We caught up with the Sydney two-piece in the midst of the national tour…

Hugo Gruzman, who forms one half of Sydney electronic duo Flight Facilities, thinks of his music creation and release schedule in the same way a chef thinks of their food. A good chef knows that the perfect meal can’t be rushed, and that all of the ingredients need to be prepared in just the right fashion. A good chef doesn’t undercook a meal for the sake of appeasing hungry customers, nor do they compromise quality over quantity.

It’s an analogy that Gruzman uses when describing the seven year wait between Flight Facilities’ debut LP Down to Earth and their more recent release last year – and it’s one that applies perfectly to what is a carefully conceived and sonically refined sophomore album in 2021’s Forever. Released in November and preceded by singles ‘Move’ and ‘Lights Up,’ the years-in-the-making album is evidence of the fact that, like any good meal, the best things take time.  

Now in 2022, after a similarly lengthy period between live shows, the dance music maestros have hit the road for their first national tour in over two years, kicking off their long-awaited performances with Sydney’s curated Airfields concert in March. Having already taken off in shows from Melbourne to Brisbane, Flight Facilities will next occupy the airspace in Hobart (April 7) and Darwin (23 April), before touching down with their final tour date in Perth (30 April).

Ahead of the last leg of his Forever tour, we caught up with Flight Facilities’ Hugo Gruzman for a chat about pandemic-free shows, NFTs, and the importance of a ‘well-cooked’ album. Scroll down for the full interview, and head here to get tickets to remaining shows of the Forever tour.

You’re in the middle of a national tour for ‘Forever’. What’s most exciting about being back on the road?

The most exciting part is definitely the crowds because you haven’t seen them in so long. There’s kind of a vicarious bliss you get out of seeing everyone together again, because it’s not just us who haven’t experienced being on stage, it’s also seeing people who haven’t experienced being in a big crowd of people. There’s such a euphoria to being part of that again, wandering around festivals when you haven’t done it in so long. So, I think that’s probably the nicest part about it. I found it more strange than anything. When you’re not exposed to so many people for so long, and then suddenly there’s 10,000 people around you, it’s pretty overwhelming. 

Any highlights from the tour so far? Which state usually goes the hardest when you play there?

It’s hard to go past Melbourne. I mean, we haven’t done Brisbane yet, so I’m holding out hope that they’re really going to bring it. But I think Melbourne has had a hard few years, so they usually brought the party anywhere. They’ve got such a good live music culture down there that I think they’re usually going to be in the top two, especially after how much they’ve been deprived of enjoying themselves on a large scale. That was pretty special to see that again. That’ll be a good memory for us and everyone else.

I think Sydney is a little battered from years and years of being prevented from enjoying ourselves partying. But I think there’s a glimmer of hope there and I know there’s a few undercurrents floating around Sydney, so I think it’s going to come back in a big way, and people don’t know that yet, but there’s a big movement to make it all happen again. So maybe I’m being too optimistic but I think you’ll find that, it’ll take a year or two, but Sydney’s going to become the place again. 

Your slated performance at Yours and Owls was recently cancelled, on top of what I’m sure was an already chaotic last two years. How have the last two years affected your music?

It’s so much easier to see the negative, because you don’t get the opportunity to give your music the context of a live performance. People were prevented from going out and hearing these songs, and it’s so important to hear them at clubs and those settings that really help you hear what the songs are about. It’s hard to get that when you sit at home in front of your Spotify and listen to a song that might be more geared for a festival or a small club. So I think it hasn’t helped in terms of the context of the music, and I hope that time will do that. But cancelling shows has just become a more common occurrence than putting them on over the last two years.

In some ways, two years ago when we cancelled a show it was devastating, you do everything to make it not happen and people would be outraged, and now, we’re sort of in this broken state where you cancel and people go, ‘alright.’We all just sort of accept it now, which is really sad. I’d really love to get back to a point where there was more pressure not to cancel, and the people were more disappointed. But it’s a sign of the times that there’s such an understanding around a show not going ahead. 

Forever was released in a largely locked-down year. Was the pandemic a time of creativity for you, or more of a time to reset?

It’s so weird because we thought we were on the way out. We were like, ‘it’s looking good here, it’s all going to open up.’ Then somehow the whole thing went for another six months. It was such a bummer, but given that we’re so slow, it gave us an opportunity to write the music and perfect it over a longer period of time, without people tapping their foot and waiting on us. I suppose if I was going to draw any silver lining from it, it’s that we take so long, so we finally had an excuse to take longer. 

It’s silly to rush something to get it out sooner, only to have it live forever in the state that it’s in. It applies to anything. If you’re a chef, you wouldn’t undercook a meal just to get it out on the table. You need to still give them the memory of it being something good that they’ll remember for a long time. You don’t want to compromise the quality of something just because it needs to get out. I think it takes a lot longer to soak in these days, so you’re better off having the long term reputation when people discover it eventually, rather than trying to get that quick dopamine hit off the bat on its release. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQl_eV3pP3E

Forever, like much of your previous work, is a hybrid of genres. Is there any one particular genre that binds or grounds your sound? Any new sounds jumping at you since releasing Forever?

We’ve always been inspired by dance music. That was sort of how we got together, because at heart we’re DJs. It’s where we’re most comfortable. If you go through the album, there’s a lot you can pick out from different eras of dance music. ‘Move’ is obviously that early 90s sound, then you’ve got ‘Forever’ which draws from mid 2008 to 2012, that sort of era of almost EDM we piled into, while drawing some more from the late 90s underworld. Things like ‘Ghost’ are a bit more 2015 in that Daniel Avery era.

There’s all forms of dance that are in there. When people think of dance music, they think of ‘Four To The Floor,’ and there’s obviously Daft Punk influences in there, but they think of that very classic version of it. But when we think of dance music, a lot of the stuff in there isn’t necessarily dance, but it falls loosely into the category, even if it’s a bit slower or more chilled out. Dance encmpoasses much more than that simple four four beat and dance floor anthem. There’s a lot more depth and culture to it, especially if you listen to those really well-made dance music albums of the mid-2000s. 

You also recently collaborated with Tourism Australia for a promotional music video. Are there any particular Aussie hotspots that inspire creativity?

We all see it in textbooks growing up, but it’s Uluru. I hadn’t been there until I went there for a rally, and I did go through there in 2013, and got to see The Rock, and it was just so much more amazing to see that part of the country than you realise. No books or ads on TV will do it any justice, and it’s somewhere you don’t think necessarily to go. Everyone likes to go close to beaches, but I could not highly recommend going to Uluru enough because it is such an amazing thing to see, and I was genuinely blown away when I saw it. I’m sure a lot of international tourists would go there because it’s something they would see, but I often get the feeling that sometimes, locally, we give it a miss because we already feel like we’ve seen it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF-yst5Cg6Y

You’ve also done some work with NFTs in combining them with your music. What first attracted you to this space, and is it a fad or here to stay? 

I feel like Jimmy is definitely the one to talk to about this, because he is much more diving head first into that space. I honestly don’t know. I feel so torn by the whole thing, if I’m being perfectly honest. I think the technology is really good and applicable, and I think it’s great that there’s a whole bunch of people who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves artists, becoming artists. I feel almost the same way about my role in music. I don’t necessarily feel as though I’m a traditional musician, yet I find myself doing this. So, it’s a good outlet for people to have true success in an industry without having to pick up a brush. It gives a certain legitimacy to digital art. 

But then there’s also certain aspects to it where I think it’s so weird and bizarre. Like being able to copy things. If I see an NFT, I can screenshot it and have the same thing on my phone. But what you’re essentially owning is a barcode that says you own something. So that aspect I find really bizarre. But I guess we’re just happy to participate in it, because it’s just fun to be a part of something new and cutting edge. So much of what we create is always paired visually with something, and we want it to be visually interesting, so it gives a space for the visuals we work on with people, or sometimes ourselves. It’s good to give them a home where people genuinely appreciate this stuff. 

Anything special on the cards for the rest of this year?

Getting back overseas again will be great. I’m looking forward to seeing Europe again, I haven’t been there in years and I’ve got some family over there. More than anything I’m just looking forward to it feeling normal again. It’s all very well that things are back, but I never expected how strange it would feel to be back, and it doesn’t yet feel natural to me. To be around so many people, or even standing on stage and looking at so many people. That’s a really bizarre thing in itself. So, not having these out of body experiences on stage anymore, I’m looking forward to those ending. 

Up until the beginning of 2020, we’d been working and everything grew quite naturally and the crowds grew. I like to use the analogy that it’s like you’re hair growing. No one really notices it if you’re around then the whole time. It’s just getting longer ever so slightly, and then 2020 was essentially having a big haircut, and you’re like ‘Woah, what happened?’ It’s almost like having that massive change to nothing, and then going back to everything, is really jolting. So I’m just hoping to lose that unnatural feeling.