Happy Birthday to Us! Flecking Records is 8 today

Today Flecking Records turns eight years old – eight, can you believe it? If we were a child, we’d have just started Year 3. We’d probably be immature, wear far too much pink and be absolutely obsessed with Frozen… oh, wait a minute!

It all kicked off back in 2006, when our main objective was promoting both signed and unsigned bands. We were unique because our famous friends would work just as hard as we did to promote our lesser known bands – even going as far as to hand out flyers for them. Then, as Dr. Fleckinstein continued to work his magic on our site, over the past eight years we have grown into the showbiz site you know and love today.

To celebrate our eight birthday, we’ve come up with a list of five reasons why the past eight years have been amazing…

The interviews

From the good (Olly Murs maintaining physical contact throughout the entire interview) to the bad (that one sleazy bassist who kept hitting on me in reply to every question) to the ugly (never ask Bloodhound Gang’s Evil Jared Hasselhoff about his bowels, his balls or George W Bush) – we’ve had some epic conversations with our favourite stars. [Deep breath] Big love to our favourite interviewees: Bowling For Soup, The Inbetweeners star James Buckley, MC Lars, Jackass legend Steve O, Brendan Brown (Wheatus), People On Vacation/Smile Smile’s Ryan Hamilton, movie star Scott Whyte, The Dollyrots, the hilarious Leigh Francis, Patent Pending, Army of Freshmen, Game of Thrones star’s Natalia Tena and Iwan Rheon, The Maine, The Drifters, General Fiasco, Forever The Sickest Kids, You Me At Six, All Time Low, Busted’s Matt Willis and James Bourne, Lil’ Chris, Chico Slimani, a1, Gym Class Heroes, Olly Murs, Enter Shikari, Simple Plan, Mayday Parade, Sum 41, Cobra Starship, Fightstar, actor Mat Horne and Blazin’ Squad… to name a few.

The Events

If there’s one thing we love, it’s hanging out with musicians. Fortunately we get to do a lot of it. From crashing tours to chilling backstage to hanging around in hotels (where rock ‘n’ roll behaviour apparently includes watching porn, playing Mr & Mrs and seeing how many people you can fit in the shower), we’re always up for a party. Events like Party in the Park and Celebrity Soccer Six are the highlights of our social calendar.

The bizarre celebrity encounters

From our little tradition of quizzing bands from over seas on their UK slang (which lead to rockers All Time Low shouting ‘feed the pony’ on stage during a sell-out London show) to McFly wrecking our journal with dirty doodles at Jolly Day Out, there’s been some weirdness. We’ve delighted and amused some stars… but we can’t say the same for everyone. We’ve had our fair share of angry celebs on our case. An angry message here, a dirty look there… you call a music video ‘cringey’ and people get upset – some people are so touchy.

The photo shoots

From snapping Eastenders star Aaron Sidwell Sidwell sitting on the toilet to One Direction play-fighting backstage – our snappers are always on hand to capture the moment. One of our photographers has even gone above and beyond the call of duty, taking a projectile to the head for Cher Lloyd at Party in the Park. It turns out Miss Lloyd wasn’t that popular with the people of Leeds, who pelted the stage with random objects – you’re welcome, Cher.

The music

We’ve discovered some incredible bands during our eight years. We like to think we’d have cracked on to how amazing these guys were eventually, but running the site sure did speed up the process. Our eyes (and ears) were opened to the wonderful Adam Lambert after he locked lips with a member of the audience at one of his shows. At the time, Adam was massively under-appreciated here in the UK, so an influx of his fans telling us how awesome he was sure made our lives better.

Here’s to the next year!