustin Lovelis: We have had a few dinners with some suits, but nothing has really come up yet that we feel comfortable with. We are really proud of this record and are not going to just give it away that easily. We like owning our music. We started our own label/imprint called ‘Lady Monk Records’. At this point we are doing everything ourselves.

Touring seems to have taken the front seat in your career so far. How many gigs do you play per year and how do you find the right balance between touring and studio work?

Dustin Lovelis: We try to tour as much as humanly possible. Day jobs and a 1984 Dodge van made it pretty limiting in the past. I think the furthest east we went last year was Kansas City, MO. We just got a new van so once the record comes out we plan on touring non-stop for the rest of the year and recording demos on our off time.

Who’s writing the songs? Do you guys conceive them in a collaborative effort or is it a rather secluded, personal process?

Dustin Lovelis: I wrote the majority of this record. A few songs were written before there was even a band. Graham wrote "Day I Find" and we co-wrote "Spooks". We have a lot of new material and everyone is writing a lot of new music. The next record will definitely be a more collective effort.

Songs like "No Sleep" evoke comparisons to the 60’s, others are rather directly inspired by 90’s-era independent rock and the trilogy of Folk, Americana and Soul are also in the mix. How would you characterize your sound and who influenced your songwriting and you as a musician?

Dustin Lovelis: You summed it up pretty nicely. Thank you. John Lennon, Gillian Welch and Frank Black are probably my biggest influences when it comes to songwriting.

Your website - http://www.thefling.us/ - is more of a blog than a homepage. What made you go in that direction and pass on, let’s say, a traditional website?

Dustin Lovelis: Graham does all the webshits. He updates everything and does all the artwork. I don't have a computer, so I don't know how to do most of that stuff. I probably won’t even be able to attach this email.

What is currently spinning in your record player?

Dustin Lovelis: I've been listening to Captain Beefheart’s "Safe As Milk" a lot recently.

Any plans to tour in Germany and release the album here in the near future?

Dustin Lovelis: We would love to tour in Germany! The record will be out digitally on August 31st (2010) and we hope to get physical copies out there shortly after that.

Thanks a lot for your time!

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