Flights Over Phoenix

Mark McKee, Keith Longo and Chris Santillo of Flights Over Phoenix at Basin 141 in Montrose

FLIGHTS OVER PHOENIX 

At Basin 141
2265 Honolulu Ave., Montrose (818) 236-4810

I hadn’t met a music group who initially came together through Craigslist and possessed the talent, natural chemistry and genuine affinity for one another to actually form a lasting partnership. That changed after meeting Los Angeles-based trio Flights Over Phoenix.

“I was in a different band when I met Keith [Longo, singer-songwriter] via Craigslist. We jammed, and the music he was doing fit what I like and what I wanted to do better, so I quit the other band and went full force with him,” shares guitarist Chris Santillo. “Everything just felt right, and that was two years ago.” 

“I moved here in 2013 as a freelance musician/producer and spent the first year working with lots of different artists. Keith and I first connected via Craigslist then played phone tag for a long time. Three or four months had gone by, his music had stuck in my head and I wondered if he was still looking for another band member, so I hit him up,” recalls keyboardist Mark McKee. “Their keyboard player had just quit, so that’s how it all started.”

“I remember thinking about my favorite bands, how they all started as high school friends. They had this relationship already, grew as musicians together, and I felt that translated to their sound. I always wanted that but when I moved out here I was 26, so it was pretty late for that to happen. But it’s funny because when Chris started to come over to jam, we became pretty quick friends. Then when we finally started jamming with Mark, it all happened so organically. We would jam and write, and I don’t think we even said, ‘OK, we’re a band. So maybe technically we’re not even a band yet,” laughs Keith, who moved to Los Angeles from Boston on a whim three years ago.

“Maybe this interview is the official document. Are you a notary public?” Mark asks me, and I realize I’m in for a fun evening.

We’re gathered at one of Chris’ neighborhood haunts, Basin 141, a busy gastropub along Montrose’s quaint main street, Honolulu Avenue, offering standard bar fare but with a modern edge. There’s Fish & Chips, Fried Chicken & Waffles and Steak Frites but also Braised Short Rib Tacos, Truffle Mac N’ Cheese and a Pan-Seared Shrimp Wrap on the menu. Brews from Craftsman, Angel City, Smog City and Modern Times are on tap, and specialty cocktails range from the Olvera (Grey Goose Pear, cranberry, lime and simple syrup) and the East Los (209 Gin, cucumber, mint, lime, simple syrup and soda) to twists on a mint julep and margarita.

I order a Strawberry Fields (Nolet’s Dry Gin, house-made strawberry cordial, lemon and sparkling wine), while Keith gets an Old Fashioned, and it’s vodka-sodas for Mark and Chris.

“I usually get a vodka-soda or whiskey neat. I live within walking distance, so this is my go-to place,” says Chris, an L.A. native who grew up in the area. “I’m lame because I don’t like driving anywhere else because of traffic and having to find parking, so I just walk here. In The Wedding Singer there are some bar scenes, and Avignone’s, which is down the street, is where they filmed them. It’s a dive bar, and I probably go there more than I should.”

He is happy to add that he is moving to Keith’s area, Eagle Rock, soon. Mark, who lives in the Valley, admits to being an avid craft beer lover and frequent patron of Golden Road.

“I live in the Valley, but I’m out this way a lot,” he says. “I love Golden Road – where I’m from, North Carolina, beer culture is so healthy there. Before I moved here, there would be a new brewery opening up every month. We’d go and try all the new beers.”

We sip our drinks as the three members of Flights Over Phoenix talk about their unique backgrounds and eventually coming together to create their debut EP, Runaway California.

“None of my family or friends are musical or really into music, I was the only one, so I never went to shows,” replies Chris when I ask if he went to many concerts growing up. “I don’t really go to shows that much now, either. We played the Whisky a while ago, and it was the first time I’d ever been there.”

“I probably know Hollywood better than he does,” adds Keith.

“Guitar is my first and one and only instrument. In sixth grade every guy was taking guitar lessons, so I wanted to, too, but I stopped two years later. When I graduated high school, I wanted to be a firefighter. I was a Fire Explorer for two years, and before that I was a Sheriff’s Explorer. I went to the academy, visited jail and realized how much that would not be fun at all. I didn’t go to four-year college and party, but I somehow wanted to still have fun,” Chris says with a grin. “I ended up getting back into guitar. It was fun again, and I just wanted to try and fulfill my dreams. I thought I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t try and do something I was really passionate about.”

Everyone laughs as Keith deadpans, “You picked the stable job of being a guitar player.”

“I wanted to be a piano tuner,” interjects Mark.

“That’s thrilling,” replies Keith sarcastically.

“I know, that’s why it only lasted a month,” laughs Mark, before adding, “Both of my parents are music teachers, and my brother is a drummer in a band so we grew up playing music together. I took violin for eight years, but I always played piano. I kind of dropped off for a while, played guitar for a lot of years, moved back to keyboards then did both. I sang a little bit. I was the frontperson for a band for a little while, but I never felt like a singer. I’ve always been a multi-instrumentalist, but when I moved out here I started playing keyboards. I have more of an intimate relationship with that instrument than I did before. 

“I grew up playing in bands and going to shows – that was my whole life. Even out here, 90 percent of my friends are musicians,” he continues. “Growing up, all of my friends in the neighborhood and I were terrible at sports, so we started bands. It was like the movie The Sandlot but with bands. Our house was the central house, everyone would come over, and my poor parents had to listen to this racket for years – terrible Green Day covers!”

“They loved it,” interrupts Keith.

“Yeah, my mom always laughs about it now. She could always see the future better than I could, my brother and I doing music full time. That’s what all that racket ended up becoming. I’m definitely indebted to my parents for having that background. They forced me to practice. It was a little rigorous, but at the end of the day I was still in love with music. I owe a lot of my musical work ethic to that,” admits Mark. “Both my parents are classical musicians, so it was always on in the house. My dad was a big Beatles fan as well, so I learned about the Beatles from him. Keith and I both have an older brother, so we always wanted to listen to what they listened to.”

“I’ve always loved music and singing – I sang Disney songs when I was a kid – but I didn’t come from a musical background. My older brother played piano and was into music, but I grew up playing sports. Then in fifth grade you had to pick an instrument, and I picked drums. I had a couple of friends who were drummers, and we got into rock and my brother’s music – Nirvana, REM, ‘90s bands – I would drum along to those, but it was just a hobby for me. I played hockey, and that was my whole life until my early 20s,” Keith reveals. “In college all of my friends would be in the hockey house partying, and I would be out in my car singing along, doing vocal exercises. I didn’t know why, but I remember hearing this quote: ‘You should do what you wake up feeling you have to do every day.’ I had this drive to sing and write, but I wasn’t very good at it to be honest, so I would just do it on the side. Then I reached a point where hockey had come to an end, and I wasn’t ready to get a normal job, so I threw myself into music. It was something I always wanted to do, but I never owned it. I wouldn’t hang out with music kids because I would feel inferior. They played music, and I kind of played music. But I definitely feel like what I missed in musical education I made up for in what I learned in hockey, which was work ethic, drive. Things I consider my strengths actually came through life experiences and not music lessons.”

“It took me a while to get right in the head with, ‘You’re good enough to hit these people up with your music. I would respond to ads online just to see if they would get back to me, not because I actually wanted to form a band. I just wanted to see if people that weren’t my friends thought I was good. After some time I joined some cover bands back in Boston,” he remembers. “Those experiences of having people that don’t know me say, ‘You’re good enough to play with,’ then getting that playing experience gave me the confidence to move out here and try it. Chris was in a similar spot where he was like, ‘I do this, but I don’t really do this,’ and I think Mark just liked the material I showed him. He was probably like, ‘You guys are rough around the edges, but there’s something there.’”

“The North Star for me with anything is: It’s already really good, but I want to help make it better, be a part of it,” agrees Mark. “Producing, my job was taking something that wasn’t very good at all and making it presentable, but if something was pretty good I could make it really good. When I heard this music, I knew immediately where I could fit in, where my strengths fit.”

“I write songs, but I knew couldn’t do it on my own,” adds Keith. “Everyone brings something to the table that makes Flights Over Phoenix what it is.”

“Keith was a captain without a ship, and I was a ship without a captain,” says Mark. “I had these resources and abilities, but no ‘hey, here’s what we’re doing’ – I’m not an artist in that regard. In a band situation, that’s where it thrives.” 

Although it took a bit for Keith to grow the confidence to sing at the front of Flights Over Phoenix, listening to the band’s Runaway California EP there’s no doubt that he has an incredible set of pipes. In fact, Disney selected him to record vocals for “Live the Magic,” the theme for Disneyland’s 60th Anniversary that plays every night in the park.

“It’s funny that those were the songs I would sing when I was little – ‘A Whole New World,’ ‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’ – and here I am singing for Disney,” he reflects. “I just went down to the park for the first time to listen to it, and it was surreal.”

Escaping the mundane monotony of his old life in Boston is what originally lured Keith to pack up his car and move to Los Angeles, and it seems like all three musicians eventually found a place where their talent could flourish together in the City of Angels. 

“Keith was talking about how he was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m good enough. Oh, I am!’ For me, it was, ‘I thought I was good enough then I moved here and got my ass whooped.’ In North Carolina I played with everybody, had tons of gigs and felt like I could hang in L.A. Moving out here, going to shows and seeing the stuff other musicians would do so effortlessly, it was a big rude awakening – in a good way. Being around greatness creates new ways of challenging yourself,” begins Mark. “Living in a big city where there’s a lot going on, you get to see excellence in every way. I love being around innovation, but there’s also a weird, ambiguous side when it comes to the entertainment industry. I love people from California not in the entertainment industry because you get to live in a really great place with amazing weather and don’t have to deal with all of this nonsense. My relationship with L.A. is like a marriage. In any relationship at first it’s amazing, full of fire, then it’s like, ‘What you want to do tonight, watch Netflix?’ I still love the mystery of the city. I’m obsessed with Hollywood lore from the 1920s, when show business was first starting. I still love the city wholeheartedly, and I’m never going to leave”

“When I go on vacation, I just look forward to getting back to L.A. You can go to the beach in 40 minutes and the mountains in 40 minutes, and there’s a whole different vibe in L.A. I’m a homebody, I guess,” says Chris. “I’m not in the thick of the hustle and bustle in Montrose, hanging out in lonely dive bars. I’m sure if I lived in Hollywood I would be over it.”

“Hollywood is so overrated,” interjects Mark. “At first I wanted to move to Hollywood, but when I actually hung out in Hollywood I was so glad I didn’t live there.”

“It’s sad when people move to Hollywood thinking it’s so glamorous and wind up having horror stories of how dirty it is,” agrees Chris. “Everyone has this idea of what Hollywood is.”

“I definitely see the underbelly of Hollywood, but at the same time I love it. I wouldn’t want to live in the heart of Hollywood, but there’s an energy there, being around other artistic people who are pursuing their dreams. Someone could be 48 and say, ‘I’m an aspiring actor.’ You just don’t get that everywhere,” argues Keith. “I’ve always been a dreamer. I love my family and friends in Boston, but when I come back from visiting, I feel like I’m home.”

“It happens after a couple of years,” says Mark, “you go home to visit, and when you’re flying back in, you realize, ‘Oh, I live in L.A. This is pretty sweet!’”

“I was at the gym that Keith works at in West Hollywood,” tells Chris, “There’s a huge window, and up on the hills are these beautiful houses where some of his clients live. It’s inspiring to me to see that.”

“It’s more attainable because you see those houses on the hill, you see an actor from TV at Starbucks, and you feel like dreams are more attainable,” replies Keith. “Before you move here you put those people on a pedestal, they’re untouchable. Then you move here and realize they’re just people doing their jobs. You say, ‘Oh, that could be me.’”

The Runaway California EP is currently available. Flights Over Phoenix perform Dec. 8 at the Hotel Café. For more information, visit flightsoverphoenixband.com.

Austen Risolvato

Photographer Austen Risolvato at Paper or Plastik Café

 

AUSTEN RISOLVATO

At Paper or Plastik Café

5772 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles (West L.A.) 323-935-0268

Originally from Atlanta, Ga., photographer Austen Risolvato knew she was destined for a life in Los  Angeles from a very young age.

"I came out here on a family vacation when I was 11 and went to the Beverly Center. I was tripping out because I had never seen a mall that big," she recalls. "Atlanta has big malls, but Beverly Center's a whole block, and Clueless had just come out – which was all L.A. shopping. We were going up the escalator at Beverly Center, I looked at my mom and said, 'I'm going to l live here someday.' Eight years later, I moved to L.A."

Although Austen has spent blocks of the past nine years traveling around the world as the official tour photographer for bands like Daughtry, 311 and Porcelain Black, Los Angeles has served as her home base for the majority of the time. She especially loves the city for restaurants and cafés that she can frequent at late hours since her schedule is so hectic.

"I work really long hours, so coffee is a big part of my life. There are a couple of coffee shops in Atlanta that genuinely care about the coffee itself, but it's not been my experience that it's on the level that it is here," she says.

Austen takes me to one of her favorite coffee spots in her neighborhood, Paper or Plastik Café. Owned and run by Anya and Yasha Michelson and their daughter Marina, the café prides itself on using single-origin, eco-friendly beans sourced from Intelligentsia, Ecco Caffe, Handsome Roasters and Coava and teas from T Salon and Kusmi Tea. While their beverage selection that includes pour-over coffees and seasonal teas is their main attraction, they also serve house-made sandwiches, salads, soups and pastries from organic, locally sourced ingredients.

She recently decided to convert to a vegetarian diet supplemented by meat that has been sustainably and humanely raised, and she's found a few other places besides Paper or Plastik to frequent.

"There's a place down the street called Bloom Café that I just went to for the first time, and it's pretty great. They have a Three Grain Vegetable Burger that tastes more like a sloppy joe. It's awesome. There's a sushi place that I love called B.A.D. Sushi. They have a roll called the B.A.D. Salmon Roll, which is amazing. It's basically sushi crack. There's Alcove Café in Los Feliz and Real Food Daily, too. I do miss bacon, though. My friend Alex Carpenter has a song about bacon that I listen to and cry myself to sleep to at night for how much I miss bacon," she admits as she starts to sing the song. "As much as I miss bacon, I just have more energy and feel better not eating meat."

In the nine years that I've known Austen, her body has slowly become adorned with more and more tattoo art, so I have to ask what her latest piece looks like.

"I got Snoopy in March. I had the same dog for 16 years, my Snoopy beagle, and I wanted to get something for her since we had to put her down in January," she says. "The same guy's been doing my tattoos for a long time now, Dave Sanchez. He's at Yer Cheat'n Heart in Gardena. Other than my back he's done everything, and he's amazing. We're working on my Disney sleeve [consisting of Dumbo, Ariel, Dopey, Bambi, Peter Pan]. My side panel is the outline of Georgia with a Coca-Cola bottle cap and a negative space heart over Atlanta, a peach and a teddy bear for my grandma. We have to finish the California and Italy areas. I've had the linework for them on my side for six years; I'm just a wimp. We have a deal that as soon as Dave finishes my right arm I can't get anything else until I let him finish my side."

It just so happens that Paper or Plastik's industrial yet warm and inviting atmosphere is being used as a shooting location for a production the day that we conduct our interview, and as Austen sips on an iced version of her usual latte, she remarks, "There are some very pretty people here today."

Anya and Marina curate the Anyash Design & Gift shop at the location, and Yasha serves as the artistic director for the MiMoDa dance studio, which is located behind the café. It's definitely a place that a coffee-lover and former dancer like Austen would feel at home in.

"Before shooting, I was dancing a lot: 20-plus hours a week, that was my focus. I also spent time studying science because I thought that I wanted to be an epidemiologist. I wanted to work at the CDC with Ebola. Instead, I live on tour buses," she says with a laugh. "My mom likes to tell the story that Dumbo was my first friend. I wasn't a kid that you could just park in front of the TV, but if you put Dumbo on, I was sold. Anything that was visually intense was my gateway to photography, long before taking a single picture."

The first camera that Austen had, a Kodak Photo FX, was actually the one she used to shoot a concert for the first time in 1997.

"They were a band called the Reruns. My best guy friend, Gunnard was the drummer, and I was like that really annoying friend who was always taking pictures of everything whenever everybody was hanging out. They were playing a show, and Gunnard asked, 'You're always taking pictures, why don't you do it when my band is playing?'. The Reruns were friends with a bunch of other bands, and I started shooting them all. It was cool because some of them went on to be influential in different areas of indie rock, like Ben Eberbaugh, who was in the Reruns, ended up being in the Black Lips. I grew up around all these people who were playing music, and I ended up taking pictures of all of them."

She eventually began studying the craft at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and since music was always a part of Austen's life growing up, it's no wonder that once an opportunity to tour with an established, multi-platinum selling band presented itself, she didn't hesitate to pack up and go.

"My mom and step-dad are big music people. I grew up listening to Patsy Cline, the Beatles and Carolina beach music. My first concert was New Kids on the Block with MC Hammer, and I still visually remember it. That was the first time I saw a show the way I shoot it because it was a pop show; the visuals were a production," she remembers. "Fourth grade was a big year, I saw Janet Jackson, the B-52s and the Grateful Dead all in one year. It was the Janet Tour with the wall of fire, her walking through it singing 'If.' That was one of the best shows I've ever seen."

Although she's met her and seen her perform live, Janet Jackson is one musician that Austen would love to work with in the future. Other than Janet and her brother Michael, Austen feels like she's photographed pretty much every artist that she's wanted to so far.

"I've been really lucky, the top five on the list of people that were alive during my lifetime that I wanted to shoot, the only one I didn't get to was Michael," she says. "Green Day's my favorite band, they have been since I was 10, and I've shot them. The New Kids got back together, and I got to shoot some shows. I shot No Doubt twice."

While she's photographed those musicians, plus Travis Barker, Bon Jovi, Snoop Dog, Lil Wayne and many more, her favorite band to shoot live is the All-American Rejects.

"My favorite band to shoot live is the All-American Rejects. There's nothing better than doing what I love, documenting a show, and having it be my friends doing what they love. I've been shooting them for six years, and they're still fun. That's not a knock on anybody else I shoot, but it does get repetitive. However, it doesn't get repetitive with the Rejects. Tyson Ritter on stage is like a cartoon character, flailing across the stage. They're one of the only acts where I can say that each one of them is that fun to shoot."

Whenever Austen leaves Los Angeles to tour, there is one thing she misses the most.

"Anytime I'm away from Disneyland too long, I start to twitch. When I walk into Disneyland, it's a living organism. Walt Disney said, 'Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.' It's always evolving," she says. "I look around at this totally absurd existence that is happening there, and it's the embodiment of the idea that no matter who you are, where you've come from or how big your dreams are, they can come true. When you look at how much Walt had done before Disneyland opened and how long it took him to build up the park, his big dream – it's a constant reminder for an artist who makes their living off their art, which is difficult at times, that when Walt was my age he was successful and broke, but it doesn't mean that it stops. There's no such thing as being too old for your dreams to come true. As long as you keep putting your work out into the universe, the universe is going to give back to you. Disneyland is a living, breathing reminder of that."

Austen even uses a setting from her favorite Disneyland ride, Peter Pan's Flight, as a metaphor when explaining her decision to switch gears photography-wise and stop touring.

"I've been living on buses since I was 18, and it's cool, like Neverland, but I just can't do it anymore, I'd like to put down some roots in this city," she confesses. "A lot of my close friends are getting married, so it's been cool to document a special day in the life of people I really care about by doing their wedding photography. I've started shooting video. I did a music video and some mini documentaries."

Portrait and commercial work is something Austen first gained experience in while working as an archivist for famed photographer David LaChapelle.

"When I went to work for David, my motivation was threefold. David's the reason I started shooting color film when I was a teenager. I was in love with black and white, I thought it was the only thing that could truly capture emotion. Then my parents got me a copy of Hotel Lachapelle, and it was like my head exploded. His colors are so rich, the tones are so deep. Some of that had to do with the fact that he was shooting film, but most of it had to do with his lighting technique. I left art school to go on tour, so I never learned how to light in a studio. A big part of being there was learning how to light in the studio which would allow me to, when I was ready, stop touring and transition my business into one place."

"David is not just a photographer, he's a brand," she continues. "I came away understanding how to make that happen, and if I wanted that to happen. I mean, I didn't sleep the whole time I worked there. It gave me a better understanding of photography as a business. Doing commercial photography allows you to do whatever you want; David is a model for that. He found a way to do commercial photography without sacrificing himself and used it to fund what he really want to do, like his film Rize."

As Austen bids farewell to life on the road, she begins a new chapter in her journey as a photographer. She has started work on a few photography projects that are very close to her heart. One is a Disneyland series where she visits locations at the theme park that her grandfather had captured on film in the past to do comparison shots. Another is a Neighboring Forestation series, where she captures the 'public face' and then the 'friendship face' of her close friends.

For more information and to view some Neighboring Forestation photos, visit austen.la and youtube.com/austenrisolvato.