Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Flycop

ORIGINS: Sydney, NSW
GENRE: Hardcore / Crust Punk
YEARS ACTIVE: 1993-1996
 
MEMBERS:
  • Rena - Bass, Vocals
  • James - Vocals, Bass
  • Sandro - Guitar
  • Renni - Drums
RELEASES:

  • Self-Titled (1995) [Live at 4ZZZ]
    • 1. Wake Up
    • 2. Cops Are Tops
    • 3. Tough Guy (Beastie Boys cover)
    • 4. Funny Hedge
    • 5. Mindbenders
    • 6. Fuck Influence
  • Spagnallo EP (1995) - Download Here.
    • 1. Strangled Megalomaniac
    • 2. Wake Up
    • 3. Take a Hint
    • 4. Into the Surreal
    • 5. Recognise Your Rights
    • 6. Vacuum Cleaner
Compilation-only Tracks
  • 'Mindbenders' and 'Labels' (from Keep On Babble On comp, 1995)
  • 'Feel the Noise' (from Target Minority comp, 1995)
  • 'Influenced' and 'Descendence' (from The Core Sessions comp, 1995)
  • 'Duck Son' (from The Myth of the Clean Kill comp, 1996)
  • 'Desertification' (from Call It Whatever You Want comp, 1996)
SUMMARY: Inspired by Jellyheads and the crust punk/hardcore bands of the early '90s, Flycop emerged as a heavy four-piece teenage band in the mid-'90s. Releasing two 7" recordings in 1995, the band toured interstate and made a solid impact in a relatively short amount of time before disbanding.
 
SHOWS: 


ORAL HISTORY:
SANDRO: I had heard my parents' record collection and then got interested in Talking Heads after taping Stop Making Sense off TV. But as far as making music goes, hearing Jimi Hendrix Experience on Smash Hits at age 14 made me want to pick up a guitar. I went to high school with James and Reni and we connected over music. In about 1993 James and I were in a weird death metal, groove-type band which played a few parties and band comps. It didn't last a long time and we didn't even settle on a name. I can't remember how that band ended but as a result of hanging out, James had introduced me to a lot of death metal and heavy music that I'd never heard before. 
Sandro (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

JAMES: I was 15 when Flycop started in 1993. I'd first started going to punk venue Jellyheads a couple of years earlier. I was 13 the first time I went. Tutti Parze played that night. I saw it as a sort of utopia and started going to Jellyheads as often as I could. That place and scene had a big impact on me. The bands, the unhinged-yet-somehow-safe atmosphere, the politics. Wild, principled, and just all sorts of fun. The music definitely rubbed off on me and is partly why I ended up in Flycop... Jellyheads really did set a whole lot in motion for me, but Jellyheads was not my first gig. My first was seeing Austrian band Pungent Stench at the Lewisham Hotel, also wen I was 13. That gig cemented death metal as a core part of my world. It has influenced much of the art I have made since, as a musician and as a theatre maker. So by the time my friend Sandro put Flycop together in a rehearsal studio my brother and I had built in our parents' shed, there were plenty of punk and death metal dragons flying around inside me. By that stage, and partly because Jellyheads was also the home of Ohms Not Bombs and early Vibe Tribe initiatives, I was also going to raves. Those raves made it into my lyrics sometimes but not into the music itself. Despite the grind vocals Rena and I were doing, Flycop was always a punk band.
James (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
Rena, pictured in Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995

SANDRO: I met Rena at a punk show in the Inner West, she was living around the corner from me and she introduced me to a heap of underground punk music I had never heard before. We just sort of all ended up in a band together and were jamming in James' garage.
Sandro (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

JAMES: Sandro, Reni and Rena had come to jam in the studio my brother and I had made in our parents' garage. I think I had come in to listen and wasn't initially part of the jam. I starting trying some screams and growls over it and it seemed to gel, I later realised Rena had one of the most blood-curdling screams I'd ever heard.
James (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

RENA: We started jamming late November 93, Renni, Sandro and me, Rena, in my lounge room and sometimes in the garage at Abercrombie St. One day in late Jan 94 after Renni had come back from holidays they suggested jamming at James' house as his garage was decked out with carpet walls and had band equipment in it. The jam that day was excellent, that was the day that James joined the band.
Rena (Vocals, Bass), Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995
 
Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995
 
RENA: We were all sitting in James' bedroom and the Flycop logo was on the wall, so we decided to use it for our name. I think it came off a can of flyspray from London. It's from the '60s or '70s. There's cops for everything else these days so why not for flies?  
Rena (Vocals, Bass), Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995

JAMES: Sandro, Rena, Reni and I were sitting in my bedroom after rehearsing one day. We didn't have a band name yet and needed to tell the organisers of our first gig (a benefit for People Against Vivisection) what to bill us as. I remember we had only a short time to decide. The walls of my bedroom were covered in images I liked, gathered from anywhere and everywhere. There was a photocopy of the logo of an old fly spray called Flycop. I'm pretty sure Sandro suggested that as a name, we all agreed, and that was it. We peeled the photocopy off the wall and used it as it was. Rena then called the organisers back and they put our name on the flyer. 
James (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
RENA: A friend of ours Jo was going to the U.S. to live but before she went she organised a P.A.V. (People Against Vivisection) benefit show. Because she would never see our band play a proper show, we agreed to play a few songs on the night. That was the first time we played, it was fun and we got some positive feedback from people as well. 
Rena (Vocals, Bass), Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995

 
JAMES: The first song we played at our first gig was 'Time's Arrow'. No one was in the room. The song was a pretty tough, grindy number, and I remember people coming in to check us out. I think we were heavier than the other bands playing and we were new. 
James (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

SANDRO: Rena had a lot of friends in the punk scene and one of her friends' bands was playing at a show at the Vulcan Hotel. They let us borrow their instruments and play one or two songs during their set! How cool is that? I think our first proper show after this was at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre.
Sandro (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

RENA: We first went on the 'Subcop' tour in Sept. 94, where we toured Melbourne and Adelaide with Subversion. It was excellent as we'd never toured before and it was fun touring with Subversion. It was also good going to two cities as well as we nearly didn't get to go to Adelaide, I'm so glad we did though - it was great, heaps of people turned up to the show too. In April 95 we went up to Brisbane and played one night there and one night in Nimbin and we also did a live to air on ZZZ community radio in Brisbane... All the times we've toured people have been really cool and always given us and our friends who've come with us a place to stay and that's something I really like about punk...As far as releasing stuff is concerned we've got an EP out. It was put out by the Spiral Objective crew and is called Spagnallo which doesn't really mean much to anyone, it's sort of a private joke. 
 Rena (Vocals, Bass), Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995
 
 
Flyer for the Flycop EP launch that got cancelled, Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995.
 
The Flycop EP launch at Max's in Petersham was shut down by police. This summary of events appeared in Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995
 
SANDRO: We recorded at Zen Studios in St Peters with their in-house engineer at the time, Geoff Lee. I think that's where all our studio recordings were done. We didn't own any amps so had to hire them from Zen or borrow from friends. It was all done in a handful of hours and mixed on the same day. 
Sandro (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

JAMES: We also did a live studio recording at 4ZZZ in Brisbane. It was a particularly gnarly recording. 
James (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024



REVIEW: This is fucking awesome. There's no doubt that Flycop are a force to be reckoned with.
Review of Spagnallo by Jay, Noisecrash Issue 3, November 1995
 
REVIEW: A wonderful explosion of melody, hardcore and great lyrics. One of the best local vinyl releases this year.
Review of Spagnallo by Matt, Discontent Issue 2, April 1996

REVIEW: Sorry to say this band has broken up, they were a good indication of where punk music headed. R.I.P. A good mixture of male and female vocals blending into what James calls the surreal. Turn it up to ten.
Review of Spagnallo, Fisted System, 1996

RELATED BANDS: Yokel, QP Dol, Goodbuddha, Theatre of Disco, Axon Breeze






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