We’ve been fans of Stars & Flights for a while now, so following the release of their new album Moral Colour, we caught up with the guys for a chat.
The last time we heard you guys was on Dropping Anchors (we somehow missed out on the Ruin EP), how has the band progressed between the first album and this one, and was the EP really a stepping stone for you guys?
It sounds like a cop-out answer but our sound has definitely matured – the songs are more concise and a lot more focused. We learnt where to tone down the more technical riffs and where to chuck them in. I feel like our individual playing has matured as well – the parts seem to gel a lot better on Moral Colour than on our previous stuff, everything seems a bit more thought out. That kind of thing just comes with time! The EP was definitely a stepping stone. We had these three songs that didn’t feel like they belonged on our next album, but we wanted to release them, so we decided to just put them on an EP that kind of tied the two full-lengths together. It was just us trying out different sounds, tempos, styles, that kind of thing.
You’ve got such a big sound for a three piece, how do you create and achieve such a big scope?
Well thank you! As the guitar player, I feel like I need to put in the effort to compensate for the lack of a second guitar. I use stuff like big, six-string chords, a lot of open strings, and riffs that are essentially a chord pattern with a melody on top. It’s all about just fleshing out those frequencies that a second guitar would usually occupy. Brad (Ratcliffe, drums) uses a lot of cymbals to help with that, and Kierran (Tomkins, bass) plays interesting parts that help to fill out the sound. As for our records, the producers we’ve worked with deserve a lot of credit – they really got the songs to sound as big as possible.
What’s your favourite song to play live from the new album and why?
At the moment I’m enjoying opening the set with Moral Colour – the drum intro and intro riff are pretty loud and in-your-face so it’s a good opener and kind of sets the tone for the rest of the set. I also like Tired Nightlife, it’s got a lot of ups and downs dynamically that make it fun to play!
There seems to be a new music scene growing in South Wales again, is it nice to be a part of that?
There’s a lot of awesome stuff coming out of South Wales at the moment, and yeah, it’s an honour to be talked about in the same sentence as the great bands from around here. South Wales has got a history of great rock and pop music, and I don’t see it dying down any time soon. There’s always a great new release about!
Can we expect another UK tour from Stars & Flights this year?
We’re planning some tours for later in the year, but for now we’re getting together short runs of dates all over the place. We just want to play live as much as we can.
What’s next for Stars & Flights?
As I said above, we want to play live as much as we can, get to as many new places as possible and play to as many new faces as possible. We really just want to spread our music around as much as we can, and play some quality shows on the way.
You can check out our review of Moral Colour here.
