Dog-Eared Life

An excerpt from…  

Flannel Lobster’s interview at On the Air’s annual Off the Grid

Conducted by Gavin Ledderson & Ethan Percival

Recorded October 28 @ Kaleidoscope, West Virginia

Ethan Percival (host): I guess one question that’s often wondered about but rarely asked is how you guys came to be known as Flannel Lobster. Is that a story you’re willing to share?

Finn Gregory (bass guitar): I mean… sure? It’s not very exciting.

Bert Robinson (guitar, backup vocals): It’s fuckin’ lame, actually.

Ethan: Over the years, we’ve found that a lot of stories behind band names are pretty lame. And yet, it’s something the fans are curious about. 

Gavin Ledderson (host): I’m not exaggerating when I say we had at least a dozen requests to find out the history behind Flannel Lobster’s moniker.

Sebastian Porter (guitar, lead vocals): Moniker. I like that.

Finn: Bas can be a bit of a word nerd. 

Bert: His word-nerdiness is part of the reason we’re called Flannel Lobster, if you can believe it. He fuckin’ enjoys the feel of the word “flannel” in his mouth, if that makes any sense.

Gavin: Um…?

Sebastian: Don’t make it sound weird, B. It’s just… It’s a cool word. I like the way my tongue pushes against the backs of my front teeth—real sharp, you know?— and then goes soft for the second syllable. 

Bert: For the record, I didn’t make it sound any weirder than you just did. 

Kenny Russo (drums): Having sat through many years of English class with Bas, I can say the guy’s always been a fan of language. Linguistics and shit. 

Bert: That’s true. You took a linguistics class in college, didn’t you? Just for fun?

Sebastian: Yep.

Gavin: Years of English class, huh? I’d forgotten that you guys have known each other since high school. That’s an impressive span of—

Ethan: Don’t get ‘em off topic. I want the story behind the name.

Finn: It all ties together. We were freshmen in high school—

Bert: Sophomores. We didn’t start using Flannel Lobster ‘til sophomore year. Remember? That’s when we entered Battle of the Bands.

Finn: Are you sure?

Sebastian: I wasn’t even around for our freshman year. My dad took that study- abroad position in England.

Finn: Yeah, okay. You’re right. We were sophomores in high school and we’d slept over at Bas’s house the night before and it was a Saturday morning and we were all wearing flannel pajama bottoms—

Bert: Mine had lobsters on ‘em. They were a Christmas gift from my mom.

Finn: And Bas was serving us waffles.

Russo: He makes the best waffles.

Sebastian: I do.

Finn: And we needed a band name, you know? Lake Caywood High School was gonna be hosting its first-ever Battle of the Bands and we’d been practicing a three-song set and we didn’t have a name to register. And then Bas says, “I really like the word ‘flannel.’”

Russo: That’s not how it happened.

Sebastian: Yeah, that’s not what I said. Not then, anyway.

Finn: Okay, then you tell the story.

Sebastian: Nah.

Russo: I’ll tell it. 

Ethan: I’m all ears.

Russo: It was a Saturday morning, we were all wearing flannel pajama bottoms, Bas was making waffles, and Bert started talking about how he’d tried lobster and waffles that summer when he’d gone to Maine on vacation.

Bert: That’s right! I forgot about that… The lobster was fried, which was fuckin’ amazing, and the waffles had corn in ‘em. There was, like, this spicy maple syrup that went with ‘em, but you could also get Romulan sauce if you wanted something more savory. 

Finn: Romulan sauce?

Bert: Isn’t that what it’s called? It’s kind of an orangey color.

Finn: Romulans are an alien race from Star Trek… though some of them are kind of orange. 

Bert: Like Spock, you mean?

Finn: Spock’s a Vulcan.

Sebastian: I think you’re talking about remoulade sauce, B.

Bert: Oh.

Russo: Anyway… Bert told us about his lobster and waffles and then I started talking about how lobsters can regenerate their limbs—

Gavin: Can they really?

Russo: Yeah, but it takes a long time. 

Gavin: How long?

Russo: Five years, maybe. But still… how cool is that? I’m betting that any human amputee would be more than willing to wait five years for a new arm or leg or whatever. I had a professor in college whose cousin lost his legs in Vietnam, and as a result, Dr. Hazelford spent a good chunk of his adult life researching starfish, just trying to understand how humans might someday be able to mimic that regeneration of limbs.

Ethan: You were in med school for a while, weren’t you? 

Russo: Four years of undergrad followed by two years of med school… and then I started to rethink my life. 

Gavin: Because you missed music?

Russo: That, yeah. But I was also burnt out. I guess—

Ethan: Hold on just a sec. Can we finish the story about the band’s name first? 

Russo: Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Sebastian: The gist of it is that Russo thinks lobsters are interesting and I like the word flannel and so we put the two together and became Flannel Lobster. 

Bert: See? I warned you it was fuckin’ lame.