Fresh off the release of their latest single, Flyball Gov’nor sat down with their music video’s lead actors to chat about the future.
Imagine entering into a world where every moment was unprecedented. Imagine growing up under scenes that felt as apocalyptic as a blockbuster movie. Imagine living in an environment that was dying around you. For Generation Z, this is the frightening reality. We live in a society where the words climate change, pandemic, and extinction are daily vernacular, where children are fighting governments for their very right to a future: Flyball Gov’nor know all too well.
Their latest single The Future Is Cancelled calls out this injustice by name and sets it within an eerily familiar setting. Along with a powerful essay on the subject, the band were kind enough to share their latest protest project: an interview about the future with those forced to live through it. Deeply compelling, the piece is a reminder of the change that must happen and the fight that must continue.
Flyball Gov’nor interview Theo and Lucy
The Future Is Cancelled is an ode to youth, but not to innocence. Our new music video features the journey of actors Theo and Lucy, two 15-year-olds on the brink of adulthood, as they battle the traps laid by the past and upon breaking out, must confront the terror and ecstasy of an unbridled world.
Theo is the offspring of Mel (vox) and Alex (bass), so they know firsthand the struggles faced by the youth abandoned and criticised by a society resistant to progressive change. Theo, being part of the Flyball Gov’nor fam, has taught the whole band so much about the vulnerable existence of life as a non-binary teen, the lack of support in our existing societal structures, and the violent rejection of anything that challenges the status quo. Lucy is also a regular at the Flyball Gov’nor home and studio, her friendship with Theo through highschool being that kind of kinship that is forged through being part of something new together. They are both experts at living the frontier life of societal change.
To complete the circle of bearing witness to this revolution we are living in, we spoke to our young actors about what their new future looks like.
BAND: Hi to you both, it’s great of you to chat with us for Happy Mag. From where we saw on set though, you are both pretty fearless.
THEO: We had a great time on set, the places we went to were completely amazing and it felt like an important story to be telling.
LUCY: Yeah, we have been close friends for ages so it was really cool to get to go do something this big together.
BAND: Do you think you connected personally to the story?
LUCY: I don’t want to sound stupid but growing up as a woman, seeing these expectations of what you’re meant to be throughout your whole life and then making this and completely going against that, it felt really cool and freeing.
THEO: Yeah, and the same, growing up as a boy and like I was always very gay… but even now, there’s still a lot of homophobia within the gay community. You kind of captured that in the music video. We overcame it on the journey but we haven’t reached the final destination. The environment is still hostile.
BAND: So, you think it was an important message in the film that you never arrive at that “happy, wonderful” place?
THEO: Yeah I think so because I think it’ll be a really long time before we reach that point in society. I think it’ll be in a couple of generations.
LUCY: Well I don’t think that um… I don’t wanna sound pessimistic. It’s gonna be really hard because people will always be assholes, people will always be bigots. It’s gonna be almost impossible to reach this final destination of “everybody’s happy, everybody’s ok with each other,” but what we’re trying to do is get to a point where most people are accepting.
THEO: Our generation, at the moment, they have parents that grew up in a toxic generation. I think that in a couple of generations, I feel like their kids growing up, when society has evolved to be even more accepting, will make them go… oh, my parents were wrong.
BAND: Do you see this generation as more in tune with being a global community?
LUCY: We’re constantly taking in information from so many sources and we’re constantly seeing so much stuff. And because we’re seeing it all the time, we feel that we are a part of that. So then we want to help, because we are seeing it all around us. We can be like, I don’t want to follow the existing structure. We’re like, yeah, we don’t want to do that, we can see all these other options and we can decide what we truly actually want to do to make us all happier.
THEO: And even the people who are doing it for a trend or whatever, they are still adding to it. I’ve heard a lot of older people say, oh I’m just one person, it’s just one signature on this petition. But, we understand how much change we can have through social media and connecting all those people. We understand we are not just one person.
BAND: Do you feel like there’s an expectation on your age-group to be agents of change?
LUCY: Yeah, it’s a good thing and a bad thing, because it’s one of two ways: older people think, oh you’re just kids you can’t do anything or this is your responsibility, go change the world.
So, it’s hard to take both sides of that on, it’s sometimes easier to have a structured path. Whereas, when you have freedom, you have to structure your own path which can be harder.
THEO: My situation is a lot more complicated than a lot of other people’s, so I really feel that having that freedom you also have more to lose because you chose it. If you’re following that structured life, you can’t really blame yourself if it doesn’t work out but, if you’re doing something that you really want to do, it’s all on you. So, we have to prove more responsibility and take on the risk. It’s on you. It’s on all of us because our generation has left the path.
BAND: We believe the children are our future. Learn from them and let them lead the way.
If you’re in WA, you can catch Flyball Gov’nor live at Lucy’s Love Shack this Saturday, 19th September.
Check out The Future Is Cancelled here.
