SHREDnews

Poppy Cleere: If you could just start off by introducing yourselves and your role in the band.

Chris: I’m Chris I play the bass guitar

Richard: I’m Richard I play the guitar

Tommy: Tommy. I’m the singer

Beau: I’m Beau and I play the drums

Poppy Cleere: So how do you feel tonight’s show went?

Tommy: Pretty good yeah. The crowd reaction was pretty good. We had to cut our last song because we went over – apparently.

Richard: I wasn’t sure that we did

Tommy: Bit of a shame but yeah orders from above.

Richard: But yeah it was really good.

Tommy: It was good to be back in London, our hometown where a lot of our family were here and we saw some friends as well

Poppy Cleere: So you’re on tour with Elliot Minor at the moment. How did that come about?

Richard: Well we were spotted at a gig in London at The Gramaphone

Tommy: yeah The Gramaphone

Richard: Where Killamonjaro the booking agent came down and luckily saw our set and um they said we’ve got this opening set for you in November, are you up for it? And we said yeaaah we are (Laughter) and yeah I think we got Elliot Minors approval shortly after that and then now we’re here.

Poppy Cleere: Cool! You’re nearing the end of the tour now, what’s been your favorite show so far?

Richard: Mine was Exeter

Chris: Exeter was really good

Richard: Best crowd reaction. Everyone was going nuts – it was amazing.

Tommy: Birmingham was pretty good as well. There were lots of fans of us down there. It was good to go around the country and see lots of fans who aren’t there to see you, so you kind of get an honest reaction from everyone. It’s been…it’s been an experience!

Richard: Yeah it’s been good. I think we’ve had quite a lot (of good experiences).

Poppy Cleere: You’ve been to the States as well, did you win over any new fans? What was it like over there?

Richard: Yeah, New York we played the CMJ Festival out there.

Tommy: We got to play with some really cool bands and we were offered quite a few tours of the back of it, a lot of gigs.

Tommy: Er…what was I saying?

Chris: We were offered a lot of tours…

Tommy: Oh yeah! We were offered a lot of tours and er New York’s an amazing place isn’t it?

Richard: Yeah I really like New York.

Poppy Cleere: What were US fans like in comparison to UK fans? Were they easier to win over or impress?

Beau: We didn’t really play to a fan audience. It was more of an industry sort of thing, to get yourself known in the industry. We’ll be pushing the next tour to get fans basically.

Poppy Cleere: Okay! Larry Richman of CMJ called you the ‘future of rock and roll’. What was that like to hear?

Richard: Amazing

Tommy: Wicked

Beau: He seemed to be really, really impressed with us.

Tommy: Yeah, he seemed to really get into us.

Beau: And he’s had a really great career as well

Tommy: As a music journalist

Beau: And for it to come from him, it’s pretty special.

Poppy Cleere: Looking back to October 2007 when you first formed – Is this the original Franko line-up?

All: Yup, yeah, yeah, yup!

Poppy Cleere: How did you all come to meet each other?

Richard: I went to school with Beau to start off with and we just kind of started up musical projects and then Chris came along, we were in a band before FranKo and Tommy was also in a band before and then I moved schools and both bands weren’t kind of working out. Me and Tommy began writing songs together, we brought it all together in the rehearsal room and we kind of clicked really.

Tommy: We sat next to each other in science, thats how we met.

Richard: Yeah

Poppy Cleere: So who came up with the name FranKo? Was it a group thing?

Tommy: Well we were at a stage where we hadn’t thought of a name three months in and we had like twenty different names that were like ‘maybe, maybe’. Franko was just the one that sat best with us because it sort of mixes in with the whole Kaiser Cheifs, Franz Ferdinand thing, although it’s spelt with a ‘K’ not like the Spanish dictator (laughs). It’s kind of short and to the point and also my dads name is Frank and I’ve got about over 20 Italian relatives called Franco. So it’s sort of spawned from that.

Poppy Cleere: How has your music changed since when you first started out?

Chris: I think it’s just more mature. We’ve moved away from the poppy area from when we first started out and have become more heavier, more experimental with our music.

Tommy: Just getting into the swing of things really, finding out feet on the first couple of songs and sort of just growing into the sort of sound we want a bit more now. There’s no embarrassment from the first tracks though, I mean we’ll always love ‘Nighttime’ and ‘Today’ but now we’re moving onto sort of second album material. So yeah, just seeing how it goes.

Richard: Kind of, I think materially we’re all more comfortable with each other now – Knowing what each other is good at and

Tommy: Letting the juices flow

Richard: Yeah

Beau: And we were in a band before so the rhythm section was already locked in.

Poppy Cleere: Are you self-taught or trained musicians?

Chris: Self-taught all the way.

Tommy: Yeah

Richard: Pretty much. I started guitar at eight (years), had a few lessons for about two years and then the rest has just been self taught really.

Poppy Cleere: So you’ve just been recording your first album

Tommy: That’s coming out on March 1st 2010.

Poppy Cleere: March 1st. Are the songs self-written?

Tommy: 100%

Richard: yeah 100%

Poppy Cleere: And who writes most of the lyrics? Is it a group job?

Tommy: So far I’ve been the lyricist.

Richard: Yeah

Tommy: On the ‘Few More Reasons’ tracks Richard has laid down some ideas or motivated me to write some lyrics about certain things. Um and then we write the music together although at the beginning it was sort of a Richard song then a Tommy song and then a Richard song and a Tommy song but now it’s sort of come together.

Richard: And along the way Beau and Chris will have their input so it’s all been a kind of good set up at the end of the day.

Poppy Cleere: Good stuff. What inspires the songs? What do you draw from?

Tommy: Yeah, just stuff that’s going on because there aren’t that many bands sort of around that are our age, so I think it’s quite interesting to write about stuff that’s happening to us at the moment because it can relate to the audience that seems to like our music. I write about stuff that’s happened in my life, stuff that’s happened to my friends, my brother and some of the weird relationships he’s been in and yeah just things really.

Poppy Cleere: Do you have any musical influences?

Richard: I think we try to do that as a band. I think individually we kind of have loads of different influences – Tommy is a massive Beatles fan and that can help with song ideas. Beau listens to like drum and bass type music

Beau: And metal. I like that they’re two completely different things.

Richard: Yeah, we try to expose ourselves to as much different music as we can. We’re going to a Jazz gig on Sunday night which should be amazing so

Tommy: Into the Jazz

Richard: Yeah

Poppy Cleere: What can we expect from FranKo in 2010?

Richard: Well the album is obviously going to be a big one for us; we’re going to push that as hard as we can. More tours I think and I think we’re going to write a lot more music in the next couple of months.

Tommy: More stuff abroad as well, In Asia as well.

Richard: What else in there going to be? Certain things are kind of brewing. We’re just waiting to um confirm.

Tommy: I mean next year we’ve got the first album coming out, so obviously we’ll be touring. We’re just going to keep writing and doing what we’re doing I suppose.

Poppy Cleere: And finally – what do you hope to achieve as a band? What are your main goals?

Beau: World Domination

(Laughter)

Poppy Cleere: Well I guess there’s not much higher than that is there!

Beau: We don’t want to be in power musically, we actually want to take over the government as well

(Laughter)

Tommy: We’re just enjoying ourselves, we’ll see where it goes.

Poppy Cleere: Well thanks for speaking to us guys, enjoy the rest of your tour!

FranKo: Thanks!