Flying Colours, a band that spent four years together at Union University, released a three song EP over the summer, titled Resist.
Rob Griffith, Jay Griffith, and Taylor Hare, formed the group in 2009 and played consistently at Barefoot’s Joe and university events. In January, the three partnered with Quinn Redmond at TSG Studios in Franklin, TN for their latest release.
“He was really involved with the writing,” Jay said of Redmond. “The songs changed a lot during the process.”
The Griffiths said that a good portion of the lyrics come from drummer Taylor Hare, who writes pages and pages of lyrics before the songs are composed. Rob said that they take his poetry and “synthesize” it in order to fit it into a song. Overall, their songs are written as a group. They never feel that one member is lacking and that another one is dominant in the process. For example, Jay greatly influenced the EP whereas Rob worked a lot on last year’s album, “All The Answers.”
Reminiscent of The Strokes, Resist is powerful and direct, musically and lyrically. “It’s my favorite thing we’ve done so far. It’s simplified,” Jay said.
The group said a lot of what they were trying to express in the EP was emotional isolation. “We’ve never written a happy song,” Rob said.
The first track, “Resist, Dido,” uses strong guitars to augment the lyrics with urgency and weight. Derived from Virgil’s Aeneid, the song touches on temptation and fleeting love.
With lyrics like “I was born with a curse” and “I pretend it’s OK to pretend that I’m fine,” the second song may be the most poignant of the EP. “Nothing In Between” maintains an emotional mellow that ends with a climactic anthem.
The finale, “My Head’s As Big As The Universe,” takes a slower approach to the cover image’s overall theme. Sliding guitars fill the space and soothing melodies grace your ears.
Resist has received some exposure through live shows and music blogs, while allowing the members to make connections in the music industry.
Two weeks before the EP, Flying Colours released a single, “All The Answers (pt.II).” The three poured over a year’s worth of efforts into the song and treated it as a “send off to the album.” They vouched to keep “All The Answers (pt.II)” off the EP because it was styled more like their 2013 effort.
Flying Colours plans on returning to TSG Studios this fall to work on a double EP. There will be a total of six songs with three from one perspective and three from another.
All of their recorded material can found at their bandcamp and you can also follow them on Twitter.
