Pressing FLOWVERS
An unedited account of, what are undoubtedly, one of the UK’s most exciting post-lockdown bands.

As I was trying to pin down a neat little sentence to introduce readers to this apathetically fun four-piece from Portsmouth I couldnât help but realise the simplest way to describe them is just… very cool. I mean, to illustrate this I would recommend having a scroll through their Instagram, not just to acquaint yourselves with upcoming tour dates and new releases, but also just to see some seriously solid fashion choices. More to the point, pop to their Spotify as thereâs an unmissable jacket/hairstyle combo that you need to see.
Anyway, another thought that comes to mind when trying to explain Flowvers is the phrase âflow foreverâ. I will let you read the following interview for more on this tidy little phrase (no spoilers here), however, I will say it is a very neat way to sum up how they create their sound as a band, and how they are as individuals. And, not only do they make super cool music themselves, they are also working to promote other unsigned artists with their club night (also named âFlow Foreverâ), currently based in their hometown of Portsmouth and soon to be popping up in Brighton next year. So if youâre down that way totally go check it out!
Right… back to the music! This year marks the fifth year of Flowvers playing together and they have exited the minor wasteland that was 2020 with their banging EP, âThe Old Chapel Demosâ, and their latest single âFar Awayâ.
Both of these releases showcase a deeper, darker direction for the band which is visually captured in the cover art for âFar Awayâ by artist Torin Rowe. Itâs one of those images where the closer you look the more you realise how detailed and complicated it is – just like the Flowvers EP.
And, in terms of acute observational skills, we can see a shift in direction when it comes to their newer tracks. The âpicturesqueâ and âcollage-yâ lyrics by vocalist Matisse remain intact, layered over a heftier bassline from Henry, more punctuated drumming from Connor, and more jagged riffs from guitarist Stan.
Throughout the EP you can hear elements of their earlier material like in the upbeat sound of âDaylightâ and âWhen It Comes to itâ or the echoey and dreamy quality of âWhat You Came forâ and âFlowersâ, but there is this tinge of ethereal melancholy mixed with grounded confidence to new the Flowvers sound, which is very exciting.
Now, letâs get down to what youâre all here for… If you’ve ever wondered what a pre-gig, curb-side interview outside a coffee shop that serves rhubarb margaritas and negronis, down a Manchester side street sounds like, youâre in luck because have we got one for youâŠ

âOne thing to know about Far Away is that itâs the most âusâ single to date, only because it was produced by us, well mainly Stan.â
â Matisse, Flowvers
It’s pertinent to set the scene here… we’d arrived early, and managed to sit in on the soundcheck. ‘Early’ can be defined as ‘time for a quick beer’ yet, there we were; dry-mouthed, clutching plastic cups of water that we’d persuaded the owner to dispense, on account of the bar not yet being open for business. I’d imagined a cozy cubicle where we’d sit and carry out the interview, though in reality, with another band already clambering onto the stage for their soundcheck, we headed off down the road with the band, in search of somewhere quiet… and with alcohol. Henry spots, what appeared to be, a quaint little pub (I thought it was a Chinese take-away) and we entered. And then exited… teeth still intact, bones unbroken… We finally settled on a bench, outside a coffee shop with the luxury of overhead heaters and a selection of cocktails, which seemed to please the lads…. already acquainted, and conscious of time, we jumped straight in…
I understand that your recent EP âThe Old Chapel Demosâ best represents the sound that youâre heading towards now, what was the reason youâd decided to change your sound?
Stan – It wasnât a decision, it was more just, all of the songs that weâd put out… it was such a long process from writing them to recording them. So, when they were written Henry was, like, 14 and me, Connor and Matisse were 16, 15 and by the time we actually got round to finish recording them we were 19. So, when you think about how much you listen to, and how much you get influenced around that sort of period of time. Itâs just a natural sort ofâŠ
Henry – When we eventually got back to rehearsing after lockdown it was just, like, that was the music that we made. It wasnât like a âletâs do thisâ, it was just, you know… what weâd been listening to, how weâd changed.
Connor â It was a very natural transition of just, moving on and maturing, and writing in a different way to what we were. We did start quite young, so that was a big change; college, Uni doing all that. Youâre going through so much; itâs going to happen. Itâs kind of inevitable really!
So you guys met at school? You were all at the same place?
Stan â Yeah, me and Matisse have known each other since we were four, so yeah. And then Henry and Matisse met when you (Henry) were 14 and he was 15?
Henry â Yeah, we met through a mutual sort of mate, we were all at school when we met but, we all went to different schools.
Stan â And then, I played in like a cover band sort of thing, like you know, playing random songs. I rehearsed at this college, and it was a friendâs dad who owned it and he let us rehearse there and stuff, and that was when we first got Connor down to play drums with us. Obviously, we used to just do it round Matisseâs house then, we didnât have a kit or anything. It was like the stone age back then.
Matisse explains that there was a 3 piece drum kit in the shed at the bottom of the garden, triggering Henry to recollect there being ‘the tiniest bass amp in the world that only had like, the rattiest tone’, sparking debate over the fact it only set him back twenty quid. Henry happily calls out that he’d first picked up a bass guitar (affectionately referred to as ‘the plank of wood’) at the first rehearsal, “yeah, I was like, you know what… I wanna be in a band”.
So youâve come quite far â from meeting at school and hanging around together, and ended up playing the Isle of Wight Festival this year, how was that for an experience?
Connor â Yeah it was cool, it was kind of our first major festival outside of Victorious festival in Portsmouth, which is our local festival growing up, and weâd played there a couple of times. But it was our first, out-of-town, big major festival. Unfortunately, we were meant to be playing Truck but unfortunately, that got cancelled. So it was nice to be back in the festival scene after a year and a half, two years.
Henry â I think we definitely felt relief to be there, coz these are the gigs that weâd been wanting to play. But yeah, it was really good.
Matisse â And props to This Feeling for putting up a stage.
In your bio on Spotify, it states that your list of musical influences are âever changingâ, and as your new single, ‘Far Away’, has this much heavier quality to it, I wondered which one of these shifting influences (if any of them) informed this deeper, darker, scuzzier sound?
Matisse â I think most recently this whole post-punk, British post-punk scene is reviving, so definitely influenced by Fontaines I think. I think every single band should be kind of influenced by Fontaines. But we are less focussed on other bands and influences now, weâre much more internal, and we vibe of each otherâs differences. I think we nurture each otherâs influences a lot more now.
Connor â Weâve all got very different music tastes, all four of us have got our own tastes and our own influences which I think, indirectly incorporates with the parts we write. Thereâs no like âoh, we want to be like, say, thisâ.
Matisse â One thing to know about Far Away is that itâs the most âusâ single to date, only because it was produced by us, well mainly Stan. We had a great engineer, Richard Woodcraft at Warner, but he literally gave Stan the reigns it and I think, you know, we really did excel in producing ourselves.
As I was listening to the lyrics for Far Away, I found a relatable desire for a sense of escapism, like that of the first line âIf I had the choice then Iâd go out on the runâŠleave your thoughts and your moneyâŠâ I think the line that stuck with me the most was âTake me far away, Iâm far too young to have this much to sayâ, and I was wondering if you could speak a little about where these lyrics came from?
Matisse â Yeah, âtake me far awayâ, it was sort of an idea pre-covid that I was not really⊠I was not really doing much in terms of my life. Not a lot of decisions had really been made yet. I knew I wanted to sort of maybe go to Uni and stuff, but I felt very enclosed, so it is this idea of a lot of anguish, a lot of… you know, not angry, I wasnât really angry. Itâs like this whole idea of just getting out there.
So, you feel like youâd missed out on all of those opportunities during that time?
Matisse â I definitely felt that later on, yeah. I mean Far Away, from where it was first written to when we were in the studio, definitely the lyrics for me changed, massively. I canât really explain that.
I picked up on some lines from your 2020 single âThrowaway Generationâ, which has also has this awesomely fun sense of apathy, where you talk about the âbeauty of individualityâ and my personal favourite, âI think youâre kinda cool but the styleâs been takenâ and I was wondering where this song came from and what informed the writing of it?
Matisse â Yeah, uhm, the lyrics for âThrowaway Generationâ were mostly rewritten during the studio. Like, we were in a space where I felt really comfortable and I managed to find a space, thereâs so many rooms in Eve Studios that you can go into them. âI think youâre kinda cool but the styleâs been takenâ, yeah, itâs this whole idea that Iâm always quite critical but I donât really offer solutions, and some of thatâs been picked up on quite recently so Iâm gonna make sure that I, you know, try and offer some solutions in some of the new songs, but yeah it the whole, âI think youâre kinda cool but the styleâs been takenâ, itâs the flippancy of it, erm, I just think so many people thatâs⊠pretty much âwe always dress the sameâ. Itâs very fickle, thereâs not a lot of thought that goes into our own lyrics really, I write of the cusp. I write what I see and what I feel.
Something else that struck me was the reoccurrence of the phrase âFlow Foreverâ at the end of a lot of your Instagram posts. I was reading an interview from way back in 2016 about how thatâs where your name came from, as it was the two words mushed together! I was wondering where the little phrase came from and if you could talk a little about what it means to you?
Mattise â Uhm, for those it was to do with. I believe that when we were coming up with band names we came up with âThe Flow Foreversâ and then Henry went âFlowversâ and we were like âyeah sureâ, and I suggested it would be better as a tagline that we put everywhere, and Flow Forever is now the name of our club night. Weâve put a few of those on in Portsmouth and now weâre moving it to Brighton for next year.
Connor – Weâre always looking for new bands and upcoming bands just like us to put on, and all sorts of music and stuff like that.
Henry â We hope to make Flow Forever our brand really, like club nights and merch and⊠yeah.
So whatâs the idea there, when you guys are putting shows on, youâre looking for bands to play with you on the night?
Connor â Itâs a night that weâre curating so weâre not necessarily going to play them all, uhm, we probably wonât play many of them, to be honest. Weâre just trying to find cool bands that we like, give them an opportunity. When we did the Portsmouth ones we found⊠a lot of our mates are musicians, so weâll get some of them in, weâll get an out-of-town band in, so for the first one, we had VioletâŠ. Uhm, just trying to bring people down to the south and give them an opportunity to play somewhere they may not have actually visited yet.
Henry â We wanted that starting out, and that was the thing like; itâs in a space where itâs not like a big venue, itâs like eighty capacity like, itâs not hard to pack it out. Thereâs no stress like youâve got to sell tickets. Itâs going to be a good night no matter what.
Matisse â Itâs that classic thing as well, weâre tying to create something that we potentially didnât really have when we started off. Itâs just that really open, just yeah, âweâll just get you down, we donât care if you donât sell tickets, just come down and playâ, itâs just a really nice atmosphere rather than coming down south for the first time, stressing about trying to sell tickets.

This is kind of a weird question but Iâm curious… the cover art for this single is also so, so detailed. Almost like something Jamie Hewlitt (illustrator, artist â Tank Girl, Gorillaz) would create but with a much more monochromatic colour palette! I found it fits so perfectly well with the very layered single itself, and I was wondering where the illustration came from?
Stanley â Yeah well, before like, most things we do, I do the artwork for but itâs normally like⊠before weâve just used press shots and put a logo on it, weâve not really massively thought about for it. We just wanted something that replicates the sort of sound, in a way. I donât know if Matisse has touched on it, but the thing that me and Matisse have often spoken about is that Matisseâs lyrics are quite like, uhm, picturesque, like collage-y⊠so the artwork is done by someone that I know through a friend. I saw it when he posted it on his Instagram, and I just thought, âoh wow, thatâs literally just kind of like, the sort of thingâŠ
Henry â I think a lot of the stuff we do doesnât really have deep meaning, we just really sort of see something and think âthat looks cool⊠that suits the songâŠâ
Matisse â It does kind of suit the song because itâs a really busy bit of art if you actually look into it, thereâs so many things. Also, I think with the new sound, itâs just completely different⊠if you looked at our previous stuff and the artwork you wouldnât expect that to be the artwork, and again⊠brand new sound, brand new image.
And it does seem to fit well; the intricacies in the artwork and the layers youâve got going on in the music… seems to link the two.
Stan â Definitely with the production style that I like, I mean, itâs the first thing that I properly produced apart from stuff that I did at home or college etcetera, but yeah it was the idea of this whole layering up so there was multiple guitar takes that are chopped and changed, and all pieced together, that sort of thing. So, you hear an effect and itâs like âWoah itâs there’ and then you hear something else. Itâs not just like youâre putting loads of pedals on and scratching around⊠I play three of four notes, apart from the solo section, itâs more about the layering of the effects. We re-did some of the kick patterns with the drums and stuff, and it was a very pulsing, like, we often said âindustrialâ, didnât we, I remember Henry first saying âindustrialâ and I was like âyeahâ, itâs a very clangy sort of thing, and we wanted to have some of each thing. So like, Matisseâs guitar only comes in for the choruses, but when that heavy guitar comes in you really get it full-on, and you have the bass very separate from the drums, this big pounding thing.
Matisse â Just want to say one more thing about the artwork, Torin Rowe heâs the artist so shout out to him. He was very clever; he did a white background and then just this confusion of just black mess, and when you actually look at it thereâs loads of little things going on, itâs very cool.
So this may just be me and my chronic interest in clothing, but I couldnât help but notice when I was watching the video for âThrowaway Generationâ and also while I was scrolling through your Instagram, how very distinct each of your senses of style are! I am a big fan of the matching red hair and jacket with the furry collar on your Spotify banner as well, very cool. I feel as though music and fashion are absolutely and totally intertwined so I was wondering where each of you picked up your sense of style, and what inspires it?
Matisse â We just want to be the Beatles basically. Iâve always been like, dressed smart, you know… dress smart, think smart. I dunno, itâs just the way Iâve been brought up. We actually decided we donât all need to dress the same, a lot of bands feel the need to dress the same.
Connor â If anything, we got more diverse after that, because yeah, we had a conversation about âwhy are weâŠâ and âwe could do thisâŠâ and itâs like âno, why donât we just all do our own thingâ and again, weâre four characters of Flowvers.
Matisse â As generic as some elements of this band are, I think, yeah, the image is very sporadic. I think we owe a lot to Connor actually because Connor joined the band, I think we had an image early on, andâŠ.
Connor â ⊠and I ruined it!
Matisse â ⊠and then you came and dressed like absolute shit. And Iâm thinkingâŠ
Henry â Connor has looked the same for the six years that weâve known him!
Connor â Youâve gotta COMMIT!! Iâm committed and Iâm there⊠I just⊠I donât really think that Iâve got⊠I havenât a specific style, I just look at stuff and think âoh thatâs quite coolâ, I donât overthink it. Just look at it and it and think âYeah! thatâs quite sick. Wear that!â
Stan â Interesting that you say that, as Iâm quite interested in â60s and â70s fashion like, I just find it really cool. A lot of bands, not necessarily my favourite bands, but bands I like a lot, I think are cool, thatâs how they all dress and that! I like a lot of uhm, shoegazey stuff, bands like Dive andâŠ.
Matisse â We went through that whole stoner phase, we had our long hair and that and now weâre all a bit serious and cool, and we all listen to cool music and Henry listens to like experimental electro and stuff, and weâre all like âyeaahhh!â
I think it comes across though, that you donât take yourselves too seriouslyâŠ
Henry âIâm glad it comes across like thatâŠ
Matisse â We are all into clothes, we talk about clothes a lot, wherever weâre going we like to look a clothes and stuff. Itâs nice to see people pick up on it!

It’s hard to talk about new music and live events without mentioning the pandemic. A lot of artists weâve spoken to have said that theyâd used that time to focus on writing new material – During those many months, did you each find yourselves creating more on your own? How did you find collaborating on new music while being stuck indoors?
Stan â Exactly the same for us.
Matisse â Thatâs such a shame youâre saying that because we thought weâd be the cool ones… I think we thrived during lockdown.
Henry â It was perfect for us, we completely wrote an entire new set during lockdown. We even got to the point where we considering like âdo we just change the nameâ and we thought âno, letâs not be that extremeâ but thatâs how, sort of, different we were by the end of lockdown! It was a long period of time!
Connor â We came out of lockdown, basically a new band.
Stan â Yeah, when you actually think about it we were 16 to 17 when we wrote our previous songs, about up to Throwaway Generation, at that age. Then we were instantly in the, you had to play gigs all the time, and you gig and you just do the same set constantly, and then you come away from it, and then youâre not gigging, and itâs like âwell what do we do?â. You realise that youâve played those songs for so long, and âthis is the set we play we rock outâ⊠and it was like, âwe actually have time to do a whole new setâ.
So now youâve been playing the new set for these recent shows â going from nothing during lockdown and not being able to gig, to now – How does it feel to finally be back on stage and what have you missed the most?
Matisse â It’s why the EP was so important, to get that out as quickly as we could because we wanted to get material out as a block to present to our listeners, âthis is the Flowvers youâre going to be seeing liveâ. We donât play any old material now. Itâs sometimes hard for listeners to understand that, when we were 17, we were writing Throwaway Generation, and although weâd stand behind that, we didnât record it until we were late 17/ 18 and then when we were 19-20 pandemic happened, so that was another year. So, thereâs been such a long amount of time. What literally happened before was that we had such a process between writing a song, for like, a month, then playing it live for 4-5 months, then recording for two months, and then mixing for three months. You know, now with this stuff; this is why we wanted to go to the studio, one day we spent at the studio and recorded six demos, put out five of them.
Henry â We love playing this set. We love this set, weâre so comfortable with it like, itâs so nice to finish this tour and be like, we found a set that we can actually enjoy playing every time. We hope itâs being received well. I mean, people seem to be enjoying it!
Further to the brief time we spent with them, before their last gig of the tour, it’s very clear that Flowvers have a very clear idea of what they’re all about and, have sprouted out of lockdown with not only a new setlist but infectious energy that can only be experienced live. Absolutely recommend going to see them next time they’re gigging and would be really surprised if they don’t blow up over the coming year or so.
Setlist for Off The Square, Manchester, October 16th, 2021: She Donât Talk About It / When It Comes to It/ I Know / Far Away / Daylight / What You Came for / Flowvers.
You can find Flowvers via the social icons below:
Giulietta
2 years agoAmazingly written, superb band!
Dan Ripley
2 years agoAnother wonderful read…. Very well written Mr C…. You take care!!
Dan Ripley
2 years agoI do apologise…. thought Mr C had done this interview…. that’ll teach me đ