Welcome to the Machines: The cover of Flying Machines. Image courtesy EMI/Meteor 17
Fender-wielding New York quartet Flying Machines boasts exemplary power pop talent and ability to spare, as heard on the group’s eponymous debut disc, which hits the tarmac on Sept. 22, 2009.
Flying Machines is a youthful outfit easily talented enough to soar far above the vast MySpace hordes of emo-power-punk bands long on fashion but short on the very thing that matters most—great songs.
Yes, Flying Machines writes songs—smartly conceived and deftly executed three- and four-minute sonic vignettes with actual beginnings, middles, endings, well-crafted lyrics, hummable melodies, clever guitar parts and sophisticated vocal harmonies they can actually pull off live (all the things missing from the pitch-corrected top of the pops these days, in other words). Ten brilliant examples of this fierce devotion to the vanishing art of songcraft comprise the track list of Flying Machines.
Chalk it up to sheer talent and channeling artful influences. Keyboardist/vocalist William Ryan George looks like a young Brian Wilson, writes and plays like Ben Folds and sings like Freddy Mercury. John Wlaysewski’s cleverly phrased and well-placed guitar work evokes the dexterity and compositional guitar smarts of Brain May and Asia-era Steve Howe, with a dose of six-string influence from another aerial-named rock great, Led Zeppelin. Both are more-than-ably backed by the hyper-creative rhythm section of bassist Evan Joyce and drummer Ken Weisbach.
The above elements are also infused with more modern Weezer/Strokes/Muse-type influences, which makes Flying Machines a highly energetic and theatrical album full of colorful, tautly played and arranged songs.
“We mesh my abrasive rock guitar and William’s beautiful singer-songwriter-y thing,” Wlaysewski said. “He brings the beauty, I bring the rock. We’re not a garage band, and but we always try to keep a little of that mentality so we don’t pick things apart to the n-th degree.”
Indeed, Flying Machines bears the fortunate distinction of being the first band discovered by interweb giant Yahoo Music and signed to the music partnership between Yahoo and USA Network, which explains why you started hearing the band’s music on USA series Psych in 2008.
Single “On a Whim” quickly reached the Yahoo videos top ten, racked up half a million spins in three months on Yahoo’s Launchcast network and spent a while at number two on XM college radio. Flying Machines also drew the attention and support of the Fender Musical Instruments Corp. in 2007, performing in the Fender booth at the January 2008 NAMM show and partnering with the company ever since. Further, Flying Machines won as “Best New Band in the Country” in the 2009 Converse “Get Out of the Garage” music contest.
Textbook pop gems such as “On a Whim,” “Video Games” and “Stay” had been posted in all their sparkly glory on the Flying Machines MySpace page; now they’re on the new album.
George, Wlaysewski and Weisbach knew each other from an earlier band. They formed Flying Machines in 2006 and quickly earned a rep as player’s players fueled by a singer/songwriter’s singer/songwriter in the form of George.
“When I heard William sing I said, ‘That’s the band I want to be in,’” Wlaysewski said. “He sounds like Keane meets Freddie Mercury. He has a voice that can change lives. I’m honored to be working with him. We’re all spoiled—Ken takes an intellectual approach to music and loves Stewart Copeland and Neil Peart, while Evan is a multi-instrumentalist who is incredibly creative. But Flying Machines is about the big picture—whatever you’re great at is what you do in this band.”
Live, Flying Machines is a band with goals that are as grandiose as its sound.
“Our mission is to bring back a real live show,” Wlaysewski said. “We’re not the first band to put G-D-C together. It’s who you are that makes the song, not the chords.”
