Promising Long Beach band The Fling, who were just profiled in our On the Horizon section, recently took the time to answer a few of our inquiries regarding life and the music scene out West, their band’s history, drinking, and everything else in between. Thanks for taking the time guys!

Featured song: The Fling – Friend Of Mine

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It says on your myspace that you guys are from Long Beach, but it also says
that your number 1 influence is Nebraska and I notice a lot of country/folk
sounds in your music too. Where are you guys all from?

G: That’s actually an album title. All of those are album titles. That
one is Bruce Springsteen. Dustin and I were born here, then we moved
away, then came back. You can’t stay away from the ocean too long.
Roeland moved here from New York a few years back and Ivey lived about
45 minutes away until earlier this year, but things finally fell in
place for him to move to Long Beach so we’ve been a lot busier getting
things done lately like writing, planning tours, customizing vans,
drinking.

How long have you guys been a band?

G: About three years now.

When I think of our countries biggest music scenes I think of LA and
Brooklyn/NYC. To me, the music I hear from LA is far more folky/country and
full-band sounding, like Delta Spirit, Dawes and you guys too, whereas in
Brooklyn, I feel that there’s more focus on new-age/bedroom/laptop or
whatever the hell you want to call it. Can you talk about the music scene in
LA? Do you agree with what I’m saying? I may be completely wrong. I see you
guys are having your release party at Spaceland, where a lot of great bands
have passed through, what can you say about Spaceland and the scene that
surrounds it?

G: All I can say is that we play with a lot of good bands out here and
they are fun to watch. Not just kind of pleasant to watch from the
back, but fun to get up front and get into it. You gotta get some
sweat and beer on you once in a while. I grew up listening to punk and
going to rowdy shows then started getting into a lot of mellower stuff
later, so I’m into both. I like to put on headphones and lay on the
ground by myself and listen to dub or something spacey, but I also
love the nights where we all get drunk and wind up in dresses playing
Dead Kennedys covers. So for live shows I think most of us out here
like to get the whole band together and live out the dreams we had as
kids. But we all enjoy getting weird with bedroom recordings too. For
now, it just doesn’t seem to be the focus for many of us. Real
instruments are too fun. We’ll see though, maybe we’ll all get super
into techno.

Is Dustin your brother? Who plays what and does what in the band?

G: Yes. Older brother. He plays guitar and sings most of the time. I
play bass and sing a good amount of the time. Roeland plays guitar,
keys and sings a lot too. Ivey lives for percussion.

Have you guys been touring for the record? where have been your favorite
places to play? Do you have a tour set up for after the record release?

G: A little. We’ve been kind of waiting to tour again until we
actually had the cds to sell. We all love San Francisco. Denver is a
close second. We’re leaving right after the release show for a west
coast run, then we’ll be back for a month and then I think we’re going
to do a big one. Probably get out to the east coast.

You mention that you are playing with Delta Spirit, what are some other
bands that you guys are into and would maybe like to play with in the
future?

G: Well we love playing with those guys as well as all the other local
bands, Tijuana Panthers, our country buddy Sam Outlaw, The Growlers,
too many to name. As far as future tours I don’t know…Grizzly Bear
would be rad or Dr. Dog. Tom Waits would be a dream.

Your songs to me are like ballads, and the art of storytelling seems really
prevelant in your music. Does this change the way that you approach writing
a song? do you start with a story you want to tell and then find music to go
with it, or the other way round?

G: On this record Dustin wrote the majority of the beginning stages of
the songs. But its been mostly the same approach, someone has an idea
with most of the lyrics done and we all take it and basically tear it
down and rebuild it. Sometimes it works and sometimes the original
demo of something sounds best. More and more we are starting to find
grooves we didn’t know existed and turn them into songs and it’s
becoming more communal. Definitely a good thing.

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Special thanks to Graham for answering our questions.

To read about The Fling on On the Horizon, click here.