The spirit of New Jersey rock and roll is alive and well in Flycatcher’s heavy-hitting debut, Wrench. The album serves as a reflection of the band’s conscious decision to pursue their dream of being touring musicians. Flycatcher blends everything from big anthemic choruses to soft, acoustic guitar-led ballads into Wrench’s core. The record is the perfect introduction to the rock quartet that delivers an authentic and heartfelt representation of themselves as both artists and individuals.
Melodic Magazine sat down with lead vocalist and guitarist Greg Pease to talk about the creative process behind Wrench and the excitement surrounding their first full-length project and first proper headlining tour.
Your debut album Wrench released on October 24th. Congratulations on that! What emotions are we feeling surrounding this release?
Greg: I think a lot of nerves being that it’s the debut. I think we’ve done a lot of work over the last couple years to build up to this moment. Now that it’s actually happening, you wonder: did we do enough? Did we promote enough? Are we out here spreading the word the right way? I think we have, but those last-minute jitters never go away.
There’s also a sense of relief since we’ve been sitting on some of these songs for a long time. It’ll be really good to move on to whatever’s next and get this label debut situation out of the way.
In terms of the creative process for Wrench, what was the most challenging or most rewarding part for you guys?
The most challenging thing was probably just putting it all together across the time that it took. Some of these songs are really old. Some of them I started writing in 2018 and those ideas never worked out. As it got closer to the finish line, it was really hard to be objective about them and what’s really best for this song.
Working with Will [Yip], who’s our producer, was great. He helped reassure me in certain aspects when I was [unsure] if this is actually a good idea or if I’ve just been playing it for so long that I’ve convinced myself it’s a good idea. There were a couple where he was like, “No, this is sick. We just need to do this, this, and this.” I’d say that was probably the biggest challenge was just really making sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit.
In the same breath, I think that was the most rewarding aspect: taking these old ideas and recycling things that maybe didn’t make the cut in previous projects or something. There’s many things that we jammed as a band and then we were like let’s just do that later. I knew the idea was good, but maybe the drumbeat wasn’t right, or maybe the bass notes weren’t. So once we finally gave them the fair shake that they deserved, some of these songs really turned out to be some real sleeper picks as favorites. It’s very rewarding to see that arc of the song develop.
What were some of your main influences for this record, both in terms of its sound and also the lyrical content?
I’ve really gotten into my singer-songwriter bag, [especially] people like Alex G and that more indie ilk that can sit down with an acoustic guitar and just play whatever. Adrienne Lenker, too.
I have a real soft spot for that stuff. From a songwriting perspective, I was really trying to see what that was like as opposed to writing a rock song and then writing lyrics over top of it.
MJ Lenderman was a newer find in this process because he came onto the scene not too long ago. I think he was another one that was like his stuff is rocking, but there’s a lot of intimacy in the lyrics here. Also Wednesday, his other band. Karly [Hartzman]’s songwriting is great.
On the other side, I revisited the emo post-hardcore royalty of the 2010s. You get bands like Citizen, Title Fight, Turnover, and a lot of the stuff that Will’s worked on in the past especially. I was sort of not so in tune to the actual lyrical themes that they were hitting on. I obviously know the words to the hits, but for example, [with] Title Fight I never pored over the lyrics [until] “Head in the Ceiling Fan” really clicked for me.
You get a sense of what they’re saying and the turns of phrase that they’re using and the balance of regular language versus pros and all this stuff. I think that I was trying to marry those two things. That indie singer-songwriter world, and then also what the big rock bands are doing where it’s just like a wall of sound. We sit somewhere in the middle of those two things.
I know you said that some of the songs on the album were from 2018, but how do you think you’ve grown as a band since the release of your debut EP compared to now as you finally get to put out your first full-length project?
We’ve definitely grown and changed a lot. We’ve had lineup changes. No original members of the band other than myself at this point and it’s all love with everybody that’s been in the band before. We’re all still homies. Life just takes you in different directions and things come up.
Admittedly the band is my baby, so I’m the one who has to see it through, you know? I think we’ve all grown a lot in our tastes. It’s wild to think about what we used to all listen to back then and the kind of music that we were trying to make. I’ve definitely grown a lot, even just in writing my lyrics and stuff. I guess I could say I’m better. I’ve probably gotten better over the years. I hope so.
We’ve all kind of picked out what’s important. I think for us it’s writing the catchiest songs and not being scared of a hook or poppy sensibility, but still being a rock band. Even though we’ve been a rock band for so long, this album was like a real intentional push to sound like a rock band. We want to sound like four people in a room and want it to be loud, full and exciting. It’s funny how it all comes back around because you start wanting to do that, then you think you’re getting more sophisticated, then you come back around and it’s just a cycle.
It’s just listening to our tastes and trying to make the music that we want to hear. That’s the number one rule that I’ve always tried to follow. Usually I’ll get sick of it by the time it comes out, but I try my best to make my own album of the year.
One of the recent singles from the record, “Flood,” serves as a reflection of the band’s choice to pursue this lifestyle and career and also almost didn’t make the cut for the album. Can you expand upon the meaning of this track a little bit and how it came together?
I wrote “Flood” on acoustic guitar in my little studio space here. I have a lot of solo material that I’m working on constantly and there’s always these buckets I put songs in where it’s a solo song [or] it’s a Flycatcher song. That one was kind of like in the middle. I decided to give it the demo treatment of making it sound like a full rock song and it worked, but there was a minute there where it might’ve just lived on acoustic guitar.
In terms of the subject matter of that song, it really is just a reflection of choosing to be in a touring band and choosing to go for this insane pipe dream that we all have while understanding that it’s not necessarily for everyone. It’s one thing to be a highly motivated person and want to be a touring musician and in a rock band and all these crazy things. That’s all fine and good. That’s how my brain works, but I think the main crux of that song is that’s not how everybody else’s brain works, and I need to swallow that pill as well as the people on the other side of it need to swallow that pill.
We all kind of need to come to terms with the fact that we’re all wired a little bit differently. We all want different things in our lives. On the record, there’s a couple of other songs that have a similar theme to them. It’s a lesson to myself that it’s okay for other people to feel differently. That’s why writing those songs was helpful for me to put it into words and work through these complicated feelings.
What song are you most excited for people to hear and why?
Off the jump, it’s hard to choose. I’m really stoked for people to hear the album opener “Fault Line.” That song just hits you in the face and that’s the oldest song. It’s really cool to me that we led the charge with the oldest idea. It turned out so sick and I just love that song. That’s one of the few songs I’ll still listen to pretty regularly and be like, hell yeah.
“Man on the Run” is going to be a really good song for a lot of people. Brianna [Collins] from Tigers Jaw did the feature on that one and she crushed it. All credit to Will for putting those connections together. That song’s almost like a big Southern rocker. I’m excited for everybody to hear that one, too. There’s a couple of them on this record where those songs are just like, duh. Hopefully they don’t roll their eyes at how simple a chorus is, but I’m kind of into that these days.
I think a lot of people are gonna be interested in [the title track]. I think it’s the only Flycatcher song that counts in seven, which is funny. I didn’t even realize that when I was writing it, but that song’s just fun and different. It’s a bit of a departure from what we’ve been doing.
Honestly, I’m really excited for everybody to hear the whole record. It’s only 10 songs, so hopefully people have the patience to sit through it and give every song a chance because I think there’s something for everyone in there. Maybe not the whole thing, but at least like a song or two.
I’m so glad you mentioned “Man on the Run” because that’s the name of your very first headlining tour. How does it feel to be able to put on your own show at this scale for the first time in your career in support of the record?
It feels awesome. I mean, it’s definitely nerve wracking because we just don’t really know what that’s gonna look like. We’ve been supporting a lot of other bands for the last couple years, so we’re really hoping that it lives up to the expectation that we’ve set for ourselves.
We’ve done small little headline runs in the past that I wouldn’t call like a full-blown tour. That was before we were even getting support opportunities. We were just kind of doing it ourselves because we needed to go out and play shows. So now, to have a little bit more of a demand there and a little bit more people in these places, to have them see us and let us play the longest set of the night, it’s going to take some adjusting for sure, but I think we’re all ready for it.
We’ve all been working hard, dialing in our set and getting all the gear in order and it feels really good. It’s been a long journey to get here and hopefully the headline shows continue to grow a little bit. We’ll still be doing support shows for bigger bands if they ask us. Those aren’t going out of style for us anytime soon.
That’s so exciting. What are you most excited about for these upcoming shows? Are there any cities you’re excited to visit for the first time or anything like that?
We’re actually going to be hitting Baltimore for the first time, which is really cool. We’re always excited to hit New York, which is basically the hometown show because we’re from [New] Jersey. Nashville and Chicago are two big spots for us. People seem to really like us there, which we really enjoy stopping in those places, so that’s gonna be fun. Pittsburgh, too. We stop in Pittsburgh so much, so we’re happy to be back. They always show us love, which is gonna be awesome.
New York and Philly feel like hometown gigs a little bit more. We’re kind of right in between the two and we always just have so many friends at those gigs, which is awesome. I’m really stoked to hit Baltimore, and Richmond is going to be great. I think we’ve only been to Richmond once before. Durham is going to be cool. We only went there once before in North Carolina. It’s a really cool city, also Chapel Hill. That whole area is really, really awesome. Greenville, South Carolina, too, we’re playing at this place called Swanson’s Warehouse.
We’re excited to be back there and hopefully get a couple of new faces out in those places. Unless we’re heading in a certain direction, it’s kind of hard for us to just go there on a weekend. I’m hoping we can make those pretty special shows. We’re hitting Bloomington, Indiana, which is gonna be fun. That was on recommendation of all the kids from Indianapolis. I’m just excited to hit all the in-betweens. I love the smaller cities in the middle. Those places always end up being cool and you always end up meeting some cool people.
How do you think emerging from the New Jersey local scene has impacted the way Flycatcher operates as musicians?
Jersey is so unique because we have Philly and New York and we’re pinned between the two. In order to exist in New Jersey, you need to communicate with both of those cities. In order to be a band from New Jersey that wants to grow and play shows, you gotta go play shows in Philly, you gotta go play shows in New York.
There’s a lot of people that are in bands that are in New York and they only play in New York. They don’t leave because there’s so much going on. Same with Philly. I think there’s something to be said about how being able to switch and vibe with people from both places is really crucial.
Also, New York has that whole slick, indie sleaze thing that they’ve been harping on since the early 2000s. Philly’s got such a great emo scene with heavier music, shoegaze, all that sort of stuff. We get caught in the middle. Whatever seeps out, we’re picking up the scraps and I think that’s how you end up with bands like The Front Bottoms, Pine Grove, My Chemical Romance, Gaslight Anthem and also going all the way back to Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi.
You can’t go wrong. There’s always gonna be some cool shit coming out of Jersey. Still, somehow there’s like this odd dismissiveness that people have about Jersey and it’s like, you don’t understand the output of culture that we’ve had in this state, arguably more than the surrounding cities.
It’s definitely this really fun badge of honor. I think we all make a conscious decision to not be a Philly band [or] a New York band and just be a Jersey band. There’s nothing like it. All of us are born and raised here. We’d feel like traitors to disown this. We won the lottery. We live in New Jersey. People just don’t get it. Everything is here. You get not just music, but food, the beach and the mountains and you can do anything here. That’s why it’s so freaking expensive.
Anything else you want to share surrounding the release of Wrench?
Thank you to anybody that gives it a listen. Thanks to anybody that picks up a copy of the record. I hope that people take their time and give it a chance. I know we’ve been a band for a while, but this is our first real record done in this way.
I hope people can get down with what we’re doing and I hope they come see a show if they like what they hear. This goes for all artists, it doesn’t just go for us. It doesn’t matter who you listen to [or] support, but go see your favorite artists and go buy their merch and tickets. I know money’s not easy for most people these days, but that’s the best way to support your artists. Hit them up on Instagram and be like, “yo, I love your record.” It goes such a long way.
Thanks to anybody that listens or cares, and thanks to anybody that’s just listening to music in the big year of 2025. Hope to see you guys on the road.
Wrench is out now via Memory Music and Flycatcher is currently on the road for their US Man on The Run Tour, which concludes on Nov. 23rd in Philadelphia, PA. Tickets and information for all of these upcoming dates can be found here.
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