Melbourne band Floodlights join the Falls Festival line-up for the first time this year, bringing their blend of '80s alt-rock and '90s NZ jangle-pop to a brand-new audience.
"We're so excited. I was last at Falls quite a while ago; when we were younger, we'd go every year to Falls," guitarist/ vocalist Ashlee Kehoe says."Reflecting on those memories, when we were there, we could have never imagined playing it, so I think it's going to be pretty special. It'll be our first big festival as well, so we're pumped, it's going to be awesome."
Ash affirms that Floodlights will be in prime performance mode for Falls following a tour with Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever prior to the festival.
"We've got a run of shows with Rolling Blackouts [Coastal Fever]; we're touring with them in the lead up to Falls, so that will be good to get used to playing to bigger audiences and practise all we can.
"Then we're doing all three [Falls] shows, so we're going to have to get our live set down I reckon."
Floodlights have also been touring around Australia for the past few months, which Ash says has helped fine-tune their stage show in the lead-up to Falls.
"We're feeling good, we've had a good run of shows and we've done a bit of travelling around the country, which has been awesome," she says.
"We went up to Darwin and Alice Springs and played there, and we've done an east-coast tour and played in Tassie, so it's been good to hit all the spots that we've been meaning to since the album came out and I feel like it's given us a lot of confidence live as well."
Floodlights released their debut album 'From A View' in 2020, hot on the heels of their 2019 EP 'Backyard', which featured the band's signature track 'Nullarbor'.
On their recent regional jaunts, Floodlights had the opportunity to take 'Nullarbor' back to the places that inspired its creation, allowing the song to come full circle.
"It was really special, especially because that song was obviously written after a trip that Louis [Parsons, guitar/ vocals] and I did around Australia. And so, to return to some of those spots was really cool," Ash says.
"It had been a dream of ours for a while to play the Alice [Springs] and Darwin shows, and it kept getting postponed because of lockdowns, so to finally get there was really cool and it was nice to experience those places as well.
"They're such beautiful parts of Australia and so different to Melbourne where we're from."
Beyond their Falls Festival debut, Floodlights are preparing to release new music, with another album due next year. "There's new music on the way," Ash confirms.
"We've been in the recording studio, and we've got some exciting things coming next year, which we're really excited to share; some songs that are really important to us.
"We're just really looking forward to the next chapter of new music."
Floodlights play 2022-2023 Falls Festival in Colac, Byron Bay and Fremantle. They also play Theatre Royal (Castlemaine) 3 September.
Falls Festival 2022-2023 Dates
29-31 Dec - Pennyroyal Plains (Colac)31 Dec to 2 Jan - North Byron Parklands (Byron Bay)
7-8 Jan - Fremantle Park (Fremantle)
Falls Festival 2022-2023 Line-up
Arctic MonkeysLil Nas X
Peggy Gou
Chvrches
Jamie xx
Aminé
Ocean Alley
CamelPhat
Spacey Jane
DMA'S
G Flip
PinkPantheress
Rico Nasty
Amyl And The Sniffers
Mall Grab
Ben Böhmer (LIVE)
DJ Seinfeld
Genesis Owusu
TSHA
CC:Disco!
Young Franco
Anna Lunoe
Luude
Lastlings
May-A
Choomba
The Vanns
King Stingray
Peach PRC
Beddy Rays
Jean Dawson
Telenova
Biscits
Barry Can't Swim
Floodlights
Elkka
Wongo
Yng Martyr
1300
Moktar
Magdalena Bay
Dameeeela
Ebony Boadu
Elsy Wameyo
Rona.
Juno Mamba
Floodlights 2022 Tour Dates with Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Thu 13 Oct - Torquay Hotel (Torquay)Fri 14 Oct - Freo.Social (Fremantle)
Sat 15 Oct - Settlers Tavern (Margaret River)
Fri 21 Oct - Northcote Theatre (Melbourne)
Sat 22 Oct - The Gov (Adelaide)
Thu 27 Oct - The Fortitude Music Hall (Brisbane)
Fri 28 Oct - Metro Theatre (Sydney)
