FLAIRGUM

While FLAIRGUM may be a new name on the Te Whanganui-a-Tara music scene, the creative partnership behind the electronic-pop duo stretches back to their days at Nelson Intermediate School. Florence McNabb (Floss) and Kahu Sanson-Burnett first began making music together as teenagers before going on to form indie band Parallel Park. Now, after Floss spent two years living in Amsterdam and Kahu established himself within Wellington's live music community, the pair have reunited with a fresh sound built around synths, electronic production and pop songwriting. Ahead of the release of debut single Can You Take Me There?, I spoke with Floss about growing up in Nelson, the evolution from Parallel Park to FLAIRGUM, and the experiences that shaped the duo's next chapter.

Were you always into music growing up? 

Yes, definitely. I started playing the guitar when I was probably seven, and was singing before that. And then in about year five was when I first was in a band, and then from there stayed in various bands throughout high school and everything.

Do you remember the first ever song that you wrote? 

I remember writing songs on the first guitar that I had, which was like a nylon-stringed thing. It sounded terrible. And I would write songs and then go have a play date with friends and teach them the lyrics and everything, and we'd start performing it as a group and my parents would film it. I still have videos of all those songs. 

You and Kahu used to play in Parallel Park together. How did that form? 

Yeah, so the first time that Kahu and I started making music together was when we were both in year seven at Nelson Intermediate School. The school had a really great band culture. The band teacher at the school, he was actually just an ESOL teacher, but he just had an interest in music and would hold auditions every year. At the time quite a big thing to get into. I think at that point they'd had like a seven-year Bandquest winning streak as well, so it was a bit of a legacy within the school.

Kahu and I both got into the band in year seven, and then when we left intermediate, kept it going with a few of the other members. I think we were always the driving force for a lot of the bands that we were in. Especially Parallel Park throughout high school. Scott, Kahu's dad, has been super supportive. During high school he made sure we always had somewhere to practice and always encouraged us. 

Is there a chance we'll hear any more Parallel Park songs in the future?

Ooh, I mean, I would love to. I think playing with a full band is so fun, and obviously we're still all such great friends and everything, it’s impossible to get us all together. And even for Kahu and I, he just always has so much on, so five people definitely just became kind of impossible to coordinate. I mean, maybe when we're old if we all move back to Nelson, maybe something would happen. We're still all really good friends. 

What parts of Parallel Park got carried over into FLAIRGUM, and what got left behind? 

I think my writing has stayed super consistent. What got left behind is a lot of the live instruments, but it just happened very naturally. Kahu and I were just writing music together, starting off just thinking it would be Parallel Park. We had never talked about starting a new project, but our sound was changing as it was just us making the music.

And a lot of it was electronic and synths and everything. And then we kind of realised that it didn't fit Parallel Park anymore, or it also felt strange to, I guess, put the music under other people's names who hadn't contributed; we didn’t know if they'd wanna be represented by a sound that we'd entirely made ourselves without them. 

I think as well by that point we had definitely realized that it was gonna be a lot more challenging than we thought to keep Parallel Park going. Because when we released Empty House earlier this year, originally we were like, "Okay, we'll do a release show with everyone!” And then we realised how difficult it really was. 

Does FLAIRGUM feel like a fresh start, or is it more like the next chapter for you and Kahu? 

Yeah, I think it feels like the next chapter, especially obviously now we've been out of school for two, three years. And during that time Parallel Park released two songs, and both of those were written in a more similar way to how FLAIRGUM is now. We never at any point had all five members in a room writing all together. It was part by part, so I think it really naturally evolved into what it is.

I remember when I talked to Kahu in 2024, just after Good Terms had come out, and I think I'd said to him at the time “it kind of feels like a send-off for the group.”

I mean, I think it was a great thing. We had the best send-off ever in Nelson. Nelson was such a little music bubble. We did our album release gig and everything I think even then felt like a send-off in a really positive way, not in a, "Oh, like this is the last hurrah," but more so just nice to know that we had achieved that, or there were just so many people there singing along to the words and everything and it was really incredible.

So you spent the last couple years in Europe. So what took you there? And what brought you back? 

Originally throughout high school I was a cyclist, and that was my first kind of goal of getting over to Europe. It was always a big thing within the cycling industry to make it. You have to be in Europe. You have to get on a European team. So that was always a big goal of mine. And then I ended up getting long COVID and chronic fatigue, and just a gorgeous mix of all kind of illnesses and weakness, and just wasn't really healthy enough to be training towards that goal anymore.

So then I was like, "Oh, you know, I'm still gonna try to go to the Netherlands", and then I signed up for a school exchange. We actually started holding auditions to replace the vocalist for Parallel Park because I was supposed to be gone for the last year of school. But the exchange got cancelled at the last minute, but for a really great reason. I feel blessed I didn’t go; but it was during the peak of the Russian-Ukrainian war. So all the host families in the Netherlands were taking Ukrainian immigrants that needed safe housing. So they shut down all the school exchanges.

So then I stayed in Nelson for the last year of school, which obviously worked out great. That was when we did the album. But then I decided after high school “Okay, I'm just gonna go on my own terms.” I just went over originally for six months as a gap year, but absolutely loved it. So then I went back in 2025 literally until my visa ran out. So that is the only reason I'm back pretty much. 

Do you feel that your time overseas has had much of an influence on your music? 

Yeah. I definitely think now pivoting towards this more electronic genre was something that, I mean, being in Nelson you don't get that much exposure to. There's all these amazing venues and festivals and so much happening over there. My boyfriend, who I met while I was away, his music taste is very much like electronic, even hyper-pop. All that kind of thing.

Definitely in 2025 I feel like that's probably where my music taste changed the most. Especially growing up playing guitar and singing, and my family into folk and country music as well. I hadn't really really explored outside of that. I wasn't making that much music while I was over in the Netherlands. Like, I had a guitar, but definitely the music that I was going out and listening to and the artists that I was seeing was very different to what I'd seen before. 

So for someone discovering FLAIRGUM for the first time, how would you describe it?

The genre is electronic pop, but I think both of our backgrounds being in band scenes and even acoustic sets influences it a lot. I think especially with some future songs that we're working on at the moment that were born during that period where we didn't know if it was Parallel Park, if it was FLAIRGUM, will be more of a kinda grey zone in terms of genre.

But I think also in the future we're so excited to go even further into electronic music, hyper-pop. We've talked about playing live with a live DJ as well. 

We're influenced a lot by Between Friends. Tiffany Day is a big influence at the moment. And obviously like Charli, XCX. 

What roles do you and Kahu each play in the project?

Kahu is incredible at writing the songs. He's got folders and folders full of empty songs that he's worked on, you know, with other artists or he's created in his spare time. Like, it's not even necessarily with FLAIRGUM in mind. But I'll just show up to his flat and he'll click on a random one and start playing it, and we'll just see what I like.

I think because we've worked together for so long, it's so easy for me to just sit there and start spewing lyrics, and freestyle over it. See what sticks. Kahu's able to be super honest with me about what he likes and what he doesn't.

And then at the moment, well, Kahu has always been amazing at all the admin work, like for Parallel Park in the past. And Scott has had a big part in it too. But Kahu is so busy at the moment that I am really having to step up into the admin stuff as well. So at the moment I'm doing all the social media, which also was what I was doing for Parallel Park. But that's something that I'm trying to really get into and just actually lock in and post every day. Cause obviously that's what everyone needs to do these days. And then Kahu is the one submitting the music to be uploaded and creating our cover art, and obviously producing and mastering everything.

So you've been teasing your new song on Instagram and TikTok for a while. Can you tell me anything about it? 

Compared to the other songs that we have at the moment, I think it's the best definition of what we want FLAIRGUM to be and the direction that it's going. We did kind of release it at the wrong time, to be honest. We wrote it back in summer, so when I sent out the press release yesterday, I had to change all the words to take out summer, 'cause we did kind of pin it down to be like a summer anthem. But hopefully it can be relevant all year round. It's super fun. I think it's a good first song to define ourselves. 

Was this the first song that you and Kahu worked on for FLAIRGUM, or was it just kinda the one that rose to the top? 

I think it's the first song that we wrote and then said to each other, "This can't be released under Parallel Park." And in that sense it was the first FLAIRGUM song, 'cause we knew that we needed to create something new. 

Where did the FLAIRGUM name come from? What does it mean? 

We were struggling for so long to pick a name, and we had so many inspirations, and I remember, I'd be at work just scribbling on paper of what we want it to be. We knew we wanted it to be one word, all in capitals. And I wanted it to feel like a bold colour. We were playing around with something like cobalt or, you know, all these different kinds of colours.

I had a list in my Notes app of random words; these are some of them: halo, citrine, pink, red, rat, gum, riot, cobalt, charm, fluke, flint, ammo, joy, locket, palm. Or literally going on Wikipedia and searching up all precious stone names. And just trying to find anything that would go together. So it just came from pulling all words that I could find. Making a list, and then testing out with Kahu the combos he was liking. At one point I really wanted rat to be in the name. Like Mallrat, I think that's a cool name. 

I think FLAIRGUM is good. I think you nailed it. Is your new song just a single or is it leading into an EP or an album later on? 

We've definitely talked about an EP. At the moment we have three songs that are pretty much complete, and we write super easily together as well.

We can often manage a song in one session, so I think it's just about trying to schedule more time together to be able to keep writing. But definitely we would love to do more full projects and tell stories through them. 

Any live shows in the pipeline? 

No, not at the moment. That's kind of a big- hurdle, I think, for us as well, figuring out how we're gonna play live. We've only played live together with Kahu on guitar, but this first single can't really be played on a guitar. We're so excited to be able to do more shows because it's just us two. Like I was saying, five people is such a commitment, having to work five schedules together. And we’ve played so many shows where we have to supply our own drum kit, our own amps, like, everything. So I think that will be really exciting when we are ready to play live, just being able to have just us two on stage and an easy setup, and we perform really well together as well, I think. We’re super comfortable on stage and everything. 

Do you have a dream venue that you'd love to play?

I would have to say Glastonbury. That would be a dream festival for sure.

Where do you hope FLAIRGUM is a year from now? 

A year from now, I would hope that we have a full album. And something else that I'm really into is styling and fashion and everything. I'd really love for us to have a distinct branding and you know, be working with brands as well to wear them at shows. 

You could open for WOW!

Exactly, yeah, that would be amazing. And that's something that I really love about creating this new project, is getting to start from scratch - and with Kahu, when we're doing the press photos for FLAIRGUM I can just bring him clothes and put him in it, you know? He will just wear whatever I put on him. That's something that I'm really loving, being able to just create this whole world around FLAIRGUM. So I hope that that's really distinct and fleshed out in a year, and people will be able to hear our music and see our whole world.

You can follow FLAIRGUM on Instagram @flairgum and find Floss at@florencemcnabb and Kahu at @kahu.sb