Q&A: Flight Facilities Sums Up LA Culture in 3 Minutes
☆ BY Faith Luevanos ☆
AUSTRALIAN DJ DUO FLIGHT FACILITIES has just released the new Los Angeles anthem. Hugo Gruzman and James Lyell have created an acid-house ode to the city, teaming up with Aramis Johnson (Enumclaw) to shed some light on this new era of Los Angeles culture that is fueled by clout and social media. The new single, “Days of the Week” isn’t intended to trash the city, it’s to call it out in an electric way that everyone in the city can dance to and relate to. The duo states, “What started as a joke… has turned into one of our guiltiest pleasures.”
The video stars influencer Gilly Moya popping up all around the majority of some pretty iconic LA locations, such as the Church of Scientology, the original angel wings wall mural, and of course, the pink wall. We had a great time watching the video and taking mental notes in our heads of all the places that were shown that we had been to. It was great to see the current state of LA culture get poked fun at from people who have seen the changes throughout the years and find it jarring, yet amusing, just like the rest of us.
Luna received the opportunity to chat with Hugo Gruzman about his personal experience with LA culture, how the song came to be, their recent Coachella experience, and more. Read the full interview below!
LUNA: How would you best describe what LA culture has become? Do you love it or hate it?
GRUZMAN: I feel like it’s become self referential and kind of acknowledging of its own silliness. People are more aware of the fact that it feels like an inside joke now when it was once something that was made fun of. Now, people make fun of themselves for it. From the influencer life down to the traffic, everyone has kind of accepted these silly things about the city and the people, but now they try to own the joke more so than trying to fight it, it’s become a sort of cultural identity.
LUNA: I completely agree, it took some time but we made it! What did the process of creating the new single “Days of the Week” look like for you guys?
GRUZMAN: It was both long and short at the same time. Long in the sense that we had a bunch of demos that we got some friends to play on, we got them to play them out as a band and we resampled them. That whole process was pretty convoluted, but then we had that to play in the studio with Aramis and he heard it and was very particular. He picked chords that he liked and we followed his direction. He sat there thinking for ages and just started riffing on all that LA stuff. He’s from Seattle so I think he was viewing it through the same lenses as us.
LUNA: Even as a local, I feel you’ve been able to capture the LA culture perfectly. Name dropping different spots and even in the video, seeing all the iconic LA influencer spots shown was great. What were some of your favorite callouts?
GRUZMAN: Aramis had a line about doing yoga with Timothee Chalamet but there were too many words to keep it in. Another was referencing Mean Girls and saying Wednesdays we wear pink.
LUNA: You guys just recently played Coachella. What was that experience like playing it and also seeing the number one influencer hotspot?
GRUZMAN: We’ve been lucky enough to do it a few times now and it’s quite funny. Everyone goes and has to get their photo in front of the ferris wheel and stuff like that. This is not meant to tear it down in any way, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music festival. People go in there expecting this religious experience, like you’re marching to Mecca. (laughs) It does look like paradise though because of how it’s set up and you get to see some of the best acts in the world. But, it’s still at heart, just a festival.
LUNA: Absolutely. In your music video for “Days of the Week”, it stars influencer Gilly Moya. What was the decision making process for that like?
GRUZMAN: We actually had a video a couple of weeks before with Aramis in it, but it didn’t work out, so we had to do a reshoot. We needed someone who sort of looked like a fish out of water in all of these spots, some juxtaposition. Then, I think our manager just followed Gilly on social media just because he liked his content, so Gilly, in return, messaged saying how he loved our stuff and our manager just asked him to be in the video. This was all only a few days out from the actual shoot.
LUNA: Oh wow, so everything happened pretty quickly then! We have to know, have there been any trends that you’ve actually liked or fallen for?
GRUZMAN: Besides trying the Hailey Bieber smoothie, (which was so sweet I couldn’t even finish it) we ended up eating at Horses, and that didn’t do me any favors either (laughs). Hiking is a big thing out there and I do enjoy that a lot actually, especially the one up to the Griffith Observatory.
LUNA: Oh yeah, that’s a beautiful hike! Are there any last words you’d like to share in regards to the song or anything you’d like to say to LA?
GRUZMAN: I think we just want to make sure we do the city justice, that’s the most important thing to us. I want the people we’re sort of poking fun at to just own it and have fun with it as well. We want it to be their song, like this is their badge of honor! So I hope people see themselves in the song and video and embrace those things about themselves.
