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 ISAAC EMMANUEL, lead singer and bassist of ex-Brisbanites FLAMINGO CRASH, tells JODY MACGREGOR how long they’ve been together.
“I’ve been playing with Matt [Harrison], our drummer, in various bands since primary school. I looked at a photo the other day and we’re sitting outside in our primary school sports uniforms” Emmanuel says.
Most of the members of Flamingo Crash go back a long way. All of them grew up in the same Brisbane suburb, including their new guitarist Troy O’Shea. “[It was] basically a very organic thing. We all grew up and started a bunch of bands together. It’s funny, like a full circle thing. We went through a line-up change a year ago and came to Melbourne looking for a guitarist and the guy we landed on is from Sydney, but originally from that same suburb of Brisbane.”
Any group of friends who have known each other that long will settle into the dynamic where they can be told apart by which member of the Beatles or the Ninja Turtles they most resemble. During their gigs, Isaac Emmanuel explains which TV stars they resemble: Thelma from Scooby-Doo on keyboard, Animal from the Muppets on drums and Michael J. Fox on guitar, leaving himself to fill the role of Ernie from Sesame Street on bass guitar and vocals.
This close connection between the band members manifests in both the way they talk to each other and the way they write songs together, which probably wouldn’t be the case if they had met at auditions. “Knowing someone for that amount of time is different to putting an ad in the street press. Sometimes that can really, really work, but it’s just nice that we finish each other’s sentences sometimes. And each other’s guitar lines. And parts of songs.”
The band has also finished their first album, Triangle Island. It was produced by Brisbane legend Magoo, who has previously worked with Regurgitator, Midnight Oil, Custard and Operator Please.
“We did the album out in the middle of the bush. It was this really nice kind of deserted church. The setting of it didn’t offer many distractions apart from what we were doing at the time,” Emmanuel explains. “Very, very easy in that setting to maintain that focus. We actually pre-wrote a lot of the material for the record so we went in knowing what we wanted to do. A lot of it was trying to capture those tapes and getting it right. Next time I’d like to go in with almost nothing, just play and see where that takes us.”
When they first played the songs, they managed to surprise Magoo. “We played the album and a bunch of other songs that didn’t make it. ‘You guys play all this live, like a band?’ He thought that we sampled parts, cut it up and stuck it all together. He had no idea we were a band.”
Capturing the sound and also the energy of their concerts was definitely their aim. “I don’t necessarily know if we achieved that 100%, but that was something we tried to do as much as possible.”
FLAMINGO CRASH will be launching their album TRIANGLE ISLAND (available on Shock Records) at the Troubadour on Friday, July 11.
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