Equally at ease with making sex-playlist jams and socially conscious songs, the trio are fretting about fascism – but are determined to find common ground for Americans
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f you looked to the skies in the UK on 12 May, you’d have seen the flower moon, the name given to that month’s full moon. Also known in agricultural circles as the hare moon or the corn planting moon, it’s closely associated with new life and new beginnings.
“Happy flower moon day!” beams Durand Jones, leader of soul outfit Durand Jones and the Indications, whose forthcoming album Flowers – led by the single Flower Moon – also deals with the theme of fresh starts. We’re serendipitously speaking on 12 May, along with his bandmates Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein.
Jones is at home in New Orleans, and dressed rather fabulously in a kimono and a battered old baseball cap. Frazer, the band’s falsetto-singing drummer, is in Los Angeles, where he moved in 2024 after 10 years or so in New York, while Rhein, in Chicago, doesn’t turn his camera on throughout our interview and – despite being the band’s guitarist and core producer – interjects only once or twice over the course of our hour-long conversation.
