The Fflaps consist of Ann (vocals and guitar), Alan (bass) and Jonny (drums). The Welsh-singing, Gwynedd-based, three-piece are about to release their third LP. The first two were released on Liverpool’s Probe Plus, home of Half-Man Half-Biscuit. For the third they’ve reverted to Alan’s very own label, Central Slate.
There’s hasn’t been anything released by the Fflaps for quite a while, any plans to rectify the situation?
Absolutely! By the time this is out, our new LP will be in the shops. Imaginatively titled, “Fflaps”; it features eleven new songs and, recklessly oblivious to market forces, it will be released on vinyl only! Call us a bunch of old squares if you like, but ever since our dim and distant first pocket monies we’ve all been hopelessly addicted to records and just can’t conceive of a record existing unless it’s made of real vinyl! We do have a soft spot for 8-track cartridges though.
Any plans to tour?
This sounds a bit silly, but we’ve got gigs coming up in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, France and possibly Ireland and Holland, but at the moment have none at all confirmed in Britain, simply because no-one has asked us. It seems that, with the exception of the big names and fashionable press favourites, live music has almost died in this country – a combination of the recession, forcing gig-goers to play safe and gigs being replaced by raves. We virtually never turn down gigs, so if anyone wants to see us live, they only need to ask! Recently though, we’ve had a much more positive response from elsewhere.
What was it like playing the Cymdeithas Yr Iaith (Welsh language Society) benefit gig? Any newish bands that particularly caught your eye?
We enjoyed playing the gig, despite all the technical problems that are inevitable in a gig of that size (over 30 bands!). There was a much more friendly atmosphere than at usual big Welsh events – I think a lot of people were genuinely happy to see Branwen and Alun released from prison.
We didn’t really catch any new bands there as we arrived late after being lost on the inhospitable slopes of mid Wales, but of those we’ve seen or heard recently, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci are pretty wonderful –particularly the two sessions they recorded for Radio Cymru. WE heard a couple of polished recordings which seemed to lose a lot of what was so good about them though. We also have a lot of admiration for Gofodwyr Piws and Rheinallt H. Rowlands, both being that rarest of things in Wales (or indeed Britain) – people who sound like they’re playing their own music rather than someone else’s!
What music are you listening to these days?
We all listen to a huge amount of different music, but restricting it to recent stuff, the highlight of the past year must have been Hole who were more astonishingly good live than on record. Unusually, a lot of our 1991 favourites were pretty much the same as the dreaded music press ‘best of the year’ lists – Primal Scream, Nirvana, Neil Young, My Bloody Valentine, Babes in Toyland. Datblygu remain a big favourite, constantly coming up with really good stuff without repeating themselves. It was good to see Kraftwerk back on the scene and having a chance to see them live….Spiritualised were absolutely mind-blowing live but are yet to transfer it to vinyl properly…quite a bit of rap stuff like Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Consolidated, Dream Warriors….Bongwater, Marc Almond, St. Etienne, Nomeansno….lots of faceless techno stuff and a handful of old favs who’ve continued to come up with the goods – The Fall, Sonic Youth, Julian Cope, etc. That’s probably enough for now! Most of us like the above and a lot besides.
Fflaps
What would you say if Public Enemy asked you to work with them?
“Yo gee! Bring the noise!” or something along those lines.
Have the Fflaps been successful in achieving what they set out to do?
From an artistic point of view we have been fairly successful so far. At a risk of sounding pompous – justifying your art usually does! – what we set out to do was to help create contemporary Welsh culture that wouldn’t make people embarrassed to be Welsh, by playing exciting, underivative and intelligent music that owed nothing to hype or fashion, and that didn’t sound as if it came from anywhere else – unlike the American-music-with-Welsh-words that had always dominated previously; or to be more concise, we want to be the complete polar opposite to the Manic Street Preachers!
We’re all pretty happy with what we’ve done so far, and don’t think we’ve repeated ourselves at all yet. We’ve never seen the point in making the same record three times! We’re particularly pleased that virtually every comparison we’ve had in reviews or audience comments have been different – we’ve got a huge list of them by now! Any influences must be pretty deeply mixed in! It’s also quite gratifying that so many people have come up to us at gigs and said that they hadn’t realised there were any good groups in Wales until they heard us – it’s pretty patronising as well though!
On the other hand, from a financial point of view, we’d like to be much more successful to say the least, but if that was important to us, we’d do something more compatible, like cutting subversive slogans into our bodies and wearing make-up.
The Fflaps use one guitar, one bass and a drum kit yet are probably the noisiest band in Wales (anybody like to challenge that?), do you think the band could ever write /play a quiet love song?
Yes, probably, although it’s not something we’d sit down and consciously decide to do. We’ve always let our songs appear naturally and develop however they seem to want to. There are some more low-key, less frantic songs on the new LP (although not exactly love songs) but again, that wasn’t a decision on our part, they just happened that way – it doesn’t mean we’re mellowing out! The next LP is just as likely to be an hour of solid feedback, a collection of surf instrumentals or perhaps even a concerto for group and orchestra, but probably not. As for line-up restrictions, it was good enough for Elvis, Hendrix, The Slits, The Birthday Party……they didn’t sound the same.
If you had to choose a band from each of the decades, 60s, 70s, 80s who’ve influenced the Fflaps, who would they be?
An impossible task, but we’ll have try!
The 60s artist we’ve actually been compared to is Captain Beefheart. Although Alan is an especially big fan of his, apart from some of the convoluted rhythms on our second LP, we can’t realistically see much of his music in ours, can you?
Similarly we all love Scott Walker’s first four LPs but it would take a pretty elastic imagination to accuse us of sounding like him; likewise, Roy Orbison.
Of course, the Velvet Underground is an obvious one, but as every single white guitar group (and many others besides) from the past twenty years has been hugely influenced by them, it’s not a particular Fflaps influence so we won’t count them!
After much thought we’ll have to go for Syd Barrett, his warped nursery rhyme melodies and unhinged lyrical imagery have a definite reflection in many of Ann’s tunes and words.
As for the 70s Ann suggests marc Bolan and T-Rex goes for the similar simplicity of the Modern Lovers LP, which he asserts to be the best record in the history of music (although he also admits to a soft spot for the ludicrously deranged anti-simplicity of Van Der Graaf Generator!1). Jonny, tongue in cheek, suggests The Rubettes before we all agree it must be the German group, Can. Tapes of their early 70s LP have long been essential tour soundtracks in the Fflaps van. Their devastating rhythm section of Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay have been the prime influence on the way Jonny and Alan approach a song together.
By the 80s it becomes more difficult to narrow it down to one. Probably the groups we’ve had most comparisons to have been Sonic Youth and The Fall, but whilst they both probably had influences on us, so are a lot of other people! A lot of influences have been negative rather than positive. We’ve tried to do something opposite to all the music we really hate! So perhaps we ought to choose someone like The Alarm or The Wonder Stuff…..but perhaps not.
Thinking about it though, the biggest influence must really be Datblygu. They were the group that showed us that it was possible to play music in Welsh without being brain-dead vegetables! If we can do the same for the next generation of new groups, then we’ll consider ourselves to have been completely successful!
Interview by Darren Jones