Flight Facilities Interview

Miniature Train Ride

Book Now

Brisbane Sights Tour

Book Now

Croc Tours Transfer & Entry Adventure (BRISBANE) Agent Version

Book Now

Croc Tours Transfer & Entry Adventure (SUNSHINE COAST) Agent Version

Book Now

Best of Brisbane Walking Tour

Book Now

Full Day Mount Tamborine Winery Tour – Brisbane Pickup

Book Now

Performing under the moniker Flight Facilities, Hugo Gruzman and James Lyell have taken their time to deliver their much anticipated debut album, ‘Down To Earth’. Having drip fed their loyal fans with droplets of musical prowess since 2009, the producer duo have already made a name for themselves with their moody, atmospheric, and at times party tracks, bringing us releases such as ‘Clair de Lune’ and ‘Crave You’. The first release from the album being ‘Two Bodies’ features the much lusted after vocals of Emma Louise, and the album also sports collaborations with Owl Eyes and Reggie Watts.

Both haling from Sydney, Flight Facilities are notoriously allusive, but we managed to catch up with Jimmy ahead of their Australia tour to find out more about just what inspires the aviation themed electronic producers.

Travel to Western Australia

So where are you in the world right now?
One of us is in New York and one in Sydney.

It’s an understatement to say we were excited when we heard you were finally releasing an album… why have you kept us waiting for so long?
We didn’t plan it like that, we’ve been long time believers in the single release format, purely for the reason that we wanted our tracks to get the time to be heard properly. At the start of 2014 we set out to try [and] make more of a body of work. At some point we realised we had enough material for an album and enough of our fans were making noise about wanting one so we thought “why not?”

There are some great tracks on the album, some of which we’re fairly familiar with already, what’s your favourite track on the album?
There are some tracks on there like ‘Two Bodies’ and ‘Sunshine’ which will always be fun to play and listen to but its the slow burners like ‘Merimbula’ that are the ones we really loved making and to this day, keep growing on us more and more. That particular track started out as just a mess around in the studio one day and we kept wanting to play it more and more.

You’ve worked with some amazing people on the album, including Owl Eyes, and Reggie Watts, how did the collaborations come about?
All different ways, we usually do two or three sessions on a track before we know what kind of voice or character we want. We feel really lucky being able to work with all the artists we have. We’ve met them in all different places from bars accidentally to misplaced emails. Sometimes we just go out on a limb and ask, it doesn’t always work out though, once we asked Thomas Mars from Phoenix to collaborate, he simply replied “No” It might have made us like him more.

How does it feel to have finally put the album together and getting it out there?
It feels so great now. We just can’t wait for people to hear it and to be able to play it to them. We didn’t know how grueling the process would be but we’re really happy with the result and it’s definitely made us grow a lot in our song writing and production.

You’re musical style is quite eclectic, but also has quite a glamourous and happy feel to it, what is it that you want to put across?
We really just want to have fun in our music, I guess that’s why we wear our uniforms and have such a strong theme. We almost want to disarm people, and it’s fun watching that happen from the stage. Throughout the show you can just see the crowd unwinding and getting more into it, I think we feed off their energy as much as they do ours.

The first release from the album is ‘Two Bodies’, what was it like working with Emma Louise?
Emma is one of the most talented singer songwriters we’ve ever come across. We’re working with her on her own stuff and from the time we all sat down to figure out ‘Two Bodies’ to this day she never ceases to WOW us.

How have you found the feed back from the track so far?
Really great, we love making the fun music that we do but we also love surprising people with the odd meaningful track here and there. We sort of looked at ‘Two Bodies’ the way we did with ‘Clair De Lune’ We were lucky enough to be able to team up with Lorin Askill who directed the video and brought a really beautiful visual element to the song. The general vibe is already far better than we could have hoped.

What was the most enjoyable process of making the album?
Definitely the early days in the studio coming up with new ideas and experimenting with sounds. We sometimes worked 10 hour days that would feel like two hours. We always enjoy the mixing process because we get to work with our talented friend Eric J. Its questionable how efficient we all are together because we just can’t seem to stop talking and carrying on.

The album has a lot of amalgamated genres, what types of music and sounds are you influenced by?
It’s all different I guess. You can hear our early influences in the decade mixes and some of the edits we’ve done, but for certain tracks on the album like ‘Two Bodies’ we were influenced by sounds like Orbital – Belfast, Lovebirds – Want You In My Soul, Toro Y Moi – Rose Quartz and Everything But The Girl – Missing. We looked at all these sounds and wanted to take small elements from each to make one song. We hope we did them all justice.

You’re going to be heading over to Australia soon, are you looking forward to the tour?
Really looking forward to it, we can’t wait to play the album to people for the first time and it’s really cool that it’s going to be on home soil.

Are you hoping to do any sight seeing whilst you’re there? If so what do you hope to get up to?
Even though we both grew up in Australia, we still love doing tourist type things. One of us did the Sydney harbour bridge climb just a few months ago. We would definitely recommend it.

When you’re not making music and performing what do you like to do?
We’re both pretty social people, we love going out and catching up on what we’ve missed while on the road with our friends and family.

Where did the whole flight/airline thing come from? The opening to the album is great!
The logo and name came from Hugo’s grandfather. He started the company in the 70s in Merimbula (NSW) and when we wanted to look for a name it seemed like the perfect fit. Ever since then we’ve just played on the flight theme to get people in a good fun mood. It’s also become a great branding device for us. We had no idea it would get to this point.

The title track ‘Down To Earth’ has quite a classic house feel to it, what was the inspiration for the track?
Good observation! We were inspired by sounds like ‘Stardust – Music Sounds Better With You’ and ‘Mylo – Drop The Pressure’ We grew up in a time that all these tracks were coming out so I guess this one is a little sentimental to us. It was also really fun to make, we spent a lot of time standing up in the studio while making it.

Are you travel inspired at all?
Definitely, although we already get a lot of travel from our touring, we’re always keen to go to new places. It’s really nice being able to travel with what we do, even if we’re only in a place for a short time, we like to make friends with as many people as possible in the hopes we can come back and get to know the place a little more.

As we’re a magazine that prides ourselves on unique music experiences around the world, where would you say is the best festival or club on earth?
Not to be bias but Australian festivals are amazing. Coachella in Palm Springs earlier this year was also an incredible experience. As far as clubs go, you can’t go past the Berghian in Berlin or DC-10 in Ibiza. Not everyone’s cup of tea but the whole experience is such a unique thing.

If you could holiday anywhere in the world, where would it be and what would you be doing?
If I was to answer for the both of us I would have to say on a boat somewhere off the Amalfie Coast or anywhere near the water in the European summer. It sounds lame but we really look forward to Sydney in summer, there really isn’t anywhere like it.

What are your plans for the rest of the year? Any big plans for 2015?
If the album goes well we’ll be touring a lot, so I guess we’re hoping for that. We’re looking at renting a house in Europe in the middle of the year and turning it into a huge revolving door for artists and writers. We’re really excited to see what comes of that.

Thanks for your time, and good luck with the new album, we’re really like it!
Thanks so much!

Flight Facilities Tour Dates

Thu 6 November – Adelaide – HQ
Sat 8 November – Perth- CAPITOL
Thu 13 November – Melbourne – FORUM
Sat 15 November -Brisbane – TIVOLI
Thu 20 November – Sydney – ENMORE

Flight Facilities Down To Earth is released 27th October 2014. 

by Hannah Shakir
@hanshak

Need Help With Your Australian Visa

Explore Darwin, Northern Territory