Artist Focus
FLYNT
FLYNT: CUMBRIA CALLING We sit down with multi-talented ‘northern brewed’ quartet, FLYNT, whose attention to sonic detail is seemingly as impressive as the music that gets made in their state of the art studio. Words Adam Protz Cumbrian indie-popsters, FLYNT, describe themselves as ‘northern brewed’, and are very much on the rise after a strong backlog of gigs, including shows with the BBC, and Glasgow’s TRNSMT Festival — not too shabby at all, considering they only started performing together last year. This quickly saw them conquering the north as they focused on playing in Manchester, Leeds, and their native Cumbria. It’s little surprise, when they have such an infectious pop-rock sound. Brad Kavanagh, Emma Dockeray, Steve Norman, and Calvin Thornborrow sit down with us to tell us about their journey so far, and about the epic studio they’ve created. “FLYNT came about as a culmination of various random happenings, to be honest,” Kavanagh says. “Me and Steve ended up playing for the same band for a short while, and realised a mutual love for Stevie Wonder’s great instrumentation kicked off our first big discussion. We then went on to start our own
44 Headliner
project band with Calvin on bass, and gigged around for a few years. We already knew about Emma and her voice, but it wasn’t until we produced her EP in 2015 at Big Moose Studios that we really got to know her better. “Together, we all sat down and spoke about joining up. It ended up being January 2017 by the time we felt it was right to start doubling down on our songs, and making a focused vision for what we wanted FLYNT to be.” It’s one of those stories where it just seems that the stars aligned in bringing musicians together. What certainly has helped the band enormously is the studio that Kavanagh and Norman already owned prior to all of this band business. “We’d pooled together all of our resources, and began working out of his parents’ dining room,” Kavanagh says. Must have made family meals a bit awkward, I’d imagine. “But in 2013 we found a small unit on a farm near Keswick that seemed ideal; a beautiful setting, and a great starter facility.”
With all that being said, FLYNT are careful to not spend all of their creative time in the studio. “Usually, we write at Emma’s house in her living room as there is such a vibe to the space,” Kavanagh reveals. “I think you can lose the natural vibe of a song, and it becomes something else when you end up producing on-the-go alongside the writing. So we enjoy getting the song sounding good alongside only one instrument, usually guitar, before we even think about production or recording.”
Studio Vibes
I ask the guys about their core studio setup. “We use an iMac Pro, and record and produce in Pro Tools 12,” Norman tells me. “I really enjoy using Pro Tools because of its editing capabilities and functionality. The star of the show for us, however, and without a doubt the best thing we’ve ever bought, is the Prism Sound Orpheus interface. It’s phenomenal. We had been using various
