"Completely unchained": An interview with Flyght Club

27/11/2024

Following the release of his newest single, ‘Nobody else knows’, Shauvik Sharan details the inspirations behind his eclectic sound

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Image by Nica Aquino

By Aoife Carnevale

Described as "completely unchained from the boundaries of music genres”, Los Angeles based artist Flyght Club has redefined alternative pop, serving as a mixed bag of genres with roots in classic rock. Following the release of his newest single, ‘Nobody else knows’, Shauvik Sharan details the inspirations behind his eclectic sound and gives us a glimpse into the process of songwriting and production.

M: At first glance, one might assume that ‘Flyght Club’ is a band, but your music is written and solely produced by yourself – what does that process look like?

S: All my songs start off differently when it comes to finding inspiration. The best songs I’ll say come fully formed to me at random times. They’ll just pop into my head with the melody, lyrics, instrumentation and vibe, after which it’s just a matter of translating what I hear in my head into my DAW. Other times, I could be noodling on my guitar and come up with a riff that kicks off a song idea or sometimes I could be humming melodies and words on an instrumental I make. Each song kind of creates itself in different ways and they’re all fun.

As for doing everything myself, it’s a process that just kind of became the standard over the years of creating and releasing music. Having spent a lot of time and effort nailing down the art of production, songwriting and mixing, I found it to be the best way of being authentic and conveying my songs to the listeners exactly how I intend them to be heard. I do have a lot of great musician friends backing me up on stage when playing shows and do a great job in bringing my songs to life.

M: Your most recent single is really interesting, and seemingly inspired by a personal experience of the frustrating and confusing parts of romantic relationships. Are all of your songs inspired by events in real life? How do you find the right balance in portraying these experiences?

S: I’d say some of my songs are about real life experiences and a lot are about made up scenarios and characters. Before I got into music, I wanted to be a fiction writer. I used to come up with stories, write quarter to a half of a novel until a better idea would float my mind, leading me to abandon the previous book. As a result, I have a collection of a lot of half finished books! But once I discovered songwriting, I had a method to tell stories in under five to seven minutes that people could relate to as well as interpret in their own way. This felt like a more organic and authentic way of communication with other people.

Finding creative ways to tell my stories, whether real or not, is something I love doing with my music. Using melodies, rhythms and different instruments gives me multiple tools to tell stories than just using traditional words.

M: I love your unique sound; it has a lot of different aspects running alongside each other. It’s hard to assign a specific genre to your singles - how would you describe it?

S: I love love love jumping genres with my songs. It’s what has kept me going as a songwriter and artist for all these years. I go through these phases of recreating and transforming myself as an artist and have so much fun with it. I was a singer songwriter when I initially started in 2016, tried my hand at Hip Hop for a few years, became a DJ and made a lot of House, Techno and DnB last year until finally landing on where I’m at right now. The universe kind of brought me back to the guitar and combining that with all the various production and songwriting tricks and tools that I have learnt by experimenting over the years, bring out a unique flavour which I would classify as some sort of Alternative Pop music.

M: Some of the artists that inspire you and your music are Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd. What was it that drew you to these artists and how does it play into your own experience releasing music?

S: I grew up on classic rock. I originally was just a guitarist and my dream was to be Jimmy Page. I used to get home from school, lock myself in my room and just learn and try to embody all these great guitarists, their personas and try to imitate their styles. I was obsessed with Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour. Through that process of studying these musicians, I kind of stumbled upon the art of songwriting and my obsession shifted. I was suddenly able to tell stories and write about everything that I wanted to say. I loved how all the bands from the 70s were cool, had a fun catchy style to their music while still creating works of great substance.

That is something I strive for when creating my music too. I want to make music that is accessible and pop friendly that everyone can enjoy and sing along to while still being able to tell stories and make something substantial.

M: Would you say you have any additional inspirations that affect how you write music?

S: For me, time and place play a significant role in inspiring me to create music. I would say stuff like, what phase of life I’m in, what my environment is like and the people I’m spending my time with, have a lot of influence over what I create.

M: I’m really intrigued about the name ‘Flyght Club’, It  perfectly fits the feel of your sound. What inspired it and how did you come up with it?

S: I really wish I had a cool answer to this question! I have tried to come up with something clever to answer this in the past but if I’m being honest, it was just something that me and one of my closest friends from back home came up with as a play on ‘Fight Club’ (the movie). It sort of just stuck around with me.

M: Your music videos seem like so much fun to film! Do you come up with the concepts yourself? What is your process like for filming and creating them? Especially the animated music video for ‘Re-Up’, how did that idea come about?

S: Yep, I come up with all the concepts for the music videos myself. I love putting visuals to my songs and opening up another pathway for listeners to experience my music. Creating stories around my songs and bringing forth the vibe that the song was intended for is an essential part of the process. I usually listen to the songs enough times during the creation process to be able to visualise what concept would compliment them. My song ‘Quaalude’ had a woozy laid back vibe to it and so I decided to combine that with a slow sort of horror inspired video. My song ‘Different Side of Me’ was about having two different types of personalities within oneself and so I took on a double role and brought out both sides.

‘Re-Up’ was intended to be a fun song and was set for a 4/20 release so it didn’t take me too long to figure out what direction I wanted to take the music video in! Since the world was closed during lockdown, I didn’t have the freedom to go out and film a video in person but I still wanted to remain proactive with providing visual assets to my music. So I guess that in conjunction with me binge watching a lot of South Park and Family Guy during that time led me to the decision of making an animated video for it. After that it was just a matter of having fun with the concept and putting together a storyboard that my animator could enjoy working on.

The newest releases (and of course, all previous singles) are available on all streaming services, but to read all about Flyght Club’s background and other projects, and take a look at some of the exciting music videos we talked about in this interview. The official website is linked here! https://flyghtclubmusic.com/.