When Painted Flowers first arrived on the scene in 2020, soaked in sepia and filtered in analogue, they felt strangely out of place. The Johannesburg alternative group emerged with a sound so intoxicatingly haunted by the ghosts of ’60s and ’70s rock and roll, like a blossom that hadn’t bloomed in years. At a time when much of South African alternative music was looking forward (or, in the midst of lockdown, inward), Painted Flowers were busy excavating, attempting communion with the spirits of Bob Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, and Gram Parsons. They weren’t interested in reinvention, they were interested in preservation. And that felt enticingly fresh.
TATC was fortunate enough to publish the first feature about PF. Back then, they were still introducing themselves to the world through the dusty Americana of Walk It Loose, a debut EP that seemed to arrive from another time entirely.
Six years later, it feels fitting that we should also write one of the last. Painted Flowers are over. Stepping back into whatever portal they came from.
“Like all things that exist in time, Painted Flowers has come to an end,” says founder and songwriter Elio Moavero. What began as a project built around his love of classic rock and Americana music eventually became the half decade of his life. It brought with it multiple line-up changes, countless tours, late-night drives, dive bars, festivals, bedrooms, rehearsal spaces. All the beautiful, blurry-eyed chaos that comes with keeping the mythology of the rockstar alive.
“I will honestly never forget making that very first EP, Walk It Loose,” recalls producer and songwriter Dean Salant. “We got distortion sounds by literally cranking the input gain into our preamps and recorded our drum kit with two mics. Super unusual by today’s standards. And by no means were these best practices, but these janky techniques helped us wrap our heads around the retro aesthetic we were going for.”
That lo-fi, DIY approach would become the band’s defining characteristic. Feeling always mattered more than perfection, and character more than polish – the same sort of expressionist methodology that made a band like The Velvet Underground so singular and influential.
Doing everything in a bedroom helped. According to bassist Jonny Smith, there was freedom in the limitations. “Swapping instruments, improvising parts. On one of the songs Dean uses two rocks as percussion, and I learnt a film case filled with rice makes the best shaker. Dean solidified in me that it’s better to be compelling than perfect.” Those imperfections became part of the band’s appeal, and the thing that made them so distinct. Every release felt like an exploration of a different flower in their bouquet.
After moving to Cape Town in 2024, Elio found maintaining a Johannesburg-based band increasingly difficult. Flights became expensive. Distance became complicated. More importantly, inspiration began pulling him elsewhere. The end became inevitable.
“We got pretty far into writing another album,” he explains. “One day I was walking to Dean’s home studio to write and realised I just wasn’t feeling inspired by the sound anymore. I think we’d rinsed every inch of the genre.”
While that album was ultimately shelved, the band isn’t just disappearing without a proper goodbye. “The Stars Will Be Worth It” featuring Kayla The Crow and “Grizzly Bear”, both originally intended for the band’s unfinished final album, are now PF’s swan song on the appropriately titled Sun’s Going Down.
“The Stars Will Be Worth It” takes its title from an offhand comment by a friend and transforms it into something unexpectedly poignant. Its final line, “Roll the credits, here it comes, I see the end,” feels almost prophetic in retrospect.
“Grizzly Bear”, meanwhile, captures the warmth that always sat at the centre of Painted Flowers. Written by Jonny, it was designed to feel like friends gathered together in a room after hours. It’s a celebration. It even ends with applause.
“We wanted it to feel like a congratulations to us for what we achieved as Painted Flowers,” says Elio.
“Recording that last track for PF was trippy. A major chapter of my life coming to a close,” drummer Valentino Moavero recalls. “Six years traveling the country, playing and recording music with incredibly talented musicians, what a time. I feel super blessed to have been a part of this and to have made all these wild memories with my brother.”
It’s all very warm and fuzzy and honestly, a tad bittersweet. Painted Flowers had scene beef with no one. They professionally pitched up, played, and generally radiated consistent good vibes all round, always. And that’s how we’ll remember them.
