Hello, we’re here with FLIGHT CNCLLD, how are you doing?
Mars – Very well.
Flo – Great.

We’re here to talk about your album Safety Wire which will be released on October 17. We’ve already discovered a first single, Skin Crawl. Why did you choose this track to introduce not only the album, but also the project itself?
Flo – Good question, I don’t even know if we had really picked that one first at the beginning. We had actually thought of the second one, which is coming out soon. The reason why we later decided this one was relevant is because right away, it carries the band’s identity. In the first 15–20 seconds, you catch the vibe. Everything revolves around that: a kind of djenty riff, electronic touches, a bit of groove.
Mars – And syncopated rhythms, unusual for the genre.
Flo – It reveals a bit of everything that will happen, the band’s essence.
Mars – Exactly. And also, there’s a very direct aspect: everything comes in at once, with screams on top, you’re thrown into it and you wonder what’s happening. And there’s another reason too: it’s the first track on the album.
Flo – Yes, it’s actually the first track of the whole project. And it’s really that riff that defined everything. We said to ourselves: “No, this is the riff we need to expand, this is the vibe we need to keep for the other songs.”

Do you have any particular influences on this album?
Flo – Yes, a lot, really a lot.
Mars – What we had in common at the start comes down to two aspects: modern progressive metal, which we both listened to a lot and even practiced (you in more established bands, me more locally and discreetly), and also a shared love for alternative/emo rock, with all its melancholy and melodies. Beyond that, there are other influences too. You especially have more hip-hop influences.
Flo – Yes, rather trap actually. I don’t really use the word hip-hop, because it’s a culture in itself, so I don’t throw that term around lightly. But trap, yes: trap instrumentals, “urban” sounds. Well, everything that’s labeled “urban” – which means both everything and nothing – but with that particular vibe. I had told you from the start that I wanted to make a mix of Carnival and PNL. In the end, it doesn’t really sound like PNL, more like Carnival, but I wanted that cloud influence. You can also find it in the second “version” of the project, the double-sided idea we’ll talk about.
Mars – What’s original is that I wasn’t listening to PNL at all or that whole wave. It’s not really my thing, but I understood what you wanted to bring in. Because in modern metal, when rap influences appear, they’re usually old-school 90s–2000s rap, fast and dense, or fusion/nu-metal vibes. We wanted to push it further, into something more emo-rap.
Flo – But emo-rap in a broad sense, not necessarily rap per se. In emo-rap, you can find Lil Peep, but also stuff that almost sounds like Blink-182, with an electro-urban touch.
Mars – Yes, more modern.
Flo – So yeah, to get back to the point, our influences range from rap/trap/urban music to djent, through all modern metal.
Mars – And as soon as you play on more than 6 strings, there’s djent anyway.

How did your different influences shape your creative process?
Flo – It actually took us quite some time to find our thing. The first demos were too much of a neo-fusion, like “neo 2.0.” But Skin Crawl, the first song we wrote, actually came from another guitarist, Enzo, with whom I had originally started the project. He couldn’t continue, but he had written 2–3 riffs, including that one.
Mars – It’ll be an influence forever.
Flo – Exactly. Then we built around it: some afro/Latin-inspired rhythms, percussions, but with big Meshuggah-like hits. I do the beatmaking and rhythm parts, and you bring in the guitars. We test the melodies together, pretty organically, spending hours working side by side like kids. No Wetransfer back and forth, more direct work sessions.
Mars – And our skills are complementary. You’re strong with rhythm, I’m more of a harmony and theory nerd. So every time there’s a gap, we can balance it out. And it works really well.

I’ll move on to the two versions of the album. Why this idea of a “cloud” version?
Flo – That idea came from me. At first, it was to fill an artistic gap: I wanted to put everything into FLIGHT CNCLLD, but without making it a messy patchwork. The idea was to flirt with different styles without fully diving into them. And the cloud side made sense: sensitive, dreamy, emo, close to Leprous or Porcupine Tree. With the trap and modern rap I listen to, which are often very vaporous, it felt coherent. I first wanted to release those tracks progressively, as extra content, but with our publisher’s feedback, it turned into a real double album, a mirror project.
Mars – Whereas at the beginning, it was just supposed to be bonus material.
Flo – Yes, but we thought it actually made artistic sense. We live in the age of singles, and here we are releasing a 20-track double album. Even if people skip half of it, at least it’s a proper statement.
Mars – And I liked the concept, because it’s rarely done. Linkin Park did something similar with Reanimation. It showed another side of the band. That’s what we wanted too: to show both faces.
Flo – At first, our cloud versions didn’t work. It was going too far, almost into reggaeton. So we refocused: cloud = emo, slow, floating.

Have you already started working on adapting these “mirror albums” for the stage?
Flo – Yes, we’ve started rehearsing. We won’t give too much away, but some cloud elements will be included. It will remain big rock/metal/djent/electro, but with some more hip-hop-influenced sections, to give a taste of that other side.
Mars – Yes, it’ll be incorporated here and there in the set, but overall it’s still rock/metal.

What emotion or message would you like people to take away after listening to the album?
Flo – I’d like it to sound beautiful, well produced, pleasant to listen to. Something that speaks both to musicians and to my mom. I love pop, even mainstream pop like Rihanna or Taylor Swift, but also prog or grind. I want it to be accessible, but with depth.
Mars – I’d like people to feel like they’ve found something they were missing. That it feels like an obvious fit. And also, my parents love FLIGHT CNCLLD – maybe it’s the project they relate to the most out of everything I’ve done.
Flo – So yeah, we want to reach both music fans and our loved ones.
Mars – Exactly! [laughs]

Thank you so much for your time!
Flo – Thank you!
Mars – Thanks!