Hanford Flyover’s brilliant remake of the cult Neon Pearl song ‘Just Another Day’ is one of the highlights from the Fruits de Mer ‘Sunny Spells’ 7″ EP. However, their original material is just as remarkable so I asked Josh Bowler from the group to share their story – Jason Barnard, October 2019.
The Musicians
- Josh Bowler – guitars, backing vocals, keyboards
- Holly Bowler – Vocals, keyboards
- Ian Turner – Bass, drums, keyboards
Background
Ian and I (Josh) are both originally from Staffordshire. We originally found common ground through our love of 60’s and early 70’s music, and that we both played our instruments left handed.
Many moons ago we used to a play in band called Psychedelia Smith, which was a mix of live instruments, vocals and drum loops. I guess the most notable song would have been ‘Fixy Jointy’ which was remixed by Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim). I also had a solo project in a similar vein around the same time and released a somewhat crazy version of Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ under the pseudonym of Monk Lewis. It was kind of curious that we ended up playing music like that as it seemed so far removed from Caravan and King Crimson.
Holly is from Louisville Kentucky, and was influenced from an early age by bands such as The Grateful dead and Pink Floyd, which were somewhat different to the traditional acoustic bluegrass she used to sing.
FreeFall Album
After a long hiatus from music I began song writing again. I hadn’t really done much musically since I was commissioned to write the score for a film; sadly the production company was based in the World Trade Centre…
The songs for the album ‘FreeFall’ were all originally written on acoustic guitar. Ian and I live about an hour from each other, but thanks to modern technology I could upload an acoustic and vocal track to a shared online folder. He would download it, add some bass and drums, maybe some keyboards and then send them back. We bounced tracks backwards and forwards like this until I was happy that I had enough material to mix and master the tracks.
At this time Ian was really into the way Alan Parsons achieved the bass and drum sound on ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, so we thought it would be nice to try and get some of that ‘vibe’ into the music we were producing. When mixing and producing music in this way it is a lot less ‘in your face’ compared to modern production techniques. You kind of have to sit down and pay attention a little bit and let it draw you in rather than it being right in your face as it were. I guess that’s quite contrary to the modern sound bite, immediate gratification world we live in today.
I also really like some of the production on the vocals on songs such as ‘Moonchild’ (King Crimson) and ‘From the Beginning’ (ELP). I think they sound so close to you in places it creates a real intimacy. I wanted Holly’s vocals to come across with a similar sound, so I tried to capture some of that feel in how we recorded her.
Holly had never sang in a studio environment before so it was all new to her. I actually really like the way that ‘newness’ comes over on songs like “Timeless’ for instance. There is a kind of innocence, of stepping into the unknown which I feel translates well in her performance and adds to the feel and meaning of the song.
All the songs of the album follow a similar theme, and there is a kind of path for the song order. Briefly, it’s an exploration of our identity and how at an early age our thoughts become shaped and also shape that identity. But in reality our identity can be like a space suit – we designed it to protect us, but so often it does not allow us to fully experience life.
Just Another Day
It was actually you (Jason) who seeded the idea of recorded that song, when you suggested doing a cover of a 60’s song for Fruits De Mer. It was quite serendipitous actually as I had just discovered the Neon Pearl album of demos from 1967; it was never released at the time. It’s a really interesting collection of songs with quite prescient lyrical content. I thought the song ‘Just Another Day’ would be a great choice; it’s quite sparse on the 1967 recording so it gave us space to interpret it in our own way, whilst still retaining the original tempo and feel of the song. We worked out the arrangement and recorded it over a 2 day period which is pretty fast going for us.
The song is available from November 2019 as part of a 4 track 7” compilation EP called ‘Sunny Spells’ http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/sunny.html
Live Performance
We are down to play the 18th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus festival next year which looks to be a great event judging by previous years, and we are really excited about that.
We are aiming to play other venues next year too. I am still working out the technical shenanigans required to play our music live whilst still retaining some of the feel of the studio recordings. Currently, as a three piece that’s quite a challenge, so we may need to expand our line-up and find some like-minded musicians in our area.
More information on Hanford Flyover can be found at hanfordflyover.bandcamp.com
