Interview by Austin Sher

One of Flightless Records’ newest signings, CIVIC, was nice enough to answer all of our hard hitting questions surrounding their newest singles, getting signed, and what we can expect to hear in the very near future. Please check out our fully transcribed interview below:

WWAM: First off, congratulations on the releases of "Radiant Eye" and "Making Time", both absolutely rock. How do you feel that your sound has progressed since the release of New Vietnam?

CIVIC: Thanks! New Vietnam was interesting cause we wrote and recorded it before we’d even played live so it came together in this really odd way and just worked. Since then we’ve played and toured a ton so we’ve had a bit more direction and can really take the time to iron it all out and maybe even get a bit obsessive about the details when recording. Not to mention we actually just all know each other really well and just got better at playing together.

WWAM: In addition to the success of your new singles, a massive congratulations on being signed with Flightless Records. How do you feel your relationship with the label is going to progress your future career?

CIVIC: The great thing about Flightless is we’re all friends already and just really respect the work ethic they have. It’s pretty wild to not have to do everything ourselves and having people that trust in you to back your shit really takes the pressure off on the more “work” side of things and a fuck load of emails. I guess it’s a bit cliche but seems like we can actually just focus more on writing and making interesting music not having to stress about the more logistical shit with them at the helm. 

WWAM: Can we expect an EP or 2nd LP releasing in the hopefully near future?

CIVIC: Yeah, so Radiant Eye is actually the single or first single from the upcoming LP that is meant to come out in early 2021 on Flightless, we might try to do a second single from it but still not 100% on that. We had been working on the LP for a while and managed to get it finished right at the start of the giant mess that ended up being 2020. So luckily pandemic hasn’t really slowed things down too much on that front for us. I guess probably like most people we got a bit of a backlog of ideas and songs now with the forced slow down so it’s just a matter of us getting together and tying some of that together for something after this latest record.

WWAM: Hypothetically, If you had to pick 2 existing Flightless bands to collaborate with on a single, who would they be?

CIVIC: I think two bands would be way too many cooks in the kitchen so probably just Traffik Island cause I think Zak is a genius and could definitely churn out something mad.

WWAM: How does writing and recording work within the band? Do you feel that there is creative freedom amongst the members?

CIVIC: Sometimes someone comes in with a riff, sometimes someone comes in with some lyrics with a structure idea, sometimes someone comes in with a full song, whichever way it starts we end up just hashing it all out together until it works. As for recording we usually go into the studio and record bed tracks live to tape and gradually build up the songs from that on our own in rehearsal spaces or wherever we can. During the first part of the pandemic when we were finishing the record I was living above the pub I was working at so for a while we had this empty pub to record in which was pretty good to finish some stuff off without getting in anyone's way.

WWAM: How would you describe your sound and what genre would you label yourselves as?

CIVIC: It sounds a bit gross to have to label yourself as anything but we’re definitely a punk band. We’ve always just wanted to do whatever made sense and not really pigeonhole ourselves into not being able to add in whatever instrumentation or ideas we wanted. We’ve gradually expanded on the staple guitars, bass, drums and vocals thing but at the same time not going full tilt while recording and not being able to reproduce any of it live.

We hope you enjoyed our interview! We’re huge fans of all things Flightless Records, so to hear from one of their latest signings was quite the delight. If you liked what you read, follow our social media for the latest in independent music: