Culture Clash Extra – Still Flyin’

The San Fran collective on their fave DJ, and more...

Encompassing some 15 members, Still Flyin’ is quite the many-limbed musical beast. Yet the group revolves around the brain of just a single soul, Sean Rawls.

It was Rawls who formed the band back in 2004, the gelling something of a happy byproduct accident after a jam session saw a great many friends flock to join the ranks of his fledgling project. Since then, the tangent’s been an onward and upward one.

The San Francisco-based group’s debut album, ‘Never Gonna Touch The Ground’, is available now via Moshi Moshi in the UK. A hit at the recent South By Southwest conference in Texas, 2009 seems set to be the band’s best year yet.

Rawls answers Clash’s culturally centred questions…

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Still Flyin’ – ‘Forever Dudes’


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Movie
We are big fans of the actor Matthew McConaughey – his attitude, his worldview, and his priorities. The problem is most of his movies are terrible. We don’t feel bad saying this because we think he’d agree. That’s what makes him so great. His recent pet project, Surfer, Dude, would have to be our favourite movie since it’s almost closer to a documentary on his life as opposed to a fictitious film.

Book
A couple of months before my bachelor party, two of my most valuable dudes mailed me a copy of Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks At Fifty; only they’d scratched out parts of it and written in new words that were supposed to be clues to what my bachelor party would entail. I skimmed through it and read all the cryptic markings by my friends. That version of the book is my favourite book.

Album
We’re going to have to go with Huey Lewis and the News’ ‘Sports’. Too many hits to deny.

Track
Easy. ‘What A Fool Believes’ by Michael McDonald. Ultimate dude, ultimate voice, ultimate song.

Television show/series
Seriously, a lot of us watch that show Lost. I watch it too but currently a lot of episodes are stacked up in my TiVo waiting arena. I gotta live my own life, you know? I would say collectively as a band that Lost or The Wire is our favourite show.

Exhibition
There’s a gallery in San Francisco called Creativity Explored. It’s a place where people with disabilities can go and spend time making art. A lot of it turns out to be pretty amazing and some of them are somewhat famous in the art world now.

Holiday destination
A lot of us went to Lake Tahoe (mountainous area on the California/Nevada border) together last winter and we rented a big cabin. I think 18 of us stayed there, about half of which were in the band. We had a great time. Only a few of us skied because most people were content to get fucked up at the cabin and play in the snow.

Gig venue
We played inside of a cave in Gothenburg, Sweden. It used to be a secret sex club but now they have shows there. It was so dark that I jumped off the stage during the second song and landed awkwardly on some hidden stairs and broke my foot.

Live band/DJ
There’s a guy in San Francisco called DJ Purple. He’s a karaoke DJ but he takes it beyond anything else in the karaoke realm. We consider him an artist. I refuse to do any other karaoke now because nothing compares to him. He mixes the songs live according to each singer and the song. It’s super loud and blown out and sounds like a really good cover band is playing. And people get WILD at his shows. One time the cops got called on the karaoke bar because it was so out of control. The best part about him is he plays live saxophone on top of every sax/guitar/keyboard solo or hook and it sounds mind blowing. He also does great percussion and sings great harmonies. He’s very subtle about it though.

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Still Flyin’ – ‘Good Thing It’s A Ghost Town Around Here’


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Still Flyin’ will be back in the UK in time for the festival season; find them on MySpace HERE.

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