Back in December of last year, I had a chat with Dillon Basse, the frontman of the Florida-based band Flipturn. I attended an Indie Showcase Night at Mocama Coffee House in Fernandina Beach, where Dillon performed an acoustic set with his mom, Amy. The next day, I met up with him at Amelia Island Coffee, a cute coffee shop in the area, which I soon learned was one of the places the members of Flipturn used to meet in high school to work on their music.
A lot of time has passed since my conversation with Dillon (I do admit that life got in the way of me writing this piece, but I digress). Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to see him perform with Flipturn during their spring headline tour at one of my most frequented Fort Lauderdale venues (Revolution Live) and also when they opened for Two Door Cinema Club in Miami this past week (which surprisingly was their first performance in Miami). It is truly inspiring to see the growth of the band as a whole - I love seeing the success of indie bands from Florida, especially since the scene in the Sunshine state isn’t as prominent as other places I’ve lived (thinking of my days venturing into Brooklyn, New York a few years back). During my chat with Dillon, I decided to focus more on his own personal growth as a musician, outside of the band, though Flipturn did come up a few times during our discussion.
Hi Dillon, thanks so much for meeting with me!
Most people know about Flipturn, but I wanted to focus more on your solo work. When did you start pursuing music?
So my mom (Amy) and I moved from Massachusetts when I was around 15. Since she was in middle school/high school, my mom has played the violin. She almost quit because it was a lot of classical stuff and she was slowly losing interest in it. My grandmother didn’t want her to stop so she asked the orchestra teacher, “How can I keep Amy in this?” And the teacher told her, “bring her to a bluegrass festival.” She brought my mom to this bluegrass festival up in New England and I think that reinvigorated Amy’s love for music and her style of playing now. After that, she would go and play around the Boston area at Irish sessions where a bunch of musicians play with each other. She did that for years and got really good at that. Then she had me and she would bring me in the baby carriage and put it under the pub table. I just grew up going to these and that’s kinda how I got into music. But I didn’t start playing guitar or writing songs until I was in the fifth grade. When my parents got divorced, a friend of my mom gave her an acoustic J45 Gibson guitar that was really nice. But we only played it in the house because we were scared something would happen to it if played it out. That was weird time for us - she was getting divorced and we didn’t know if we were gonna be in the same house for too long, so we would teach each other how to play and that’s how I got into writing. When we moved down to Fernandina Beach, my mom and I would play gigs at the bars and places around here, just the two of us. Ever since I was little I have been attached to music through her. She brought me up in it until I met the band and that was the first time I really started playing, writing, and performing with other people.
Did you meet the other members of Flipturn because they saw you perform with your mom?
No. They knew that I played music, but we were actually friends in high school. We had some of the same classes together. I met Madeline first and then Madeline introduced me to Tristan. Then there was this one day where I was asked if I could sing at this baccalaureate event, which is basically a church service for graduating students. My counselor asked if I knew anyone else who plays music and I said, “well yeah, I know this guy Tristan, he plays guitar, and Mad plays bass.” That was the first time we met up to work on something. It was all Christian rock music and none of us really had done that kinda stuff before. Then, in my junior or senior year of high school, Mad and Tristan called me from a Starbucks down the road one day and told me to meet them there because they wanted to ask me something. They asked, “what if we started a band?” And after that we started meeting up to jam and we would just cover music that we all mutually liked. We all have very different musical backgrounds. I grew up listening to a lot of Irish and singer/songwriter stuff, like the music I played last night. Mad’s parents raised her with a love for 80s and new wave music. Tristan had a lot of southern rock and jazz influence. We all had different musical backgrounds that ended up meshing and that’s where our band's sound comes from. It was cool because that was the first time I was really playing with people my age, while I do love playing with my mom always.
After seeing you perform with you mom last night, it seems like you really vibe on stage together and you were so in sync. What is your experience performing with you mom?
I’m 26 now and I’ve played with a lot of people and you can get tight and feed off of each other. I’ve played with the band now for 7 or 8 years and we can play really well with each other. But there is one thing different about playing with family. I don’t know what it is, but we will be locked in on something or we’ll switch it up and we won’t need an explanation. It’s really cool how my mom and I are able to go back and forth on stage and jam with each other. People have always said that and I would just say, “yeah, okay,” but the older I’ve gotten, whenever I do come back and play with her I realize that and I do appreciate playing with her. There’s nothing really like it.
When you perform with her, is that material that you practiced or do you just go with the flow?
So usually we run through it beforehand, but a lot of it is us saying, “what if we did this?” With solo work that I’ve recorded in the past, my mom will put violin down to it, but it’s never really practiced stuff. She just hears something that she thinks will go well with it and she’ll just go with it. That’s the funniest thing about Amy is that she can listen and play with her ear. She can follow something and learn it really quickly. You can’t tell her how to play or put sheet music in front of her and tell her to play it because she’ll just say no.
Do you prefer writing/recording music or performing music?
I think writing and performing music are two different head spaces for sure. I love both of them. I don’t know if I have a favorite between the two. One thing I’ve been working on, and it’s tough, is conjoining the two. When you’re touring and traveling so much it’s hard to find time to write. In the past, we’d be in performance or touring mode where you’re super focused on, “how can we put on the best show possible with the music we’ve already written? How can we keep the set fresh and incorporate new ideas into this set?” When you’re in that mindset it’s hard to switch over to the more creative brain used for writing. I feel like when I'm in one mindset, I don’t usually want to be in the other one. If we’re writing and recording and then we have a one-off show somewhere I won’t really be thinking about it too much, but it gets hard switching over. It can be the other way too. Last year when we were touring, we were trying to put out a deluxe album and we wanted to have different versions of songs. I remember it was cool being in the studio working on this, but it was kind of in the middle of when we were about to go on a huge tour so we were working on improving our sets. So when we’re in the studio it wasn’t the same. I just wasn’t in the writing mindset at that point.
We started writing our album Shadowglow in 2020 and that came out in 2022 so by the time we released the album, a lot of those songs were so old to us at least. When you’re on an album cycle and you have a record label and a team that tells you what you have to do, it feels weird, but that’s just how the music industry works. Sometimes you have to get stuff out- momentum and timing is everything. It’s very strange when music becomes your career and you need to do it because it’s your main source of income. You start looking at it more as a business and you don’t get into music for that. When you start looking at it that way it feels kind of wrong and draining from the creative process. The main thing I’m focusing on is making sure I’m not writing something just to make a living. I try to always remember and appreciate why I’m in this right now and taking advantage of the opportunity that my job is to make music. It’s scary because it’s what I’ve put my whole life into and I risked so much so that I can be doing this, but when I’m doing it, it’s still a business. A creative mindset is never meant to be on a schedule. That’s why I want to be able to switch easily between the touring and writing mindsets so I’m never really out of the writing mindset.
Describe your writing process?
Somebody once said one way to get past writer’s block is just writing every day, maybe 1000 words that are just absolute trash. But if you keep doing that, eventually you will find something good. You’re going to find 2 or 3 verses that you will say, “that’s good,” but that will come from writing a ton of material that isn't good at all. If you keep churning through that, that will help keep you in that writing mindset. That is usually how I approach writing.
How was it developing your own style in Florida and what is your take on the Florida music scene?
We have people ask us all the time about how you break into the Florida market and the simple answer is, “be from Florida.” Florida is definitely a difficult place to visit when touring because you have to travel a lot of hours to make it through the state, especially south Florida. The shows can get pretty rowdy when the band is from Florida, but I’ve been to shows when the band was not from here and it’s either super rowdy or kind of dull. But also, since a lot of tours don’t come here the shows can be great because people down here get excited that a tour is actually coming to Florida. Sometimes we’ll play a show somewhere that doesn’t get a lot of tours and that show will be super energized because people are excited that there’s a band there. In cities like New York, Nashville, or LA, where there are constant shows, a lot of people that go to those shows go to so many that their energy doesn’t feel as high and sometimes you’re just wondering “why did you come?” Granted we have had great shows in those places as well, it depends. The only band I’ve been in the pit for in the past few years has been Phoenix because that is one of my favorite bands. That was the only reason I decided, “I’m gonna be in the pit,” and the whole band loves them so it was a band trip. Because we know what it’s like to be on stage, we decided, “we’re gonna go so hard and make sure that the crowd is super into it.” If you’re in the pit, that’s your job, you signed up for it.
Who would be your dream artist/group to tour with? Whether you’re opening for them or they’re opening for you?
Honestly, as a band, Phoenix. The other one I would say would be Radiohead because they’ve been a huge influence on me. Just to see Thom Yorke would be really cool.
As a solo artist, I would say Shakey Graves. Funny enough, we have opened for him as a band and he was always a huge influence for me and is an incredible songwriter. My number 1 artist I would want to tour with as a solo artist would be Damian Rice. He’s more on the singer/songwriter side and he’s one of the biggest influences for me in that aspect.
Have you released any solo work? Would you involve your mom in your solo work?
No. The stuff that I write by myself wouldn’t necessarily fit a Flipturn sound. I have two different sides to me when I’m writing: the stuff for the band that I love and the sort of depressing stuff that you write in your room, but I love that stuff so much as well. The plan would be to release my solo work eventually, but as of right now the timing does not make sense because I’m focusing most of my energy on the band. I think it would be cool to put something out whenever I have the time for it. Every member of the band has different outlets for a change of pace outside the band.
I would love my mom to be involved with solo work if I recorded it, just for the fact that I love how she interprets the music that I write.
Are you excited for your upcoming Flipturn tour next year (Spring 2024)? What are you most looking forward to?
Honestly what I’m looking forward to the most is playing in some dream venues like Brooklyn Steel in New York and 9:30 Club in DC. We’ve seen bands we love posting about 9:30 Club and if you sell the venue out they give you these famous cupcakes that say 9:30 on them, so now we’ll get to play and eat some cupcakes! Playing at House of Blues Boston will be exciting for me as well since that’s where I’m from and I have family there. It’s nice to show the people you grew up with your progress because they had been coming to see us when we were playing house shows.
Also being able to tour in a bus will be amazing since we’ve been using a van the past 5 years, so that will be a very nice way to catch up on some sleep. The traveling can be a lot, you all take turns driving and sometimes it’s just not fun. Having a bus will be better because we’ll probably be able to meet people more and talk to people after shows and then still be able to get back on the bus and drive through the night and get some sleep. With the van we’d have to leave the show right after and drive to the nearest hotel and try to get a minimal amount of sleep, wake up, and then go to the next city. I'm really looking forward to the bus for sure!
Dillon will be touring with Flipturn the rest of the year. They will be opening for Two Door Cinema Club until the end of July. In August, they will also be opening for the Revivalists at a few shows. In the fall, they will be playing some festivals, including Mighty Roots (Stovall, Missisippi- September), All Things Go (Washington DC- September), Ohana Fest (Dana Point, California- September), and Austin City Limits (Austin, Texas- October). They will also have a show at Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia on Halloween. After that, Flipturn will be performing a few shows across the Atlantic in Germany, France, and England.
You can check out more from Dillon and Flipturn at the following links below:
Written and Photos by Morgan
See the gallery below of photos taken at Dillon's Indie Showcase performance with his mom, Amy Basse, in December 2023 in Fernandina Beach, Florida.
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