Q&A - Grace & The Flat Boys

Edinburgh-based five-piece Grace & The Flat Boys have announced the release date for their latest EP, Dark Glass // Rose Tint. Fusing a range of influences, from jazz and R&B to rock and soul, with beautiful lead vocals and emotive lyrics, the new collection of tracks further cements the band as one of Scotland’s most exciting new acts, and builds on the success of previous singles Work it Out, Sometimes, and St. Catherine.

📸 - Andrew Perry

Q: 1) We can’t wait for your new EP ‘Dark Glass // Rose Tint’ to come out! Can you tell us about the process of making this EP?!

It’s been a couple years since we released our first EP ‘Wheels’. In that time we’ve worked hard to develop a process of making and releasing music that works well for us. Our aim was to find ways of reducing the time it takes to put out new music without sacrificing on quality, and we feel we’ve been able to achieve that through the 3 singles we released between ‘Wheels’ and ‘Dark Glass // Rose Tint’. The process of making the new EP was heavily informed by what we learned over the course of releasing those singles. We started writing for the EP in the summer and had finished recording everything by mid-September. It all came together quite quickly. Songwriting is a very collaborative process for us. Sometimes it’s a case of one person bringing the foundations of a song to the rest of the band, other times we all gather in the same room and start from scratch. Either way, everybody leaves their mark on a track before it’s done. We don’t really consider a track to be done until everyone has made their individual contribution.

The process of demoing songs is very important for us. It’s a great way to keep the ball rolling when there’s no time to meet in person. All of the tracks on ‘Dark Glass // Rose Tint’ were shaped this way at some stage, with ideas being sent back-and-forth as the tracks developed. Creating multi-track demos also allows us to start thinking about production elements before we go into the studio. We’re able to test-run crazy ideas before they’re finalised and better understand what we’d like the finished product to sound like.

When we started writing for the EP, we had no idea how it was going to turn out. Around half-way through development we started to think more about the bigger picture, and how we’d like the EP to sound as a whole. There was a consensus in the direction things were heading in. We were able to identify common threads and musical themes between different songs, and start structuring the EP in a way that made sense. We were really excited about the prospect of creating a cohesive listening experience, in the same way some of our favourite albums do. The process of finishing the EP was heavily guided by this goal of creating a musical journey that was both thematically and sonically consistent, rather than a collection of 5 unrelated songs. There’s a whole album’s worth of demos we didn’t end up using for this EP, simply because they didn’t belong on the record we were creating.

We can’t talk about the process of making this EP without also talking about Ed Meltzer at Pocket Sounds Studio. The record would be very different without his involvement. Recording with Ed is something we’ve really grown to love over the years. He’s always keen to entertain some of our more outlandish ideas and experiment with weird and wacky sounds. At one point we were recording the vibrations of an upright piano resonating from the sound of a keyboard amp pushed up against it. At another point, we were recording the sound of our drummer hitting kitchen pots and pans. None of these things were considered during the demoing process - it’s the beauty of being open to new ideas in the studio.

This EP also facilitated our first collaboration, with local rapper AD3. Working with him on ‘Ghosting’ was a great experience. We had talked about the idea of having someone rap on the track for some time, and recalled AD3 expressing an interest in collaborating with us following our performance at Scotland in Colour Festival 2022. The amazing thing was that we never had to discuss the details of what AD was going to do with his verse. It’s like he knew exactly what we were looking for, and we all trusted him to take the track to the next level. Hearing his part for the first time was a very cool moment. It’s such an honour to have had the opportunity to work with an artist as exceptional as AD. 

Q: 2) You guys have such a cool mash of genres such as Jazz and Rock, tell us how you created your sound?

This band started out as 3 guys that played RnB together wanting to branch out. The original Flat Boys. The main aim was to incorporate more ideas from Jazz, like complex harmony and improvisation, letting these things inspire the songwriting. There was also a lot of influence in those early days from bands like Kokoroko, Butcher Brown and Ezra Collective. It was less about their overall sound and more about how these artists weren’t confined or defined by genres. We were inspired to experiment freely and always be open to pushing the boundaries of what jazz-adjacent music can sound like. Our sound developed quite naturally over years of non-stop playing together. We gained a large amount of trust and respect for each other’s musical ability, which ultimately fostered an environment where everyone felt comfortable experimenting with our sound and introducing elements inspired by each of our individual influences and backgrounds. Performing live has always been a priority for this band. We didn’t record a single thing in our first two years playing together. We simply performed as much as we could. It didn’t take long for us to realise we all enjoyed turning up the energy of our live performances, introducing heavier sounds inspired by rock music. This fed-back into our songwriting and for a long time we wrote music with the sole purpose of playing it live. Something we all appreciate about this band is that we never defined what it would be, or what it would sound like. We probably never will either. We’d like to keep evolving and allow whatever is inspiring us at the time to influence our sound and the songs we create. 
Q: 3) Tell us about your favourite gig you have played so far?

Our favourite gig so far has to be our performance at Tonge Station Festival this summer. It’s a small, private, family-organised festival that takes place in Derbyshire, England. We were booked to perform for an hour as the sun set. It’s hard to explain, but it was a pretty magical experience. There was just a great energy on the night, with an incredible atmosphere that had all of us feeling like we couldn’t make a mistake if we tried. The audience were so lively and appreciative of our music, with non-stop dancing from everyone involved - on-stage and off-stage. At one point someone came around offering us all pizza mid-set, which was a first. We finished the hour-long set we had prepared and left the stage, about to head to bed for our 4am start the next morning to drive back up to Scotland for another gig, but were instead quickly dragged back on stage by the organisers to keep going! The whole experience was electric, and for us performing live has never felt as good as it did on that day. 

📸 - Andrew Perry

Q: 4) Your band name is so cool, how did the process come about of choosing it?

Mark: I first met Grace after being flattened by a steamroller. She was the driver!

Grace: It was just super important that the band was named after me. I told the boys they could feature in the band name provided they didn’t take up too much space…

Joe: I like to detune Mark and Robin’s instruments when they’re not looking. Grace tends to follow the keys when singing so it’s quite a bad look for them… I suppose you could say the hecklers named the band.

Robin: If I learned anything studying physics at uni, it’s that the earth is flat. I just really want to publicise that fact.

Mustaphis: Most of us have quite 2-dimensional personalities. We’re not great one-on-one.

Q: 5) If you could give one piece of advice to a new artist/ band, what would it be?

The most important piece of advice we could give a new artist or band is to prioritise enjoying what you do. It has to be something you want to do regardless of whether it goes anywhere or not. Different people enjoy different aspects of being a musician, for some people it’s performing live, for others it’s all about the creative process. Focus on the aspects of music that excite you the most. And if you’re in a band, make sure you enjoy the company of the people you’re doing that with. If you love what you do, and the people you do it with, it feeds back into the music you create and the performances you deliver. There’s nothing quite as infectious as seeing genuine passion behind someone’s freedom of expression, and there’s longevity in that kind of authenticity.

Q: 6) We see you formed out of Edinburgh uni, if you weren’t musicians, what careers would you all be doing right now?

In short, most of us would probably be doing what we already do now - but with more free time and disposable income! We’ve been building this band up for 5 years now, and it’s incredibly exciting to see how far we’ve come and to think about what the future might hold for the project. But for now, most of us are balancing other careers alongside the band. Mustaphis currently works in innovation funding for sustainable packaging. In short, he spends a lot of time thinking about recycling. Joe’s currently doing a PhD in the mathematical modelling of biological systems, and we look forward to introducing him as ‘Dr Joe Pratt on keys’ in the future. Grace started modelling long before the band was formed and also currently works as an anti-racist educator. Mark reckons he’d probably be designing lego kits if he wasn’t a musician. He also makes a mean flat white. Robin’s alternative time-line would likely have been more physics orientated, perhaps with an eye towards video game development. He’s just started working as a self-employed mixing engineer, which he says is much easier than being a cleaner.

Connect with Grace & The Flat Boys here

Grace & The Flat Boys are releasing their new EP ‘Dark Glass // Rose Tint’ on Friday the 17th of November, listen to their current singles down below.