We chatted to our new pretty good friends in First Time Flyers at The Long Road festival where they made their return last weekend. Check out as we chat about the festival, their upcoming debut album and tour to support it!

We last chatted a couple of years ago at The Long Road, how’s the last two years been?

Tim: So much has happened! But no, we’re still us, we’re still here. It’s lovely to be back, it’s lovely to have the weather. Same stage again. It’s like a really nice way to compare where we’ve got to. Everything around us is the same but it’ll be really good to go ‘yeah, we’ve improved’ or ‘people know our songs more’! It was literally like our sixth gig or something last time we were here. Now it’s like what, our 60th. I don’t know! I have no idea how many we’ve done now but… more! We’re buzzing to play and we’ve got a lovely long weekend here. We had to shoot off last time, it was a very manic weekend, so it’ll be nice to spend some time here and meet everyone.

You guys have got a busy weekend, right? Three sets?

Vicki: So we’ve got three sets here, then we’re off to another festival on Sunday!

I think after this weekend you may be the artist to do the most sets at Long Road. What does it feel like to almost be the house band?

Vicki: Amazing! I’ll take it, that’s a fun fact!

Poppy: We would love that! I don’t think there’s a year they could ask us to come and we’d turn it down. We love it here! Any stage, the vibe is always good at The Long Road.

You guys are doing Front Porch [stage] too this time, right?

Tim: We’re doing Front Porch late tomorrow night with some beautiful minimal lighting. We’ll get some lighters and some phone lights out, I think it’s gonna look great!

And the new single dropped today, right?

Vicki: It did! Busy busy! ‘Primadonna’ is out now!

I checked it out in the car, loved it! Do you want to tell the story behind it?

Poppy: Well there’s only so much story we can tell! Essentially the song is about… everyone has a little version of them sometimes that might act like a primadonna. We wanted to shed some light on that and call everyone, even ourselves, out on that and just make it a really fun song that everyone can sing along to. It’s actually a song we never intended to really release. We offered it to someone else. To our good fortune they turned it down. We decided to play it in our very first headline tour and we got to the first chorus and people were singing along! We all look at each other like ‘what’s happening?’. They’ve been asking us to release it ever since, so we figured Long Road weekend, let’s get it out! It’s a fan favourite and it’s become one of our favourites too.

And it’s next month for the album, right?

Poppy: Less than a month!

Jake: I keep getting it mixed up with the start of tour!

Tim: Yeah, everything’s coming at the same time! So Bound to Break – the album – is out on the 12th of September. Then the tour of the same name kicks off on the 17th. So it’s all going off next month!

Is the Manchester show kind of an album launch show, then?

Tim: I guess it probably is, yeah. But this will long continue on after the tour we hope. Lots of events and stuff, anything we can do to play the album to people, get peoples ears on it. As I said, busy times!

What drove the decision to release an album at this stage? Did it just feel right, was it a case of having enough songs?

Jake: Yeah, I think it just got to the point where we felt we were ready and needed to release a larger body of work. And it is quite a large body of work! 15 tracks, I think.

Vicki: A big old album!

Tim: And even that was a struggle, to narrow it down!

Jake: We write together so much, there’s a lot that may not see the light of day. But eventually we got there and were really really proud of it. I love it!

Are a few of the other singles on it, I assume?

Vicki: There’s a couple, yeah.

Jake: About a 50/50 split! got some old stuff and then some new stuff that we haven’t even played live, let alone recorded!

Is there any stories or specific theme surrounding the album?

Poppy: Yeah, the story’s in the title, Bound to Break. It very much leans into the idea that you have moments in your life that are either breakthroughs or break you down. I think it’s that choice and actually going with the current sometimes. It might be a really rubbish time sometimes but you can eventually break out of that cycle and make it something else. All of our lowest and best moments that we wrote about in this have all, in hindsight, become some of the most amazing times in our lives. I think that’s something we can celebrate; the lows are lows and the highs are highs and actually that makes you who you are.

Vicki: What I love about it is it’s both ends of the spectrum. There are the lows and there are the highs in it, and you can’t have one without the other. You don’t know how good it is until you’ve experienced the lows and vice versa. I think it’s that shows absolutely every aspect of that which is really cool!

I think Nottingham’s our closest. Is it Bodega you’re doing?

All: Yeah!

Tim: Played there last time and wanted to go back, it was a great show.

Vicki: It was a vibe!

It’s a really good venue as well!

Jake: Not a great load-in, but it makes up for it!

Vicki: You get your steps in!

I was chatting to Pip Marsh a couple of weeks ago and he dropped a few of hits about touring with some great people!

Tim: I bet he was dropping swear words as well, wasn’t he?

Lots, yeah!

Poppy: Can we swear now?

Of course!

Poppy: We fucking love Pip!

I was typing it up and cut out every other swear word!

Poppy: We’re lucky with the openers we’ve got this year, him and Outpost Drive. We’re so spoiled!

What can we expect from the sets this weekend?

Vicki: Lots of fun!

Poppy: Lots of different… like yes we’re doing the Interstate twice, but one is the Interstate and one is the afterparty, so there might be a slight change of energy!

Jake: Depends if we’ve had a nap or not!

Poppy: We wanna try and catch a bit of Drake Milligans set so we’re gonna be on a high after that. Then tomorrow night, the Front Porch is such a beautiful setting. It’s one we’ve always wanted to play and we’re so lucky to get to do it this year. That one will be different too so you can expect stuff you’ve heard before, stuff you haven’t. However, if you wanna hear stuff off the album, you’ll have to the tour!