Aero Flynn is Josh Scott. A member of the early ‘00s Wisconsin scene that spawned an impressive number of successful bands, Scott’s band Amateur Love was considered the most impressive. “They were the better band and everyone knew it,” writes Chris Porterfield in a recent heartfelt essay/letter. The band that they were better than were DeYarmond Edison, Portfield’s group led by Justin Vernon:
“The songs were better. The ideas were grander. The subject matter weirder. The narrators more honest and articulate. The frontman more compelling. The potential greater. Amateur Love were and remain the best band I have ever seen.”
Indeed, Justin Vernon re-released the Amateur Love record It’s All Aquatic on his label Chigliak, and in his description of the album he writes about Scott and himself occupying the Eau Claire scene and admiring one another’s music. “It was obvious to both of us, however,” he says, “who the better writer was.”
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For whatever reason, Scott did not experience the same success that was bestowed on Vernon and the others. While Bon Iver, Megafaun, Peter Wolf Crier and Field Report have all achieved some degree of exposure and acclaim, things did not work out for Scott:
“Josh watched it all from Chicago and did nothing. Everyone tried to encourage him… He had opportunities for record deals. He had another supergroup of who’s-who indie rock royalty assembled for him… He got spooked again and went underground.”
You can read the rest of Porterfield’s piece here (and I suggest you do. It’s powerful, candid and sincere) but the important part is the conclusion that Scott wrote and recorded an album as Aero Flynn. While, as ever in life, things have not gone swimmingly since, Porterfield is convinced that the record is important:
“I believe that this record, this long-awaited record, is quite seriously a life-or-death record. Josh had to make it to stay alive. And it must be heard in the context of deferred health, deferred relationships, deferred dreams, deferred healing. As spit in the fucking face of the symptoms of disease, like rot and destruction and apathy and cynicism.”
This is something I feel strongly about. Many of the attempts to conquer the resulting apathy/cynicism in art come off as frilly and saccharine and vapid, avalanches of pure, distilled sincerity that are nothing more than irony in a different guise, a well cloaked nudge in the ribs (see: some of the Alt Lit guys). A “spit in the fucking face” sounds clear. If Aero Flynn sees Scott stand his ground and face things head on, this could be one special record.
The self-titled album will be released on the 10th March by Ooh La La Records. You can download ‘Dk/Pi’ now via the Aero Flynn website.