Fly By Midnight is the musical embodiment of the genre-bending of the early 2000s. Their music is familiar and different at the same time. While the ambience reminds me of sitting in parks with friends after school, the lyrics tell a more complex story. One of heartache and pride, their songs are stories and lessons that can only be appreciated by those who have lived them. As Justin Bryte, 1/2 of the duo, put it, “There are bands that did it quite well in the 2000s. They were writing pop music, you know, mixed with this kinda like punk/alt stuff. Like sentimentalists, bands that come to mind are like Boys Like Girls, where they kinda found that balance. I mean, I loved that band growing up as well. So like Slavo said, any opportunity to bring songs we listened to growing up into what we’re writing now, yeah, we’re always interested in doing anything. It’s really fresh for us.”
It’s also incredibly productive for the group. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Fly By Midnight has been releasing music nearly fanatically. A single every four weeks, a music video routinely, an EP here or there, they’ve filled our time indoors with addictive melodies. As the world begins to reopen, their sound spills onto the streets. Not only is the Fly By Midnight sound familiar, but it is also the future.
The near future, to be exact. On September 14, Fly By Midnight is embarking on a massive national tour. Hitting 33 cities with Jake Miller, the band will finally get an opportunity to play all of their new music live. To find a concert near you, click the link below.
While gearing up for this tour, Fly By Midnight has maintained their hectic release schedule. As is evident by their upcoming collaboration with Indian artist, Zaeden. This Friday, August 6, the two halves of the globe come together to create what I can only assume is an enticing song known as “Settle Down.”
https://www.facebook.com/zaedenmusic/
Although Zaeden is one of many artists Fly By Midnight has recently collaborated with, their musical symbiosis of sorts is memorable. As Slavo, producer of the group, put it, “When we collaborate, we try to put a taste of what that artist is doing into it, so it’s, you know, gonna sound like Fly By Midnight. When Zaeden joined the track, he told us he wanted to sing in English and not Hindi. Being it’s his first all English track it’s exciting for us to be a part of that with him.”
“Tragedy” is another example of Fly By Midnight’s collaborative flexibility. “‘Tragedy’ is quite a different track for us, sonically. Slavo co-produced it with a duo based out of Canada, called House of Wolf, and it was really cool for Slavo and I to write this sort of song because we’re in a place right now with our relationships, Slavo’s married, I have a significant other, we’re not exactly emotionally in the headspace that, “Tragedy” speaks about. But when we wrote it, for us, it was about, kinda reminiscing about that feeling of not wanting to hurt someone you care about, cause maybe you’re just not ready to have that person in your life yet. It’s fun to sing it now, cause we’re not in that headspace anymore. It’s cool to be able to listen to a song and feel nostalgic and reminisce about an emotion you don’t have any longer,” said Bryte.
Which leads fans to wonder, what headspace will the upcoming album be in? As Fly By Midnight’s sound continues to expand with each collaboration and release, the next album could very well be a collage of tones and notes we’ve never quite heard before. With that being said, however, “I think for our partnership it’s about finding a way to balance it, where it doesn’t feel like where all of the sudden doing something no one really understands or is familiar with. You know, balancing that, I think, is the exciting part, trying to find a world where they both make sense,” said Slavo.
I will happily move to a Fly By Midnight planet if things just make sense there. And I think many fans would follow me, especially after the last fews years we’ve had. Still, multi-tonal travel seems a bit far-fetched at the moment. Fans will have to settle for their open invitation to meet them at their concerts.
As Slavo explained, “I was just going to say, on the road, it’s our chance to really connect with people, to meet fans that we’ve been talking to for you know, even years, online. Now that we’re hitting so many cities it’s time for us to actually meet people that we’ve been with, that are big fans of ours. If anyone is listening to this or reading this, on the road, we’ll finally get a chance to meet each other after the show. We’ll do our best to meet every single one of you.”
“I mean, it sounds cliche, but we love our fans. They have real gravitas towards how consistently we release music and how consistently we release videos. We’re very grateful for that. We’re grateful to fans that always want more from us and we can’t wait to meet every single one of them that wants to come out to a show. We make it a point to try and meet as many fans as we can on the road and we can’t wait to do that,” said Bryte.
Art in Your World 