Flight's Kool . . . Up & Coming!

By Lindsay Wallace

I first discovered Flight’s Kool when I picked up my new best friend, Maddie. Or I should say, when I went to get my new puppy from guitar player Brendan Ell. He knew I was a journalist in the music world, so I was given a CD to listen to from his band, Flight’s Kool. I liked what I heard so I checked out their show at Atlantic City’s renowned House of Blues.

Hard to define, their sound lands somewhere in the midst of reggae, hip/hop, and root rock. It’s all feel-good music that many would compare to Sublime. Now that the local buzz is all over Flight’s Kool, their next album is something to look forward to.

The band’s sunny disposition stems from their bouncing, funky beats, soothing rhythms and mosh-pit style shout-it-out choruses. That’s the stuff that a band with great promise is made of. If you like Sublime, then forget about Badfish and look to these guys for your fix of funky stoner tunes.

Flight’s Kool is comprised of Joe Cerami on vocals and guitar, Ray Montgomery on vocals, Brendan Ell on lead guitar, Chris Ell on percussion and guitar, Jon Lewis on bass guitar, and Paul Meko on drums.

At their House of Blues show, the band switched instruments during their live performances. This isn’t normal, so I had to ask the band what that was about. Cerami commented, “Everyone is all about music, and everyone likes to play every instrument, so if we are practicing a song and one guy happens to be on drums, we let him play in the show, we don’t actually teach the drummer the part. We like to switch it around, because everyone in the band can play pretty much anything.”

Like all bands, they have to get their inspiration somewhere. Cerami says, “Everything gets in there. We listen to everything from acoustic surf music to the Wu Tang Clan..And I even listen to Billie Holiday. So we really throw everything in there.”

After their Friday night gig at the House of Blues, singer/guitar player Joe Cerami confirmed, “We are calling it a wrap for the season, because we’re working on an album to be released sometime before this summer. We have so many songs it’s ridiculous. Its gonna be at least fifteen or twenty songs.”

The Jersey natives got their start playing in small surf bars along the shore. “We’ve played at surf clubs a lot. – everyone in the band is from Tom’s River except the drummer who is from Tinton Falls.” Indeed, the Jersey shore locals have developed quite a following – and they deserve it! With their current tour over, they are back in the studio making some more music.