Exclusive Interview: Fly By Midnight Talk Their New Album 'The Fastest Time Of Our Lives'
- Mikaila Storrs
- Jul 11
- 5 min read
To kick off release week for their new album The Fastest Time Of Our Lives, Fly By Midnight, the duo of Justin Slaven (or just Slavo, as he introduces himself) and Justin Bryte, joined us on Zoom. They talked about everything from the brunch where they came up with the idea to release the album in EPs over the past year to shooting album photos while literally being pulled by a moving car, along with the lessons they’ve learned from nearly a decade of making music together.
The Fastest Time of Our Lives is officially out now, marking the end of a two-year journey for Fly By Midnight. The duo has been steadily crafting the album, and it’s finally crossed the finish line—pun intended. Slavo reflected on the process, saying, “We essentially started this album like two summers ago. We tried to create a whole different project at first, but it ended up morphing into something new. A lot of it was inspired by touring, especially our first Asia tour. There was just a lot going on during that time.”
Justin recalled the lunch where they landed on the concept of the album, releasing songs over the course of a year as “Laps” that would ultimately make up “The Race,” culminating in The Fastest Time Of Our Lives. “I remember a lunch we had, and we were shoving burgers in our face and we knew that we wanted the album to be something like The Fastest Time Of Our Lives, but we weren't really sure what the buildup was going to look like and how we were going to package it all together. And we sort of left that lunch being like, ‘This is how we're going to do it.’ And then it was just two years of sort of sticking to it, which is scary to make a decision and then be like, ‘Well, we're in it now.’”
The process was long and committing to a vision that far in advance came with its own set of challenges. But now that the album is finally out in the world? Slavo sums it up best: “Feels great. I feel like the last shoot we did that kind of became the visual for this whole project was really ambitious, and I think it tied a nice little bow on everything that we did leading up to it.”
When talking more deeply about the creative process behind the album, the duo revealed that they were figuring things out in real time, right alongside their fans. “It’s interesting because when, you know, different artists have different processes, right? A lot of artists write the whole album and then they come up with the whole idea, and then they release it in however they choose to,” Justin said.
“It's interesting that we sort of called it ‘The Race’ and ‘The Laps’ because we we were on the journey with the fans, where we decided what was going to be in Lap 1. And then we didn't know what was going to be in Lap 2, which I don't think we've ever spoke about nor acknowledged maybe ourselves until this exact moment.” - Justin Bryte
The album ultimately came from the duo’s resilience and their commitment to staying true to themselves. They initially set out to create another feature-heavy project, similar to their previous Plus One album. But after completing several tracks and coming close to locking in collaborations, things took a turn. “Some of the songs that we were working on from that. ‘Try’ was one of them, ‘Less Than Love’ was one of them, and ‘SuperFine’. We'd already pitched them out to other artists. There were people that had little bites on them and stuff that we had considered for it, and just ended up going a different direction with it.”
In the end, it became a testament to their authenticity, choosing to pivot rather than force something that didn’t feel right, and trusting their instincts to create a body of work that reflects who they are at their core.
As both Justin and Slavo have grown older and entered new phases of their lives—both now married and just having turned 30, their perspective on making music has evolved along with them. Life looks very different than it did when they first started the band in their early 20s, and that shift is reflected in their work.
One memorable moment during the album’s creation was working on “SuperFine” with Cook Classic. Slavo said, “Thinking to myself, he's got this life where he's got this beautiful studio, and he's got his family on the other side, he's got kids and stuff. And he's like, still doing it. And for us, we're 30 years old now. Think about like our lives. At this point, where we're going to be in a band at 30+ years [old] now.”
That experience made it clear that creativity doesn’t have to slow down as life changes. “It was a cool moment to like be creative and do this fun pop song, you know, and still be able to pull it off at this stage in our lives. And then to get into that next phase of life and see for him, like through his eyes, what that would feel like and look like.”
A hilarious moment during the album’s creation happened on the day they filmed the video for “Try.” After touring Asia, they had a day off in Korea, but it was a freezing 17 degrees and they ended up filming from 5 a.m. until 2 a.m. the next day. Justin laughed as he recalled, “It almost felt like an SNL skit. She was phenomenal, the director, but she had this big megaphone, barking orders in Korean. We had no idea what was going on. Then one guy came up to us and after she barked something for a while, he said, ‘She wants one more take.’”
The band got incredibly creative with this album, even going so far as to be physically pulled by a car on a racetrack for the album and tour artwork. Justin didn’t realize this would actually happen and thought it might be done in post-production, but it turned out to be an amazing shot. He summed it up perfectly: “We ended it with a pretty powerful metaphor of like how chaotic it is being pulled through life in your 30s.”
They still have the trophy from the shoot, which Slavo says might make an appearance on tour. “When we do the VIP photos, we're gonna have the fans hold it and be like a whole moment. Maybe make a moment out of it on stage.”
Almost ten years in, and Fly By Midnight still aren’t hitting the brakes anytime soon. What started as a friendship has only grown tighter, and their creative spark is burning brighter than ever. With new tunes in hand, they’re ready to hit the road this fall and bring the energy of the album straight to the fans.
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