Flesh Planet
Flesh Planet
It’s been quite the journey. Four boys from up North stepped on stage in London wearing boiler suits. It was the day, after years of working together on other projects, that they finally became ‘Flesh Planet’.
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The boys have always been a sucker for out-there band names, and Flesh Planet sets a new record. Damo recounts the story of how it all came about: “I knew we needed a name for this band so I looked up web domains to see what names were available, and fleshplanet.com was available. So, we were like, alright, we’ll do that then.”
“I burst out laughing when Damo first said that,” Drey adds.
The new project is a curious mish-mash between the heavy and the melodic, with elements of grunge, shoegaze and electronica. It came about, following years of rock influence, from trying to create something more aligned with the pop genre.
‘Evelyn’, the first track recorded on the album, released as the debut single, is a ripe demonstration of their vision.
“I was messing around with trying to write more traditional pop songs, listening to lots of Beatles and Everleigh brothers and trying to do lots of traditional vocal harmony sort of stuff, and lyrically, I was watching Twin Peaks a lot. So it’s based a little on Laura Palmer, and a little on a point and click cyberpunk murder mystery game I was playing at the time.”
A few issues ago, we covered the returning emergence of Shoegaze, or as we branded it ‘Two-gaze’. Loads of fresh talents are coming along, like Horse Jumper of Love, The Ingrid and They Are Gutting a Body of Water are proving that shoegaze is far from dead. Damo has a few views on why this resurgence has come about: “I think it’s come back because it’s super vibey. People seem to discover music through TikTok these days and it’s a very vibes-orientated mode of discovery nowadays. Because it’s moody, it resonates with people, because the world’s a bit moody.”
They have very fond memories of their first ever gig. Yes, the boiler suit one.
Drey recounts: “Nothing really went wrong. The room was full. It couldn’t have gone any better. We were still experimenting at the time. You know, we were trying to be that kind of band, who has some sort of uniform. As far as first shows go, it couldn’t have gone any better for the stage we were at.”
“We’re very into the visual side of things,” Damo adds.
“There’s this big psychedelic element to what we do and we’d love to represent that in more ways than just sonically. We’ve had a million conversations about what we could do, and we throw concepts around.”
The group are in continual discussion about what their stage set-up would look like if they got to play arena shows one day.
Andrey says: ““You have to bear in mind what your limitations are but we have big ambitions to make it more than just an audio experience. We discuss bits of stage set-up, like what would go where, and it’s all a very slow process. Hopefully it will evolve, if it’s parallel with us getting to play in bigger rooms.”
Although they would love to perform with Nine Inch Nails or Gary Numan, they would also love to perform alongside some smaller, local acts.
“We used to go and watch a lot of stuff in Leeds,” Damo says. “and there was this band called ‘Pulled Apart by Horses’ that was burgeoning at the time, and it was really exciting to watch them. We’ve played with them in other bands but it would be really cool to do that again now. We’re a bit more like peers now, than kids looking up to the older boys doing the thing we want to do. There’s this other band in Leeds called Thank, and I’d love to do a show with those.
“Otherwise, if you could mix up My Bloody Valentine and Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins around 2000s time, I would support that!”
Hypotheticals - making a proper performance out of it:
Damo: “We’re very into the visual side because There’s this big psychedelic element to what we do and we’d love to represent that in more ways than just sonically. We’ve had a million conversations about what we could do, and we throw concepts around.”
Andrey: “You have to bear in mind what your limitations are but we have big ambitions to make it more than just an audio experience. We discuss bits of stage set-up, like what would go where, and it’s all a very slow process. Hopefully it will evolve, if it’s parallel with us getting to play in bigger rooms.”
Although they would love to perform with Nine Inch Nails or Gary Numan, they would also love to perform alongside some smaller, local acts.
Damo: “We used to go and watch a lot of stuff in Leeds, and there was this band called ‘Pulled Apart by Horses’ that was burgeoning at the time, and it was really exciting to watch them. We’ve played with them in other bands but it would be really cool to do that again now. We’re a bit more like peers now, than kids looking up to the older boys doing the thing we want to do. There’s this other band in Leeds called Thank, and I’d love to do a show with those.
“Otherwise, if you could mix up My Bloody Valentine and Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins around 2000s time, I would support that!”
Damo: “You should buy the album because it’s really good for your oral hygiene and your mental health. At the risk of sounding big-headed, I think we’re doing something a little bit different. We’ve always been very conscious of not crafting ourselves according to a sound that already exists. We like all these different bands and learn and take from them but we don’t want to be a carbon copy of something that already is. The biggest joy of doing music and art is to express your own unique flavour or a combination of flavours that make the sound of Flesh Planet. I don’t think anything sounds like us, for better or worse!”
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