In the past two years Samuel Flynn Scott has been involved in the release of three albums - one with The Phoenix Foundation and two solo efforts.The Phoenix Foundation (TPF) has toured America and New Zealand, and Scott has also done a 21-gig tour of New Zealand with the Cook Strait Social Club - a partnership between him, Fur Patrol's Julia Deans and the Warratahs' Barry Saunders.Oh, and he managed to get married in December as well.Scott, 29, could be pushing for the title of New Zealand's most prolific psychedelic-influenced folk-rock artist but in person he could not seem more laid back.Quietly spoken, affable and charming with a big bushy beard masking most of his face and startlingly bright green eyes, Scott is promoting his second solo album, Straight Answer Machine, completed in just 12 days.Backed by his band Bunnies on Ponies, comprising Wellington musicians Craig Terris, Tom Callwood and Matt Armitage, Scott says the album fell together in an organic sort of way.
He went into the studio in December with Wellington studio engineer Lee Prebble with very little written, he says."It was interesting to work with Lee. We were working very quickly and it felt really natural, really logical."We generally know what the other person is about to suggest when we're making a record."After just three or four hours in the studio, they had recorded the track Moist People - a song which became one of Scott's favourites."It exemplifies the kind of simple spirit that I then wanted to carry on with for the rest of the album."He says the new album is more of a continuation of TPF's Happy Endings - released last year - than his first solo outing, The Hunt Brings Us Life, released in 2006. There he says he can be a bit "more himself" in his own work.Your Own Head is completely biographical, he says, although not particularly revealing. "It's just a snippet of a time I took a tape deck from my sister and was playing Eurythmics until it broke the tape deck."Union Man discusses his feelings about the leader of the National Party."It's about my mistrust of John Key and that I think he is a pretty big faker who's just sucking everyone in with his big smile. The only policy they've got is cutting corporate tax. I don't think he's got a plan."As well as his two solo outings, TPF released its third long-play last year, and the band's music featured prominently in the film Eagle vs Shark, also released last year.Scott has also recorded with the Wellington collective Fly My Pretties.He says it is interesting to now have a "little bit of a back catalogue".Looking back at his earlier recordings, he sees a "bit of uncertainty" about what type of musical direction he felt he should be headed in."In some regards that came off really well, like Horsepower, which was a good mishmash of things," he says."The songs I've written on Happy Endings and Straight Answer Machine - they have a much more straight-ahead purposeful feeling to them."I don't feel as though I'm trying as hard to make a particular type of music, I'm just doing what I want to."When asked how he manages his prolific output, Scott says the pacing - about an album a year - "feels about right"."I know people who spend years and years on a project, and they tend to get more and more uptight the longer they've been working on it."I'm all about finishing things and getting it out."I've never wanted to release anything I'm not happy with or I'm not proud of, but I don't think fussing over music works."ON CD Who: Samuel Flynn Scott.What: New album Straight Answer Machine out now.Touring: In July, dates to be confirmed. - NZPA
