“It Really Goes There” Ethan P. Flynn On His Long-Awaited Debut Album
Ethan P. Flynn’s life has been one of relentless momentum. Having scored a record deal and collaborated with David Byrne by just 18 years old, he dropped out of Guildhall less than a year into his degree. The next five years were a whirlwind of high profile collaborations with names such as FKA Twigs, Jockstrap and Vegyn. Meanwhile he was constantly working on his own craft, releasing ‘B Sides and Rarities: Volume 1’ a humorously titled compilation of his tracks to date in 2020 and his astoundingly accomplished EP ‘Universal Deluge’ at the start of last year. Today sees the announcement of his debut album ‘Abandon All Hope’, a truly vulnerable and astonishing release traversing Flynn’s battles with hopelessness, isolation and loss across his life.
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“I was quite dismissive of that first record,” Flynn reflects as we speak to him ahead of his set at The George Tavern a few weeks prior to the announcement of his debut LP. He is discussing ‘B Sides and Rarities: Part 1’, a release that established his talent and unique songwriting persona as a standalone musician for many. “I just didn’t really want to call it an album… I got signed off the back of those songs, but they had already been around for a couple of years.” His distance from the tracks isn’t entirely surprising. Flynn, as he has revealed in previous interviews, is an incredibly prolific songwriter, often going through periods where he writes a song a day. “I recorded a song last night!” he laughs. “I just do it all the time.”
His debut ‘Abandon All Hope’, however, has disrupted that flow. “We finished recording in July, and I was working on [the album] until November. Since then I haven’t been writing as much.” He accounts this, in part, to having fulfilled the project of producing an album. “I think I’ve been trying to make an album for a long time… I grew up loving albums.” His EP, ‘Universal Deluge’, was “a lot more conceptual than anything else I’ve ever done” he explains, but it didn’t have the same pressure as an album; “it wasn’t like we were gonna have a tour and stuff.”
To say that an album has been such a long time goal for Flynn, he seems relatively undaunted by the idea of having it released to the world. “I’m pretty happy with the album,” he says “it’s like a studio album. I recorded it in the studio, I played most of the instruments, though we got in session drummers and stuff. We had it mixed by someone who I think is like the best, or one of the best in in the world. I’m happy to be releasing it and saying, this is what I have to say.”
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The album itself is a remarkably confident and complex debut. Its songs trawl the varied and precarious landscapes of human emotion in a nuanced and insightful way. The title track, released today, inverts the elements of traditional songwriting to balance the familiar and the uncanny. The result is a fantastically enjoyable track that is incredibly emotionally vulnerable, with lyrics and melodies that burst with sparse moments of hope among a waves of dread.
This track was preceded by the release of a standalone track ‘Used To It’ at the end of April. The song isn’t on the album, a decision Flynn accounts to its distinctly different tone. “It has a positive message,” he explains, “and nothing on the album does. The album… it’s called ‘Abandon All Hope’, and it really goes there.” It was recorded in the same sessions as the album tracks, so “it sounds quite similar to the stuff on the album, but it’s a lot more just… good vibes.” It seems crucial to Flynn that he distinguishes each project based on its tones and themes, with each project feeling fully developed and coherent upon its release.
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Ethan P. Flynn himself is in a constant state of learning about his craft. He does not, despite the high profile artists he has worked with, suffer from imposter syndrome. “I think being a songwriter is a vicious cycle because I think it makes you more anxious, but also, you’re probably doing it because you’re quite anxious” he reflects. “It’s like, in some ways you have to live your life in order to find out. No one writes a song thinking that it’s not the best song ever, at least a little bit. And it’s kind of difficult to go between the person that you have to make yourself out to be in your head in order to make a piece of music, and then the real life thing. The changing is hard, for me at least.”
Listening to Flynn discuss his music, it is particularly apparent how deeply personal the songs he is writing are. His confidence in his own ability, in contrast to his fairly shy and humble persona, is grounded in his belief in the songwriting process as one of constant learning. “I don’t really think of myself as a…” he hesitates, “you know how songwriters are mythologized in a way, like Nick Drake and stuff, I don’t think of myself like that at all. I think of myself much more like how people think of painters and stuff, where it’s like, I’m kind of studying a thing. In other arts there’s always different studies of a certain subject. Even for writers and stuff you get all these drafts. Whereas for songwriters it’s portrayed differently.”
He is keen to clarify that he is constantly working on his craft. “I record songs loads of times,” he explains. “When you have an idea, it’s like this external stimulus just sparks something within you. A lot of times people kind of get it down, and then that becomes the manifestation of the idea. But really, I think, as an artist or something, you kind of have a job to get the best possible representation of that, because no one else is gonna do it.” Even when he works with other artists as a producer, this ethos remains central. “There’s only so many chords and they all do a certain thing, it’s like a tool. People think of creative stuff as this magical thing but there’s just a process.” Working with other people allows him to gain deeper insight into the process, he points out, “because no one’s ever sat down and taught me. It’s interesting seeing how everyone works. There’s no right way to do it, everyone finds their own way.”
How, then, does he describe the themes of his album? “Just hopelessness, you know” he reflects. “It’s like longing, something missing. Feeling persecuted, when you’re not necessarily persecuted. It’s kind of just a study of my experiences as a person.” The timeline of the writing process is broad, some of the tracks are several years old with others being written “a couple of weeks before we got into the studio.” The album was therefore compiled through thematic ties. Despite Flynn’s persistence that the album’s coherence is found in its sense of despair, there is an underlying sense of hope that bubbles through the tracks.
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The album’s opus is found in a nearly 17 minute long track, split into distinct sections, which really demonstrates Flynn’s genius as a songwriter. Not many musicians could manage to make such a momentous track, let alone one which captures and explores such a nuanced array of emotions. “That’s one about persecution,” he recalls “when you feel paranoid, like everyone is out to get you.” The original recording was just six minutes long, but it developed and expanded as he worked on it. “It’s not proggy necessarily, it’s just like, a long form composition.” Crucially, the track isn’t long for the sake of it. “I hope I don’t ever have to do [a track that long] again,” he laughs. “It just happened, you know… some people do, but I didn’t sit down and go ‘I’m gonna make a long piece of music’. It was like ‘this comes after this, and let’s come back to this, and it’s not over yet’… and then when it was don’t it was like 17 minutes long, that was when I felt it was done.”
What, then, are the musician’s hopes for such a personal project? “I want to be carried down the street with everyone chanting my name,” he muses “but that’s also the last thing I want in the world. I’m not like… I mean I have friends, but I’m not a particularly outgoing person. So it’s like, it would both never be enough and always be to much.”
“I did everything I set out to do,” he reflects. “I’ve achieved everything I want to do.” Regardless of the album’s reception in the world, he says, “I don’t really agree with the whole system at the moment where it’s like monthly listeners and all that. I mean, I get it, and I like it when I’m checking out music, and it’s always been there, but in different ways. But, for me, it’s like… if one person completely understands what I’ve done then that’s enough.”
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Ethan P. Flynn’s debut album ‘Abandon All Hope’ is out on October 6th through Young; order it online.
Words: Eve Boothroyd
Photography: Rachel Lipsitz
