The Flying Batteries talk to invernessGiGs

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The Flying Batteries are local duo Rikki Mackenzie and Craig Christison whose synthpop music style has evolved over the last 2 year. We were very pleased when the band agreed to have a chat with us.

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Formed in 2009, how did the band come about?

The current band formed after a number of line up and stylistic changes. The core members of the band, Rikki and Craig, met through an early guitarist. We formed as a Goth Metal band in early 2009 in a standard 4 member lineup, as Charlotte Sometimes, which then evolved into the synth heavy Cold Haze. We’d established a stable set up in early 2010, utilising drum machines and pre-recorded bass tracks, when another band of the name Cold Haze contacted us requesting we change our name or risk facing legal action. We settled with the name The Flying Batteries a reference to the Sonic the Hedgehog games, the music of which has been a big influence to us.

Are there other influences on the band on the band?

Our main influences are the music and sounds of 90s era video games and various theatrical bands such as Queen and The Cure. We like to think we’ve got an 80s production style, particularly with our new material. Our live set up was influenced by sequencer heavy bands such as New Order. We think this gives us a style that’s a bit different to what’s on in Inverness at the moment.

In a recent Facebook post you said “Started to write a new song at 2am on Saturday, finished recording it at 2am on Sunday. All hail the awesome power of insomnia”, whilst it made us chuckle, how do you normally go about creating a tune?

All night writing and recording sessions are surprisingly standard! However the process normally starts with an idea which, with a lot of emailing back and forth between us, evolves into a basic song layout. We’ll normally then record a demo and see how we can improve it. These recordings, over time, become more and more polished and are eventually released online. We always write our music using computer software which gives us a clear representation of how the finished melodies and rhythms will sound together. We actually have a backlog of about 40-50 songs we’ve yet to record!

The latest EP seems to be a work in progress, what are the plans for an official release?

We like the idea of people hearing our songs as they evolve letting them observe the creative process. Our releases are therefore frequently altered. The EP will be finished when we feel we have enough songs that flow together the way we want them to. Once we’ve achieved this we’ll see about an official release. We don’t like the idea of selling music this early in the bands life, we’d rather get our music out there for free, at least at the moment.

What are the plans for 2012?

On paper we’ve actually got quite a busy year! We’ve been wanting to do a lot more gigging, as it’s something we regret not doing enough of in the past 2 years. We’ve had to turn down a lot of gigs due to other commitments, a problem we hope to get around next year. For releases; we’re well into production on a split EP with Brazilian act ‘New Motive Power’. We’re aiming for late January/early February release. We like that in this day and age we can make music with people we’ve never been in the same country as, let alone the same room. At home we’re hoping to finish our new EP and possibly another EP before the end of the year. When we get all this finished, we plan to start work on our second album and perhaps a music video (but that’s a real ‘maybe’).

Have you anything else to plug?

Just our websites really. You can download all of our music for free at http://theflyingbatteries.bandcamp.com/ , and you can keep up to date with all of our stuff at http://www.facebook.com/TheFlyingBatteries .

Thanks to The Flying Batteries for their time.

A notefrom the editor

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Chris Lemon
Chris Lemonhttp://www.igi.gs
A lifelong passion for music matched with a geeky fascination for social media and websites resulted in the creation of Inverness Gigs back in 2010. The aim of the site is to help promote, support and generally raise awareness of the local music scene.In fairness fifteen years of being a psychiatric nurse never prepared me for the experiences that we have had over the last few years and the evolution of Inverness Gigs has certainly been a steep learning curve.I currently write (less and less), edit and co-ordinate most of the Inverness Gigs activities.Occasionally seen on Twitter, and  LinkedIn, if you want get in touch you can contact me via our Facebook page.

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