A London-based rock band calling itself “Flyte” is about to issue its first album called “The Loved Ones.” Their guitarist Will Taylor has explained the band’s literary associations in an interview by Robin Murray on the website of Clash magazine:
Q: There’s a real literary influence in the lyrics.
A: I think it’s a real combination of our environment… I grew up with two English teacher parents, so lots of reading, and lots of books lying around all the time. I was a very big fan of Evelyn Waugh, and his novel Brideshead Revisited is where we took the name of the band, actually – Sebastian Flyte. That’s why we called the band that.
It was all about the mourning of a lost time, the golden nostalgic eras that are now in crumbling ruins. I think that was one of the themes of that book. Something that we definitely moved over onto the band, it’s aesthetic, and the tones of the songs. We called the album ‘The Loved Ones’ because there’s another Evelyn Waugh novel called that. And it felt like a nice way to refer to the characters on the album – there’s Annie and Alasdair, and of course ‘Cathy Come Home’. Lots of real life stories being told, lots of characters, and it felt like a good way of tying it all together.
And also, you can mention Morrissey or maybe Ray Davies or even Nick Drake, but I think they were just probably in a similar situation to us, and obviously they were inspired by those writers too, but I think it’s a lovely combination when pop or rock ‘n’ roll or recorded music… lyricism, when it clashes with other things – like art, literature, film. I think that’s always for us the most satisfying aspect of popular culture, when those things clash together. So we were trying to bottle a bit of that.
Their album will be released in the UK on vinyl later this week by Island Records. Among the tracks are songs entitled “Orphans of the Storm” and “Annie and Alasdair.” The record will also be available for sale on Amazon.com in the USA from 1 September. The band will be touring the UK in September and October (schedule posted at end of interview).
