Cape Town band Flat Stanley have had more luck on their side than most other bands can claim.
Friends convinced vocalist Andrew Mac to sing a Pearl Jam cover or two at a house party; guitarist and songwriter Clinton Gahwiler liked Mac’s voice, and a band, albeit nameless, was born.
“We refer to our music as melody-driven rock … it is not all just rhythms, but melody-driven as opposed to riff-driven,” Mac told the Mail & Guardian Online in between moving into his Cape Town flat.
A mere 10 days later, their melody-driven rock won the Barleycorn Music Club songwriting competition, where they had performed their hit song Rain.
A gig at Buddha Bar followed, where Levi Strauss’s Mike Joubert was duly impressed with their music and signed them up as one of the clothing label’s artists to back and promote.
It was certainly an easy road to fame for the band — but are there enough opportunities in Cape Town for young bands to prove themselves?
“I think that, first off, there are not a hundred places to gig, and the crowds are bit smaller,” Mac told the M&G Online. “In this country you can’t gig yourself to fame … gigging and paying your dues are important, but the right people have to see you at the right time.
“We were also proactive, coming up with wild ideas to attract attention. Nothing ventured, nothing gained … there is luck involved in anything.”
One of their wild ideas led to the band finally being named. Flat Stanley is a character from a children’s book by Jeff Browne. In the United States, teachers started the Flat Stanley Project, which involved kids sending pictures of Stanley to people elsewhere in the world. Those people would keep a diary of Stan’s adventures to send back to the US.
The band’s first guitarist stayed with an American who received a Stanley, and Stan duly went to one of the band’s gigs, where his picture was stuck on the stage — and the name stuck, too.
Since then, things have gone rather well.
Flat Stanley’s relationship with Levis Strauss led to them releasing their debut album, Of Secrets and Wine, with Neil Potgieter on lead guitar and Clive Pringle on cello, as well as Paul Tizzard (of The Usual fame) on drums and Rob Nel (Golliwog) on bass.
“Levi’s are an amazing group of people. I’m not saying that just because they are our sponsor. Obviously they are part of our marketing strategy, but they are very laid-back,” says Mac.
When Levi’s signed the band, they first focused on getting an album together, as the other established artists in the Levi’s stable already had albums on the shelves.
“We decided to release the album in October, and people said, ‘You are out of your head, releasing at the busiest time of the year … you won’t get a single bit of airplay,'” says Mac.
Within weeks, Flat Stanley was on every campus station, OFM, radiosondergrense, 5fm, KFM and others. They had a number-one hit on 5fm, where Treading Air is still on the Samsung Hi 5 @ 5 chart.
“It’s been amazing,” says Mac. “It triggered all sorts of opportunities in January and December … invitations to play at corporate parties, the Cape Town leg of the Just Jinger tour. Now we are looking at shows with Watershed this year.”
But have the band thought of starting a local Flat Stanley Project?
“No,” says Mac, “but maybe we should look at it from a marketing point of view. When we stuck it on [stage] and people referred to us as Flat Stanley, it seemed a natural progression … the last thing we were thinking about was copyright.
“We will be seeing how the band relate to the Flat Stanley Project internationally … we may have to do the Seether thing [Seether changed their name from Saron Gas after moving to the US].
“The music defines the name, the name does not define the music … you can call yourself virtually anything as long as music is there.”
And what else is coming up for Flat Stanley?
“Our focus this year is an HIV-awareness acoustic album featuring Levi’s artists and others,” says Mac. All the album’s proceeds will go to the Treatment Action Campaign, and the concept is that of South African musicians taking their better-known radio songs and doing stripped-down acoustic versions of them.
“The lead track is Ribbon Red, it’s like a Band Aid-type song. It will be released in May,” says Mac.
Flat Stanley are planning a mini tour in April of four or five shows, and then they want to spread around the country to places such as Durban and Bloemfontein. They will also play a sundowner gig at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town on March 13 for the Argus cycle tour.
They have “heaps of songs” left from the first album, says Mac, and new songs are being written all the time, but their next album is still some way off.
In the meantime, look out for the adventures of Flat Stanley at a venue near you.