Among many highlights of a career that’s continued for almost 12 years, Flash In A Pan achieved a new milestone at last July’s 80/35 festival in Des Moines: they became the first band to play on Saturday morning at the IPR stage.
“That morning, I remember getting there really early and just kind of thinking ‘Ohh man, this is going to be an early show, no one's going to show up,” said Max Lipnick, the band’s mandolin player. “And I was just really surprised and honored at the amount of people that showed up early for us. It got the day off to a really great start.”
“Lots of good memories of that day,” said guitarist Blake Daly. “I think 80/35 was a really great time, great lineup. I never thought that I would hear 'Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik' live and I thought that that ship had sailed a long time ago. That was great.”
Having been there that morning, I can confirm that a live performance by Flash In A Pan is a great way to start your day. Apparently lots of people agree, because this wasn’t the earliest the band has played a show.
“Anything before 11 a.m. is pretty tough for us to do,“ said Lipnick. “We've done some fun runs in the past, but I think we're done doing those now, because you gotta get there before even the runners do.”
“I think we got up really early once also to go play the tailgate in Iowa City here,” said Daly. “We were up and out there pretty early.”
Flash In A Pan got their start around 2012, when Daly was busking with other musicians in the streets of Iowa City. “I was sitting at the Coralville reservoir beach, and I got a call from a promoter in Iowa City,” said Daly. “He was asking about one of my other bands that wasn't really running anymore, and he asked, ‘can you open for this band on Friday night?’ And I said yes, but I didn't have an act to put together. And so I pulled some friends together, this busking project that had been going on, which was fiddle and guitar, and then that just kind of launched everything.”
“I was actually a fan of Flash In A Pan before I joined the band,” said Lipnick. “When I was in college at the University of Iowa, I would walk on the Ped Mall and see these guys playing. Then when I graduated from college, I just sent Blake a message and we started jamming.”
Daly and Lipnick were eventually joined by Alex Flesher on banjo and Lee Eckles on bass, forming what would become Flash In A Pan’s “solid lineup,” as Lipnick calls it. The band has released two albums, Off The Rails and Folklore, both recorded at Flat Black Studios. Daly, Lipnick, and Flesher all write songs for the band.
“We usually come with songs somewhat formed,” said Lipnick. “We would kind of write at home individually, and then we kind of bring a song that we think would be good for Flash In A Pan. Together, we’d figure out how the harmonies are gonna work, and where the instrumentation is going to come in.”
Both Daly and Lipnick speak highly of Flesher’s songwriting contributions. “I think Alex thinks very deeply about the marriage between the lyrics and the music, and trying to make them cohesive,” said Lipnick. “Does the music sound like the lyrics, and do they present the lyrics in the best way? I think we're all just trying to learn from Alex how to do that.”
“For my money, no offense to Max, but I think Alex writes my favorite songs,” said Daly.
Flash In A Pan have maintained a busy schedule and strong following over the years, thanks partially to their strong performances, and also to the cozy familiarity of their traditional sound, which they describe as a “string band,” or “folk and grass.” And because we’re Studio One, that means taking a dive into what those terms mean.
“I use the term ‘string band,’ because to say that it's a bluegrass band implies certain specific instrumentation, which often includes a fiddle,” said Daly. “There's a bit of an orthodoxy around bluegrass, and a lot of that boils down to it being created by a single person. You can very easily say Bill Monroe is responsible for bluegrass, which you can't really put on other genres.”
“I think our love of bluegrass music is kind of what brought us all together. But you know, our varied interests in all different kinds of genres kind of creep their ways into our sound,” said Lipnick. “So just like Blake was saying, we don't want to call ourselves a bluegrass band because that is sort of a fixed style of music.”
If you’re hoping to catch a live performance by Flash In A Pan, your chance is coming sooner than you may have thought: they’ll be performing at Wassail at Wilson’s Ciderhouse this coming Saturday. If you need a little more notice than that, they’ll be at the Green Belt Music Festival and Beaverdale Bluegrass Festival this year, and they also just booked an appearance at Codfish Hollow in September with Horseshoes & Hand Grenades. Concertgoers will get to hear songs that will hopefully appear on a new Flash In A Pan album in the near future.
“In the past we'd have like half an album, and then we'd kind of go into the studio and say ‘Alright, let's write some more songs to kind of fill out this album,’” said Lipnick. “Now we're kind of at the point where I think we have more songs than could probably fit on an album, which I think is a good place to be. We've been playing them out live, and so the arrangements have just become really clear to us.”
“I think the approach to crafting these songs and playing them out a lot more allows them to kind of settle into themselves,” said Daly. “If you've just written a song and taken it directly into the studio, those great live moments might not develop. If it doesn't have a chance to be played out a bunch first, it’s kind of putting the cart before the horse a little bit.”
Flash In A Pan are Studio One’s Artists of the Month for February, meaning you'll hear their music at least once an hour all month long. Their music is available on Bandcamp and streaming services, and their Facebook page is regularly updated with their upcoming live performances.
Learn more about the Studio One Artist of the Month series here.
