Johnny Flynn

Thu 3rd Mar, 2011 in Features

Sitting in a small corner café in Melbourne’s inner suburbs, Johnny Flynn can’t help but draw attention. There are perhaps a dozen customers and staff present but all of their eyes at some point flicker upon the 27 year-old’s blonde hair and natural good looks. His accent, which reveals an English private school upbringing, and his gentle manner bring smiles to the faces of both a waitress and male barista. In conversation, it is clear that he is a verbose, considered individual; hints of confidence occasionally peeking through a generally humble and self-deprecating persona. He is polite, friendly and hugely apologetic for being only minutes late.

Flynn would seem to characterise so much of the Mumford and Marling-driven wave of folk that’s proved so popular both here and abroad. After two albums and repeated tours alongside such names though, he is yet to achieve anything resembling their level of success or notoriety. The previous night, in his only Australian solo show, Flynn played to audience of less than one hundred people; all of whom, for the first time in recent memory, remained seated on the Northcote Social Club floor. Yet this, and the fact his presence in the country was facilitated by playing first support to Laura Marling during her series of sold-out shows, seems of little concern to him.

“It’s nice. I like, for solo shows, that sort of at home vibe where everyone’s sitting around,” says Flynn.

“Everybody just fits in somewhere in the scheme. Coming out here on my own is really nice, there’s just me and the guitar, there’s quite a lot of time in the days for me to hang with the guys in [Marling’s] band and just see things and meet people.”

On record, Flynn displays a gift for song writing; able to develop scenes and characters through an archaic mode of storytelling, somehow without ever sounding contrived. Compositionally, he and his band (The Sussex Wit) never strive for the sorts of grand moments that made anthems out of Mumford and Sons’ debut, instead finessing over more subtle folk arrangements. Indeed, it’s apparent that Flynn possesses neither the ambition nor intent of a festival headliner.

“My brain doesn’t really work in that way in terms of having huge goals. I’d like to be supporting what I like doing so that obviously has certain implications. I’d like to go to places and stuff but as far as achieving certain goals: I’m doing what I want to be doing, I’m just on a path that may or may not grow or change but it’s not like I’m not where I want to be. I’m just here.”

Flynn may have struggled to gain broader commercial appeal but there has been no shortage of critical praise for his work to date. His debut album, A Larum, had bloggers and critics clambering for their dustiest thesaurus, throwing up terms like ‘pastoral’ and ‘antiquated’, ‘rustic’ and ‘bucolic’. As far as first albums go, A Larum presents itself not as the usual jumble of songs drawn from an artist’s youth but is instead a more cohesive record, held together with thematic threads that run throughout. It is one that rewards multiple listens and further investigation.

“In some ways, there were quite a lot of songs that come from a broad period of time, because I had a few years of gigging around and playing in different bands and forming all those early songs before realising that we were going to go into a studio and record. For that reason, sonically and in terms of the last few songs that went on it, once I knew we were going to be a band recording it in a studio, I tried to tie it together in some ways and thematically, I think made certain choice about the songs I used. I had probably two or three times the songs that ended up on the record so I could actually sort of choose songs that felt relevant, were part of the same record as it were.”