With a name like Flamboyant Nightmare, you already set some high expectations in the minds of punters. For me, it definitely evokes visions of heavy metal theatrics combined with crunching riffs, thundering drums, and wailing, operatic highs. Well I’m very pleased to tell you that Flamboyant Nightmare delivers on all of those things and plenty more.
Blending the sounds of Brisbane grunge with alternative and traditional heavy metal, Flamboyant Nightmare take to the stage looking like they’re ready to terrorise the high seas. I first met their drummer Sam outside of the since closed Stranded Bar waiting to see seminal dungeon synth artist Mortiis, who dresses up as a goblin and plays a synth that’s been made to look like a rusted hunk of metal.
After striking up a conversation with him about lo-fi ambient music from the nineties and complaints about poor quality copper, he told me that he’d recently started a band. From the moment that I heard the words Flamboyant Nightmare, I was immediately intrigued. Since then, I’ve been following them around as they’ve gradually built up a crew of followers ready to help them find the One Piece or at the very least, enough grog and hard tack to make it to the next port.
After a string of demo singles and some voyages up and down the Queensland coast, they unfurled the sails of their debut EP The Fall at Evil Corp, Brisbane’s spookiest bar, music venue, and horror maze. It also happens to be right across the road from my apartment, how’s that for convenience? Before they took to the stage, I managed to catch them in-between last minute checks to both their costumes and rigging to ask them Five Quickfire Questions!
Flamboyant Nightmare are:
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- Rachel Kate Brand: Vocals and synths
- Daniel Langdon: Guitar
- Sam Bowman: Drums
- Scott Leigh: Bass
Round 1: Sam and Scott
1. Starting out with the low hanging fruit, Sam is quite fashionable both on stage and off and this band is definitely big on the costumes, so I’d like to know what’s the most flamboyant item of clothing that you own?
Sam: That is an excellent question. I have a lot. I have far too much. It’s only recently, I wouldn’t really call a safari hat flamboyant, but it’s definitely a curiosity I’ve picked up recently. I have too many vests. They’re also very fashionable. What about you Scott?
Scott: Look, mine are… one that I’ve got is like silver foil pants. And the other one is a genuine set of Houndstooth seventies flares. Those are probably the two most flamboyant things that I own.
Sam: (impressed) Oh my God!
OB: That’s very flamboyant!
Scott: They don’t fit me anymore, but I have them still.
2. In life we often swear by things that eventually change for the worse or decline in quality. What’s something that you used to swear by that you now have No More Faith in?
Scott: Oh, that’s good, that’s good.
Sam: I reckon it’s a quote that I’ve gotten from my family, actually, for me. It’s: What you think about, you bring about. But I swore to it in a very toxic way growing up. I misunderstood what it meant. I’ve had to change its meaning. I no longer have faith in its original meaning.
Scott: Shit, I have absolutely no idea. Something I no longer have faith in…
OB: Well, for me, it’s the quality of Tupperware container lids. The glass is still good, but the lids fucking break.
Scott: Oh, actually! Actually, that’s fair. I’m going to take that because they used to replace that, they had a lifetime warranty on those damn lids. I tried to take them bastards back and they wouldn’t take them, so yeah.
Sam: Wow, you are an old man.
Scott: I am an old man, what can I say?
3. You’ve been dropped into a scenario worthy of Tomorrow When the War Began. It’s twelve at night and you’ve suddenly been given a mission to Burn The Bridge to stop the enemy advance. Who are you calling up to help you on this critical mission? Can be anyone alive or dead and you don’t have to know them personally.
Sam: I have a very good friend from high school, actually. I have a number of very good friends from high school who are very rural, very country, and very susceptible to the use of firearms and or homemade explosives. You know, recreational use, fireworks and the like. I think I’d be calling in some favours.
Scott: Oh, nice. Yeah, I reckon my best friend. I’ve known her for thirty plus years. She is probably the most resourceful person in the world. Her name’s Tonya. Resourceful person in the world, good in a crisis, and she’s been through some other shit. So we could do that. That’d be her for sure.
OB: I’d probably call up some of my mates who are ex-military.
Scott: Yeah that’s a good one.
Sam: The military or crazy rural people right?
OB: You could call up Bob Katter as well.
Sam: (Bob Katter voice) I ain’t spending any time on it!
4. You’re booked to play any gig anywhere in the world but the catch is that you have to travel on the Train to Glory to get there. Where’s the furthest you’d be willing to travel by rail to play and with who? (The train could even travel over the sea for the purposes of this question)
Sam: I can be very patient on the train. I’ll bring a couple of good books. So, look, if we go as far as the literal other side of the world, I’m comfortable. I don’t care who we’re playing with. I’m just happy to be playing at that point.
Scott: Yeah, I can go anywhere on train. I considered going across from like Asia all the way through to Europe before on train. So yeah, no problems with distance. Somewhere in Europe definitely. Going over there and doing some of the festivals.
OB: Like Wacken Open Air.
Sam and Scott: Yeah, yeah exactly!
Scott: And hey, it wouldn’t be cool to have like, I don’t know, some hometown hero? Like Caligula’s Horse, our hometown hero. So yeah we’d play with them, let’s say.
5. And last but not least, can you describe a time where you had to take The Fall for something that you didn’t do, either to help someone else out or to avoid something worse happening?
Scott: I can think of one. It’s not that great because it’s illegal. So there was this one time I took- I was driving a car. This was many, many years ago. I do not recommend. I was driving a car. I was unlicensed to be driving the vehicle and I got caught by the police.
I was also on my mobile phone and I pretended and took The Fall and said that my brother (who I don’t have) has just died and I was driving to go and see my family and I got let off. So I guess there’s that. I do not recommend that, bloody hell!
Sam: You know, if I have, it’s a repressed memory. Because I like to think I’m flawless, which cuts away… No, I’ve got nothing. I wish I did. I’d come up with a story otherwise. I’ve got nothing.
Scott: Well, you kind of took The Fall for us when we were in Bundy. You became the default parental figure.
Sam: Oh, okay alright, I suppose. When we went on our road trip to Bundaberg, yeah, despite being the youngest member of the band, I also turned out to be the grumpy grandfather who said: No fun. We have to, we’ve got to, drive home in the morning guys. Okay, can we not stay out past midnight? We’ve got a big drive ahead of us. Guys, can we please go back to the hotel?
Round 2: Rachel and Daniel
1. Starting out with the low hanging fruit, Sam is quite fashionable both on stage and off and this band is definitely big on the costumes, so I’d like to know what’s the most flamboyant item of clothing that you own?
Daniel: It’s the cape. It’s the cape that I have, which I made on the day of this fancy dress party for my mate’s 30th. It’s a big red cape. Well, a red cloak, then it’s got a nice layer of leather, and then it’s got some scale mail on top of that, that I assembled all in the space of a day.
OB: Oh wow, that seems seriously impressive.
Daniel: So yeah, that one comes out every now and then.
Rachel: I’ve narrowed mine down to a couple ha-ha-ha. The dress I’m wearing at the moment, that’s all like black and shredded and red and fishnetty. But I’ve also got a collection of big tulle skirts that I think are very flamboyant, especially my red and black one. And also I have a snakeskin vest that Daniel actually made me that I feel like has a very flamboyant tone to it.
2. In life we often swear by things that eventually change for the worse or decline in quality. What’s something that you used to swear by that you now have No More Faith in?
Daniel: Well, I grew up in the age where Facebook was very new, and it was cool when I was in high school. It’s not a good thing anymore.
OB: Yeah, I was at the tail end of that. It was still a thing when we were in high school, but by the time I’d left school and had entered my early twenties, it’d declined significantly.
Daniel: The whole tech industry has fallen on its face.
OB: Yes, it has. I work in tech, it’s fucking dreadful.
Rachel: Okay, I’m a bit similar to Sam. I actually have a quote that I feel like I used to live by that I’ve realised is not really it, which is: We all have the same twenty-four hours. I think growing up, when I was younger, I was like, oh, we all have twenty-four hours. We can all achieve the same. And now I’m like, we’re adults and we do not have the same twenty-four hours. Some people just have so much more going on or so much less. Everyone has a very different twenty-four hours.
OB: Very true.
3. You’ve been dropped into a scenario worthy of Tomorrow When the War Began. It’s twelve at night and you’ve suddenly been given a mission to Burn The Bridge to stop the enemy advance. Who are you calling up to help you on this critical mission? Can be anyone alive or dead and you don’t have to know them personally.
Daniel: Let’s go Arnold Schwarzenegger. I reckon he’d just be fun. And if nothing else, you’re going to have a great time listening to him speak about bullshit.
Rachel: This is actually one that I realise I have a personal answer for, which is my sister and her fiancé. Most of all the fiancé, I feel like he is the sort of person that would thrive in that sort of scenario and know how to do it and pull it off and would also probably know how to access the stuff we would need. So, yeah my brother-in-law.
OB: Shout out to the brother-in-law!
4. You’re booked to play any gig anywhere in the world but the catch is that you have to travel on the Train to Glory to get there. Where’s the furthest you’d be willing to travel by rail to play and with who?
Daniel: Is it like that train in Spirited Away? On the water.
OB: Potentially yes.
Daniel: Can we just play on the train? Just circle the world-
OB: Yeah, you could circle the world on the train.
Daniel: Until I run out of music that I’ve come up with.
Rachel: So that’s literally what we’re doing until we die. Funny you said that, I was similar (in my thoughts). I reckon a world tour where we just go everywhere via this magical train. I reckon with Halestorm and Evanescence because they look like they would be super fun bands to tour with. (To Daniel). What was your band?
Daniel: Let’s go with Arnold Schwarzenegger again. He can just be the MC between songs.
5. And last but not least, can you describe a time where you had to take The Fall for something that you didn’t do, either to help someone else out or to avoid something worse happening?
Daniel: I mean, I’ve got a job, so yeah.
Rachel: Basically the same. I can’t think of a specific time. So many times in hospo, I would see someone do something wrong and I just knew that I didn’t care if the boss yelled at me, so I would just be like, let them blame me because I knew the other person was gonna be more upset about it. But yeah, just things like that. Like, yeah, I’m the one that left that mess or I’m the one that didn’t do the thing.
Evil Corp used to be the New Globe Theatre and while they did screen the occasional film, you were either there for the bands in the stage room or burlesque in the theater room. The stage now is right next to the bar because the rest of the venue is taken up by the horror maze. It was great to see this space find new life or rather rise from the grave once again and I can’t think of a better place for Flamboyant Nightmare to gather the crew and take them on a voyage through their first EP.
Not featured in this interview but making an appearance on stage was Flammy, the Master of Puppets himself. While Flammy may be puppeteered by Sam, one wonders who’s really pulling the strings behind Flamboyant Nightmare…
Make sure to listen to The Fall below:
