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First of all, why did you pick Flying Nun as a name for the recordlabel?
"There are two stories -- one is that it was named after Roger's first
wife(!) or more obviously, the '60s TV show starring Sally Fields."
If someone asked you to describe the sound of Flying Nun, what would you come up with?
"There is not a "sound". We have released a lot of indie guitar bands but
plenty else besides like early mutant electro (Skeptics etc) and some pop."
When listening to those early bands (Chills, Clean and Bats) there's a particular spacey and folk-inspired sound to it. Do you think that those bands, and Flying Nun in general, is very much influenced by its environment, namely New Zealand?
"Possibly, but mostly by sixties psychedelic rock, folk-rock etc. There is a
sense of isolation and time-warp to it -- we were missing trends like new
romantic, then hair bands etc, cos it just didn't seem relevant when you're
in a little town at the bottom of the world."
Many of the bands are inspired by the Punk ethic. How much is Flying Nun label influenced by the Do-It-Yourself ethic?
"Totally, that was the idea, based on Factory and Rough Trade etc. No-one
else was going to put out records by bands from the NZ South Island so yeah,
do-it-yourself..."
Roger Shepherd, who set up the recordlabel 15 years ago, decided to settle in London in '96. Why did he decide to move to England? How hard is it to have your boss at the other side of the planet?
"Roger ended up selling his share in the company. He was keen to go to
England to live for something different. It was kind of awkward being
stretched between UK and NZ. He ended up hating the English biz (way too
"biz" for him, even at the indie level) and sold out of FN cos he did like
living England. He is now a wine importer."
In 1992, there was the Noisyland tour with three bands (Bats, JPS Experience and Straitjacket Fits) going to Europe, America and Australia.
And in 1995 you had the The Sound Is Out There tour with amongst others Garageland. Have there been any plans to do a new package tour?
"Maybe if we ended up with two or three bands with an international release,
we could send them out on tour together but there are no concrete plans."
Now that you have the internet, I guess it must be easier to widen your fanbase. How important is the internet for you guys? Apart from mailorder, does the internet benefit you in any other ways?
"It means we can get information abot ourselves to our fans all over the
world. www.flyingnun.co.nz is the best place to find out about FN if you
live in Brazil or Norway!"
I noticed that Stereolab, Ween and a couple of other non-New Zealand bands are now on your label. Why did you decide to sign foreign bands?
"Mostly because Roger was building a distribution network through Europe and
we wanted to get more stuff to funnel through it. We found foreign bands we
liked who liked the look of our distribution set-up, which then covered
Europe and Australia and NZ -- ie a lot of key non-US territories -- and
wanted to work with us."
You also have Flying In, which distributes records from outside New Zealand. Can you tell us a bit more about that? I noticed a lot of the recent releases is Dance/Techno. Coincidence?
"It started as a way of contra -- we export records from here and swap them
for what other distributors had. It just grew and grew. Lots of techno and
dance? That is because if you look at what all the good distributors we buy
from (Vital UK, EFA Germany, Revolver USA etc etc) sell there is a ton of
independent dance music out there and a worldwide audience for it."
If a band sends in a demo, what do you want to hear?
"Good songs is the first thing. It has to be interesting. We are pretty
quirky music fans."
Certainly in the beginning, most recording were pretty lo-fi. Has that changed over the years?
"There's still low-fi stuff. Lots of people have got better at it as time
goes by, and now the new lo-fi is probably a cracked (ie stolen) version of
Pro-Tools in yr bedroom anyway. Four tracks are not so prevalent. At the
same time you can find better studios at cheaper prices too."
I always admire the artwork of Flying Nun. So many of the records were done by Chris Knox (Toy Love, Tall Dwarfs and Enemy). Do you want new records to have that same style?
"Artwork is still mostly up to the bands concerned. Occasionally we look at
their ideas and go "uh-uh, try again" but mostly it's whatever they want."
Was Chris Knox an influence in other ways for Flying Nun?
"Aside from recording style, d-i-y, abusing audiences, passion, loving the
Beatles and the VU, spirit, artwork, videos... no-one took much notice of
him at all!"
What new bands have you signed of late and how do they fit in the Flying Nun sound?
"The Subliminals (kinda like early Bailterspace), HDU (trancey rock trio,
abit more like Blaiterspace crossed with pink Floyd) the D4 (garage, rockin
like Radio Birdman) The Hasselhoff Experiment (kinda Crypt0style r'n'r but a
duo!)"
When someone wanted to jump on the Flying Nun wagon, what would be the best introduction?
"Some of the compilations -- Tuatara, PopEyed, In Love With These Times,
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives and Scarfies s/trks... they're all good
places to start."
» Visit Flying Nun's website @ www.flyingnun.co.nz
http://www.kindamuzik.net/label/709/flying-nun/522/
Meer op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/709
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