SNH Interviews Flamingods

Ahead of his show with us on Thursday, we caught up with Kamal from the wizards that are Flamingods.

SNH: So who are you guys and how did you get together?

Kamal: We are Kamal Rasool, Charles Prest, Sam Rowe, Craig Doporto and Karthik Poduval. Flamingods initially started off as my solo project, after releasing the Waves album I started to get offered a few gigs. I knew Karthik from London and Charles, Sam and Craig from when we lived in Bahrain, we were in an old band together so it just kind of worked. They started commuting to London for gigs (from various places in the UK) and we just progressed from there I guess! 

SNH: Love the name – how did you come up with that one?

Kamal: The names a funny one, were all a bit confused of the origins, but I'm pretty sure our friend Danny just blurted it out one day and it stuck. 

SNH: You’ve been described as psychedelic, tribal, tropical and lo-fi, for example, without generally being compared to any other artist; which is quite an achievement. How would you articulate your sound to those who hadn’t heard you, and what or who are your influences?

Kamal: Flamingods started as a way for me to transfer my personal experiences in other cultures into my music. We don't purposely take influence by certain bands - were just stealing from culture and putting it into our own words or ideas. Although I'm pretty positive that band influences sneak their way into our songs one way or another.

SNH: I hear that a lot of your music is made using African instruments you picked up on your travels; where have you been and what inspired you so much about the culture/music?

Kamal: I was lucky enough to be brought up in a family which saw travelling as an important investment, even though we couldn't do it all the time. Those experiences include living in a hut in the middle of the Amazon and helping to build a local school for a village in Tanzania. Both those situations saw me being up and close with tribes - often living secluded from civilisation and performing ritual as a way of living. During these rituals of singing and dancing these tribes would not read from any music sheets or take influence from anyone, but more improvise, get lost in the music in a trance and play what they thought sounded right, along with borrowing from tradition and that’s what intrigued me/influences the band most I think. 

SNH: You released a zine focusing on the Aztecs as an accompaniment to one of your tapes; what generated your interest in ancient tribal culture?

Kamal: I'm a bit obsessed with the Aztecs, it's got to have something to do with the human way of being attracted to mystery and things that are unsolved. That culture in particular had most of its belongings destroyed and therefore is shrouded in mystery. They lived in such an interesting way and had so many outrageous rituals and thoughts on life. The interest was probably generated when I was in the Amazon and my older brother would tell me stories about them. I'm also in love with the Aztec/Inca/Mayan art - it represents what we want to sound like.  

SNH: You’ve played on bills with a lot of exciting emerging bands; what’s the most interesting show you’ve played so far and which bands would you recommend we check out?

Kamal: Yeah I think were quite lucky in that, since we don't really fit in a scene or genre, we kind of get thrown around playing with bands that don't relate to us at all - which we kind of like because we get exposed to lots of new music we wouldn't have necessarily initially listened to. Our favourite bands we've played with have to be; Beaty Heart who make this amazing visual, concrete music. Sometimes I kind of think of them as the electronic version of us in terms of what their influenced by. They are incredible live. And Inca Gold who were one of the first bands we played with, who make this amazing psychedelic pop music.    

SNH: If you could play your dream show/festival, who else would be on the bill?

Kamal: The bands dream is to play at All Tomorrows Parties (ATP), Its where we first started making music as a band, playing music from our chalet room and having people jump in through the window and join, playing with pots and pans - there was something beautiful about it that can't be recreated anywhere else. We all first went about 2 years ago to the Matt Groening curated event, and we were blown away by all these bands we had never seen live - The Boredoms, Konono No.1 , The Residents, Toumani Diabate, it was insane! I guess a mixture of that lineup along with some of our friends bands would make it just perfect. 

We’re super excited to have these guys on the bill and can’t wait to check out their curious sounds in 3D. More info about the night can be found on our facebook page.