I Don't Not Love You

Flashguns are rapidly bursting out of the seams of the music industry, filling our ears with their fresh sounds and stonking drum beats. Here at Our Iron Lung that's obviously the kind of thing that sets our hearts pumping, so when we told Annabelle she was off to interview them it pretty much made her spaff everywhere.


Flashguns have been together since they met at school in West Sussex, but they insist they’re not a ‘school band’; “we’ve grown up a lot”, lead singer and guitarist Sam Felix Johnston tells me. “We started together about two years ago and started touring more seriously and taking each other more seriously at the beginning of our gap years”. The band’s gap year is now coming towards a close this September, so when asked what they planned to study at university, this was the response I was amusingly greeted with;

Sam: I’m doing Philosophy and so is Olly (Scanton, Flashguns’ bassist). Oli (Wright, Flashguns’ percussionist) is doing golf club technology.

Annabelle: Golf club technology? What’s that?

Sam: It’s a form of physics.

Oli: It’s all to do with erm, just general golf clubbing.

Sam: We are planning to go to university, but I think ultimately...

Olly: [interrupting] We’re planning to drop out.

Sam: Well no, not drop out, I think that’s the wrong word, I think we’re planning to...

Olly: [interrupting] leave.

AM: Do you not want to go?

Sam: [pause] No, not anymore. But the thing is I would go, I’d love to go if we didn’t have the band; it’s my passion it’s all I want to do. We’re going to go until we get signed and then we’ll drop out.

I suppose you have to give it to them on the unconventional thinking front. Wondering if they had much else planned for summer, Sam tells me that they’ve got quite a chilled summer: “We’re just trying to really prep up good stuff for next year; do some writing, rehearsing, maybe do some more demo recording. We’ve got some shows coming up, one in London and one for Artrocker in Manchester. We would have liked to have done a few more shows actually but we didn’t really get on the festival bandwagon in time".

The band is inspired by artists such as Nirvana, Biffy Clyro, Jimmi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. Sam also added: “I think we wouldn’t say we’re trying to emulate anyone. Every song we’ve ever listened to has somehow ended up in our tracks and we’re not of a genre and not trying to go along with any crowd. We were never influenced by one particular artist, so we’ve always made music that we like the sound of. That’s why it changes a lot and from one song to the next as the consistency's not really there, but I think that’s a good thing and keeps our music fresh as we have a lot of passion for it so we don’t feel like we have to write a song and feel compromised".

When asked which actors the band would want to play them in a film, the answers were quite alarming. It would seem that Oli would like to have a sex change and have Catherine Zeta Jones star as him. Even more disturbing, it seems that Olly would like to do a reverse wacko Jacko so he could be played by Denzel Washington. How very interesting. However, seeing as we were at Summer Sundae I thought it’d be fitting to ask the boys some summer themed questions.

AM: Okay. So would you rather go to a sandy or pebble beach?

Sam: Well pebble beaches are nice to go on, but if I wanna go surfing like say in Brighton then I’d rather be on a sandy beach. But ultimately I’m not a big fan of sand. Isn’t sand a weird word?

AM: I tell you what is a weird word: winkelmesser. It’s the German for protractor.

Sam: Hey, you know what? I saw a protractor outside our van earlier just randomly and wondered “What the hell is this doing here?”

AM: Maybe someone wanted to measure the angles of some triangles and do a bit of trig.

Sam: Good old trig.

AM: So would you rather go for a donkey ride or go to the fairground?

Sam: You know what, I’d love to go on a donkey ride. Actually, you should probably boycott the donkey ride as they’re really mean to them as they whip them and don’t treat them very well and all their hair comes off. Then I’d run away with the donkey as I’m quite good at horse riding and I’d save it.

AM: Ooh I have a pet hedgehog. Well, I had it for a day: I stole it from the woods. took it to the pub with me and then took it home on the bus and hid it in a box when I went to work.

Sam: They are quite sweet, I wouldn’t mind having a pet hedgehog. Did you feed it dog food?

AM: No, a lot of people I’ve talked to about it told me to do that, but I didn’t, I fed it chips as I went to Mc Donalds.

Sam: Did it have a name?

AM: I called it Bambi.

So there you have it kids, fuck that university place at UCL, have a sex change then gallop off into the sunset with Pedro the Skegness donkey. Your life will be pretty much sorted.

[MP3] Flashguns - I Don't Not Love You
[MYSPACE] Visit Flashguns on myspace here.