Franc Moody on Their Upcoming Album, Spaghetti Westerns, and Missed Weddings
[UNPUBLISHED:] How have you guys been and where are you right now?
[JON:] We’ve been good! Ned and I are both in London. Studio today. And then we are getting prepared to go. We're flying to San Francisco tomorrow morning for some really exciting weekend gigs. It's gonna be a wild weekend, I'm slightly nervous about how wild it's gonna be.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How do you think the fan bases of the US differ from those of London and the UK in general? Are they even different?
[NED:] I guess everywhere you go, there are certain nuances about places and their folks. American crowds so far have been very, very good to us. Dublin is rowdy and cool. London, our hometown, is always unbelievable. But, overall I’d say it’s always a good time anywhere. Oh, but, I love San Francisco crowds. Insane.
[JON:] When you’re touring you’re going to all these places sort of blind because you don’t know the spots. So, when the gigs come out perfectly it is the best time. I’m personally looking forward to going back to Denver - it’s a weird, wicked vibe.
[NED:] We’ve also done Mexico City and Oaxaca - it’s so interesting to see how all these places have their own particular way of partying and dancing. It’s all so nice.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What about New York? It’s been hit with this phenomenon in which people aren’t dancing anymore and are just talking. I live there so I’ve experienced this a lot.
[JON:] Really? That’s mad.
[NED:] I do know what you mean. If anything, this case probably doesn’t only affect New York, but the world in general. Some people go to gigs to have a chat. And I’m like - what the hell’s going on here?
[JON:] When we first played in LA, we were warned that the LA crowd doesn’t dance. But to our surprise, it was a really, really rowdy gig. But, I guess there is a trend of going to a gig just to get that Instagram picture and catch up with a mate. You know? It’s a new culture that rejects the classic “going to a gig to dance.” But, so far we’ve been lucky with our crowds.
[NED:] Yeah, if you’re buying a ticket to go see Franc Moody it’s because you want to dance.
[UNPUBLISHED:] That's awesome. I feel like the “not dancing” trend is also just a post-pandemic side effect. People have become more introverted. So, it’s good to see that some bands and artists are still here to have fun.
[JON:] Exactly!
[UNPUBLISHED:] Actually, how is the London Funk scene? Is it stimulating for you guys as a group or do you think there is more of a need for artists in that genre? Tell me about that.
[JON:] To be honest, there's a lot of wicked music in London at the moment. But there’s not a huge amount of stuff in the Funk scene. The South London Jazz scene is coming up, which is prolific and very exciting. London's dance music scene is absolutely incredible as well. But in terms of a Funk scene, there are only a handful of bands. That’s something we want to gather and promote when the right time comes. We’d love to put up some proper Funk raves.
[UNPUBLISHED:] That would be so awesome. If you guys do that, I’d fly to London.
[JON:] Yeah! Come and sweat out somewhere in a warehouse.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Congratulations on your release of “Raining in LA!” How are you feeling about your most recent single? What was the creative process like?
[JON:] Firstly, it's really cool. It took the longest out of all the songs on the album to put together. We started it in 2019 in a studio in Los Angeles, on a very rainy, wet day. And then it went to bed for a bit. I don’t know when we decided to pick it up again, but we then decided to add some stuff to it - it has a big large string section on it. My mother plays the violin and my sister plays the cello, so they were able to help us out with that. We got 20 people for the string section - it was a whole orchestra. It’s grand.
[UNPUBLISHED:] That's crazy. I didn't know you guys had an orchestra on that. So your mom and sister are both classical musicians?
[JON:] Yes, exactly. I'm the odd one out. Playing and writing the devil's music. But no, it's awesome. They’re amazing.
[UNPUBLISHED:] And this single is just one of the tracks of your upcoming album Into the Ether.
[JON:] Yeah, Into the Ether is coming out in September. We’re really, really excited to see the album released with all its little cubby holes and shades. During the lockdown, we sorted all these pieces of writing and ideas, so it’s very cool that we’ll finally see this project being put out.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How would you describe the album as a whole, if you had to summarize it?
[NED:] Like Jon was saying, the album came out with all these early ideas and sketches that were all created during the lockdown. So instead of wistfully sitting in our bedrooms weeping into a pillow, we thought, let's just start writing something new. And we settled on this grandiose vision of the album is like a journey. We were missing touring. We used to go on little tours around the world and have crazy adventures, so we wanted to recreate that motion but using the scale of a kind of Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, sort of Ennio Morricone, these big vibes. When we're on tour it’s essentially seven of us in a tin can of a van eating hotdogs, but we wanted to make it seem like it was the Odyssey. So with the album, we wanted to put across these adventures that we would have. Since we were all cooped up at home, we wanted to make a dream-like version of them. So we are going into the ether in our minds because we simply couldn’t be outside.
[JON:] You nailed it in a nutshell. 17,000 words that one?
[UNPUBLISHED:] Have you ever watched that movie where Matthew McConaughey leaves his children to go to space? I forgot the name, but it reminds me of that for some reason. Very imaginative and mentally intergalactic.
[JON:] Interstellar! At the end of that, I had no idea what the hell had happened. But I drew a few diagrams and it worked out - I got it.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What did you guys listen to while you were making Into the Ether?
[NED:] Oh, that’s interesting. I mean, I listened to a lot of Ennio Morricone. I listened to a lot of film-scoring stuff as well. I, fortuitously, got sent this mad album by a mate of ours - his artist name is Skinshape. We were just bouncing some of his tunes back and forth. He also sent us this kind of Japanese library music for film, which was heavily Western for some reason. It was that, essentially, on heavy rotation. We also had a lot of Zoom dance music parties with our fans.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You guys need to come to New York again. I want to see you guys live.
[NED:] Yes! We were there this summer, but we’ll be back. We’ve got an amazing sound engineer who helps us make the best gigs. We take a lot of attention to detail and every little element of the live show experience. We just want to showcase some good music and have a good time, you know?
[UNPUBLISHED:] Yeah, I saw your Reddit. Everyone’s on there asking for tickets. It’s like - anybody got tickets? I'm gonna die. You guys have some crazy fans.
[JON:] Haha! I love that.
[NED:] We got asked to play at some fans’ wedding in New Orleans. But we couldn’t make it. They were so angry.
[JON:] They’re probably hammering us on Reddit.