Union Man

Samuel Flynn Scott is a self-professed nerd. But a lovely one at that. When I had technical difficulties trying to interview him, he was kind enough to call me back. “Are you using Skype?” he asked. Uh, no…? “Ohh, you should! It’s great!” he exclaimed. Later on in the wonderfully pleasant, laid-back and colloquial interview, I went on to call him a nerd (to paraphrase a quote from my friend Sam Muirhead). “That’s true,” he admits, “but I doubt I’m as much an internet nerd as Sam, cos he always beats me at Scramble, so he should be careful with the use of the word nerd, as he has an extremely large vocabulary!” he laughs. “I am quite an internet nerd, I kind of got into it through just wanting to promote the band. I was quite a late developer towards the net. I find now I’m doing stuff for the Phoenix Foundation and my solo stuff for two hours everyday.” He certainly is devoted to his art. Spending last year writing and recording the soundtrack to the immensely popular film Eagle vs Shark and also completing his band The Phoenix Foundation’s third album, Happy Ending, he also managed to get married and complete his acclaimed second solo album, Straight Answer Machine, the latter being the reason for our chat.

Sam says the whole album happened by accident. “I was meaning to record another album with the band but I didn’t have that many songs written and I kind of exhausted myself creatively doing Eagle Vs Shark and Happy Endings back-to-back. I was really inspired by that Panda Bear album and just wanted to muck around in the studio with Lee Prebble and make some funny songs.”

The funny songs include many prominent local musicians including James Milne (Lawrence Arabia).

“Me and James have been friends for years,” he says. “I’m really keen to work with James on anything, really… He came in about two days before I finished the record… and we just decided we had to get him on the record. We got some beers and went into the studio late at night and recorded James playing some stuff. It just wouldn’t make sense without him on there.”Sam plans to follow him over to the UK later this year. “I’m gonna go visit him at the end of the year, on holiday… I’ll be popping in on James and stealing their couch for a little while.” Later on he says, “Definitely I have to do everything I can with Connan and James, cos they are inspirational musicians. It doesn’t matter where in the world you’re from, they are just great guys and great musicians.”

He’s toured America with the Phoenix Foundation and is looking forward to putting out the band’s last two albums in the States next year, but still it comes as some surprise that his solo music is often deemed Americana. He reasons, “I think that kind of is appropriate for the first album, because there’s quite a lot of slide guitar and banjo and that sort of thing. I don’t think the new record is very Americana at all, I think it’s a pop record or psychedelic pop album more than it is anything else. I’m certainly a fan of American roots music and old blues, country music and I love all the modern purveyors of that, like Wilco, Iron and Wine, Calexico, Devendra Banhart… I think it’s really cool music. It’s really valid music.”

“I like the fact that Neil Young went

from what was called Americana

these days to making a (grunge/noise album)…

he annoyed all his fans in one foul swoop,

I really appreciate people who do that sort of thing.”

Continuing with the Americana vein – Sam can play a mean uke. “I’m pretty keen on the ukulele, I don’t know if you’ve seen Eagle vs Shark, but it starts off with a surf rock sort of thing and I play all the ukulele on that.” I ask if he’s ever thought of joining the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, or had an invitation. “When they first started I knew Gemma Gracewood (one of the WIUO members), and they invited me to come have a jam with them cos they knew I was a ukulele enthusiast. But I just never got round to it and now I don’t want to jump on their bandwagon cos they’re great. I’m happy to go watch their gigs as to opposed to being part of it.”

Sam is quintessentially Wellingtonian in his quest for a cup of Joe, notable in that he thanked a number of cafes from the windy city in the liner notes for Straight Answer Machine. “A pretty essential part of making records for me is being caffeinated. I find that’s how I quite often come up with songs in the studio; it’s by being way too jumpy and strung out on coffee and I start writing songs really fast.” Coffee’s pretty essential for a lot of us, too.However not all is happy as Larry in Wellington. There are disgruntled murmurings coming out of the woodwork about one of Wellington’s alternative radio stations falling into an age abyss. “You always need people in that age bracket of 18-21 to kind of be digging around and finding what’s the exciting new thing. That’s something about Radio Active now; is that many off the DJs have been there 10-12 years, so maybe they don’t represent that student attitude as much as they used to.” But he reasons, “Definitely the b-nets as a whole are something to be celebrated in New Zealand, because they are just steads ahead of any other option, so you must respect them.”

I ask him about Liam Finn’s success. “I think it’s great, he’s a great guy. All power to him. I think it’s interesting the way he’s done it with just him and EJ, having that simplicity of him doing everything in a live show. Not only has it made things easier to watch, it’s easier than having a band. Cos to gain interest you have to play heaps of gigs and talk to various industry types in the hope that something will stick. I think his solo record has got some really awesome tunes on it.” And so does Sam’s. All power to the Union Man!

Samuel Flynn Scott & The B.O.P. – Llewellyn: MP3

Samuel Flynn Scott & The B.O.P. – Moist People: MP3

Samuel Flynn Scott & The B.O.P. – Union Man: MP3

Samuel Flynn Scott & The B.O.P. – Myspace

Posted by Sarah Gooding under New Zealand
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