Flavia Alternative / Co. Antrim

Thanks a million to Brian ‘EDDIE’ Reynolds for passing this one on to me.
Totally new one for me, so I’ll let Eddie himself take the lead on this one…

Adopting the name FLAVIA, the nickname of a former school teacher of FLAVIA’s frontman Ryan Darragh, this 3-piece styled themselves on FUDGE TUNNEL and Irish counterparts THERAPY?. As well as these influences, the band had influences of another kind as was reflected in song titles like’L.S.melloD’ making FLAVIA a hit at college parties in the area.

Formed by 3 Performing Arts students at Ballymoney Technical College, County Antrim in early / mid 1994, FLAVIA was borne out of musical differences in the APATHY ranks.

Post APATHY’s ‘Lack of Emotion EP’, the Reynolds/Coulter half of the APATHY line-up had opted for a more technical playing style for what would become the ‘Inertia’ album. APATHY founder / frontman Ryan Darragh and drummer Niall Smyth, who played on APATHY’s ‘Traditional Values’, decided they wanted a more stripped back, no-nonsense type vibe. Darragh and Smyth left APATHYin early 1994, recruited college friend Greer Milligan and in November 1994, FLAVIA hit the studio to record their 1994 demo ‘Tobacco Related Mailings’.  This was to be the band’s only recorded output and the band split in 1995 when Smyth went to university in Scotland.

Looking back on the Flavia experience, Ryan Darragh recalls, “My only memory of FLAVIA is at college, on acid and wanting to be THERAPY?.