FLIGHT 16 - BIO
From The Official Flight 16 Website
On their eponymous 550 Music album, Flight 16 plow through a range of styles that evoke a 30-year cycle of British rock modes and moods. That they make it look easy is especially remarkable when one learns that their mean age is 21. But then, this powerhouse quartet (Dave Sears, vocals & guitars; Paulo Obertelli, lead guitar & vocals; Jules Eccleston, bass guitar; and Chris Hancox, drums & percussion) grew up making music together.
Paulo Obertelli, Jules Eccleston and Chris Hancox grew up in Croydon, just outside of London, in an area (in Paulo's words) "not really nice and not really bad, just sort of typically English." Around age 14, they decided it was time to take action: "We just startedlearning together and practicing at lunch times," Paulo recalls. The boys took direct inspiration from the example of Paulo's older brother, whose own hard rock band was quite popular in the Croydon clubs. "When that scene was going on, we were listening to Iron Maiden and Metallica - a bit more heavy."
The young group, already christened Flight 16, played a Young Groups Showcase concert where their already formidable stage presence and energy won the prize for 'Best Expression and Communication.' At the same time Paulo, then the sole vocalist, approached Dave Sears at a club and recruited him into the fold. Leaving school, the band played as many local gigs as they could round up.
Flight 16 began to develop a regular following, especially at the popular Croydon club The Cartoon, where they were spotted by a representative from the Polish record label Phonex. This fledgling company, which previously specialized in bootlegs, was keen to sign a new British hard rock act and offered to record an album with the still teenaged musicians.
"You could call it an album or you could call it a demo that we released," says Paulo. "We spent seven days in a demo studio with no producer and did nine tracks. It sounded good and they put it out on CD and tape in Poland, but it wasn't pushed and wasn't advertised. To be quite frank, they didn't have a clue! They just knew how to duplicate other people's tapes and sell those, but they really didn't know about plugging a band. The record didn't do anything at all but we got a lot of experience from it, because we went there for five weeks, did a few open-air gigs, and radio and television interviews."
A few copies of the album, 'Against The Wind', were imported to England. This led to a review in the influential magazine Kerrang!, which awarded the CD three out of five 'K's' and applauded Flight 16's skill at making contemporary hard rock "in most fine fashion." Once free of their Polish obligations, Flight 16 recorded a new demo tape which made the rounds of labels in England and the US. After various tentative nibbles, the now six-year old group inked first with a management company and then a recording contract with 550 Music. Obertelli feels that their years of learning are a definite advantage.
"If you get signed overnight and get successful overnight, itnormally lasts... overnight. 'Cause [the musicians] aren't as knowledgeable about it as they would be if they had been in the business and climbed their way up longer. You look at bands like Aerosmith, that have lasted for such a long time. When they released their first record, they were quite sort of underground."
When it came time to find a producer, many good ones were interested in working with the band. But Flight 16 hadn't counted on their first choice accepting the assignment: Dave Jerden, whose impressive rock résumé includes gold and platinum albums by The Offspring, Alice In Chains, Social Distortion, and Jane's Addiction, among others. "We'd been mad Alice In Chains fans," says Paulo, "so that was a big thing, hearing the guy who produced two albums by one of my best bands calling up to do mine!"
Jerden brought the band to Eldorado, his home studio in Los Angeles, where Flight 16 set to work on their first proper album in the winter of 1997-98. The producer expertly enhanced the group's already eclectic music with his own unusual ideas, such as the arrangement for My Only Love with its spare strings on the verses and a hook-filled ending that started life as a separate song.
The result manages to sound like everything from first-album Genesis to XTC: My Only Love is a stark contrast to more aggressive songs, like the moody yet soulful opening track Snap. The rousing It's a Shame boasts a Zeppelin-esque winding, circular guitar riff and a pounding beat.
Flight 16's colorful palette is a welcome change from many stylistically rigid groups of today. "I think it's just due to us having so many different inspirations and influences," notes Paulo Obertelli. "We don't plan anything as a band, we just play what makes us feel good. There's too many descriptions of music - I just call our stuff rock and roll."
