Interview /w Flight Facilities

On Saturday, Flight Facilities played at Brisbane's Empire Hotel, Patricia made it their to witness the much anticipated first appearance of the duo in Brisvegas and was in no way disappointed. The set was a carousel of amazing tracks, that really gave us a feeling for the duo's great taste and talent. The Tim Fuchs and Flight Facilities collaborative Remix of Foals Miami is included below.
Patricia squeezedin an interview with the very in vogue Flight Facilities over the weekend as they wheels touched down on their Australian Maiden Voyage Tour.

Patricia: We hear [FlightFacilities] just got back from playing at Belgian DJ Beni’s wedding, howwas that? Is Beni a Flight Facilities fan?

FlightFacilities:According to our facebook fan page - Beni is indeed a fan. He's also a verygood friend of ours and we're huge fans of his. There aren't too many sets wecan get through without being tempted to play one of his tracks. We can't waitfor his album. We heard it's pretty much finished and it's going to be amazing.His wedding was also beautiful. We drank, danced, had fun and we were eventreated to a live performance from Louie Austen.

Patricia: Flight Facilitiesformed fairly recently, how do you go from remixing other artists and playinglocally to producing an original single that has achieved mainstream airplay, goingon tour and playing world class festival such as Splendour (WhooHoo!)?

Flight Facilities: Wellwe think we've both done our time djing (locally and in other cities),collecting music from the past few decades and patiently watching the dancemusic world evolve. You just need to channel these things into what you do. Ifyou do it with enough enthusiasm and you happen to catch a 'right time' there'severy chance that you can catch the eye of the right person. We were such hugeAeroplane fans. We can only guess that their influence on us must have drawn asimilarity in taste, hence them paying attention to us in the first place. Morethan anything, it's probably a lifetime of ideas put into music at a time thatwe were both ready. The rest is right place, right time.

Patricia: Patricia wasshocked at the recent and tragic news of Aeroplane’s split as a result of creativedifferences. You guys are also a duo, how do you deal with differences in creativeopinion, have you had many disagreements?

Flight Facilities: Everyonehas disagreements on direction etc. We have heaps of disagreements about thingsduring production. But it's better that way. If you both sit there and agreethe whole way through a track, it can often turn out to be quite bland andboring. There are lots of "No" and "Just try it" beingflung around while we work. It's good to have someone throw in a crazy or farout idea and to explore a new area. You can't develop a sound without pushingboundaries you might disagree on. Unless one of us wanted to start makinghappy-hardcore, we're probably a safe bet to be together for a little while.

Patricia: Do either of youhave a musical background, classical training or otherwise?

Flight Facilities: Weshould probably say yes to this one to make it seem like we have an unfairadvantage but in all honesty - no. Neither of us play an instrument all thatfluently either. We just seem to know what we like to hear and we listen tovery melodic, musical works. That's always a good way to make you feel a littleinadequate and to strive to do better work. We do however specialise intriangle and kazoo ballads.

Patricia: With theevolution of garage bands and technology that allows every man and his dog toproduce and publish music, how do you as music lovers seek out good music?

Flight Facilities: Beatportcharts, artist charts and juno charts are a great place to start. The recordshop is still a gold mine too. It's so hard these days though. There isn't asmall handful of artists that you can stick to and watch. You have to be onyour guard for any new guys. Not to mention the amount of big artists that liketo sneak in under another name. It takes a lot of courage to pick up a newartist name and spin one of their tracks. People can be too afraid to be seenpicking up any unknown song. The music world is so safe. If it weren't for thepeople who constantly search it out, we'd be no better known than we were afterour very first remix.

Patricia: ‘Crave You’ hasbeen has an undeniable success – the myriad of remixes from high calibreartists must be encouraging. What is the process behind this? How do such remixescome about?

Flight Facilities: Wecan break this down one by one -

Cassian heard thetrack first and put his hand up for it about 5 months before it was evenfinished. He's also our friend. Awww!

Graz is alsogreat friend of ours and works in the studio below ours. He makes awesome sunglasses too.

We're HUGE fansof An-2 and we can't seem to work out why that guy hasn't been touring morebecause we're yet to see a bad original or remix from him. We were prettyadamant about getting that remix.

We met James Curdwhile he was touring. He's was so nice and we had just heard 'We Just Won'tStop'. We somehow got a swap with him. Such a cool guy willing to work with newartists.

The C90s became amutual friend when a friend of ours moved overseas. He hooked that up. The C90sand us are now internet buddies. We have a funny feeling it's going to getmessy when we meet them in person.

Ted & Francisare best friends too. They more or less volunteered to do a cover..... at gunpoint. They're disco connoisseurr's of the highest calibre.

Patricia: On this theimpending Maiden Voyage tour you have included Japan as the only international destination, why?

Flight Facilities: Probablybecause it's the closest international destination with a good musicalfollowing. That's excluding New Zealand - which we've been looking into. BangGang 12 Inches has a really strong following there. We're looking at flying alittle further away later this year when the time is right. It's more from anorganised point of view than anything. We're a long way from the rest of theworld so we need to clear some time and really be prepared for a tour on aworld wide scale. We can't wait to do it though.

Patricia: We’ve noticed atrend with other electronic artists such as Miami Horror, whom after a periodof establishing a name in the industry, abandon remixing in favour of producingoriginal work; do you see Flight Facilities moving in this direction in the future?

Flight Facilities: Wehope not. It's a good way to show diversity and musical ability. If you get tooself involved, you shut off to what other people are doing and you forget whatyour abilities really are. It's a nice feeling to listen to someone's originalsong and then listen to your remix by comparison. It's a strong representationof your capabilities and vision. It's also a really good way to network in themusic community and get your sound out to what could be a whole new audience.We'll continue to do both for as long as people want us.

Patricia: Brisbane residentand one of Patricia’s favourite local DJ’s Tim Fuch’s recently collaboratedwith Flight Facilities, how was working with Tim.

Flight Facilities: Wecollaborated with Tim on a remix of Foals 'Miami'. Working with Tim wassurprisingly easy. We did the whole thing in a day. It started after midday andwas a day of insulting each other, laughing, eating sandwiches, dancing in ourseats and singing everything we could that rhymed with "In Miamiiiii".We couldn't believe how quickly it all came together and was finished. That daywon't be forgotten.

Patricia: While Patriciaand many other Brisbanites eagerly anticipate your set on the weekend, can youtell us what’s the best set you ever seen and why?

Flight Facilities: The2 person Aeroplane sets were great to watch. We saw that at Parklife and at anafter party last year. They really seemed to understand each other musicallyand the difference between their chart mixes and live sets was perfect. WatchingDj Mehdi doing an insane party set at a Bang Gang party back in about 2006 wasreally good too.

Patricia: Just to close canyou both name for us:

an all time classic track

FF: Fleetwood Mac - The Chain

an artist to look out for?

FF: Light Year. Also Beni and BagRaiders. They both already have a big following but wait for the albums.They'll be monstrous.

one musical guilty pleasure,artist or track?

FF: The Age of Reason - JohnFarnham

and worse request you’ve everhad?

FF: Well there's going to be nosurprise in saying things like 'Kesha'. That happens all the time. It'ssubjective. People are bound to ask for pop music, and pop music is bound to bepretty terrible. Also, when people ask if they can give you their iPod and askif you "can plug it in" to play a song - that's just awful. But theworst request heard was from a strange little Russian guy wearing sunglasses inthe club. His accent was thick and the actual quote is this:

"Can you make like the BobSinclar, 'Every body dance now! dun dun dun dah dun' "

We've got nothing against BobSinclar or his music. It's great. But don't sing and bounce and point whilerequesting a song. It's distracting and hilarious.

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Here is the collaboration between Tim Fuchs and Flight Facilities mentioned. Tim also appeared on the night.

FOALS - MIAMI (TiM FUCHS Remix feat. Flight Facilities)


-Your Loving Aunt & Filthy