Last year one of my iPod staples was Wierd Records act Frank (Just Frank) — a synth/jangle rock duo from the French Riviera whose darkly echoey music is reminiscent of early REM and The Smiths. Although in the past few years 80s nostalgia has become something of a dead horse, Frank (Just Frank)’s excellent debut LP “The Brutal Wave” sounds like lost Murmur b-sides with Morrissey on vocals; spinning nostalgia on its head by, at times, doing 1983 better than the originals. Frank (Just Frank) was founded by high school friends and metal-heads Anthem and Kirti with the aim of injecting their black metal brutality into synths, drum machines, and jangly, elliptical guitar riffs. Taking the catch-all metal term for something good, “brutal” wave came to be both the name of FJF’s debut and an accurate tag for the music they created which lies somewhere between cold wave and new wave — dark, but still full of shimmeringly poptastic pay-offs. An instant dance floor hit at the Wierd Records party at Home Sweet Home, FJF quickly got signed to Wierd and became a cult favorite amongst the post-punk aficionados that flock to Wierd Wednesdays weekly. Although Kirti and Anthem are no longer making music together, Anthem recently relocated to New York to work on new FJF material and focus on his more metal-informed solo stuff which he debuted to the Weird crowd in January. OAKAZINE met up with Anthem and spoke about French music scenes, brutal wave, and being an American ex-pat in France. — Text by Marlo Kronberg. Photos by Jakob Axelman. Interview and video for “Die in Bed” after the jump.
What is your name, how old are you, and where are you from?
My name is Anthem, I’m 25 and I was born in Hudson, NY.
How did growing up in France influence your musical development? Were there any local scenes that you latched onto growing up?
In the French Riviera there were no foreign bands or big national names that came over to play. The scene was completely dead. The only bands we went to see were local. Anybody who digged music with guitars would hang out in the same spots and mosh to ska, pop punk, and metal. The scene was small but very tight and aggressive. I later was acquainted with the local extreme metal scene which delivered some quality acts such as Imperial Sodomy, Kabbal, and Artefact. It was sort of under their influence that I started my first real death/grind/hardcore band called Gorgeous Infection. Around that time Kirti and I – who were forming Frank (Just Frank) – discovered a more local blend of black metal which was growing near Toulon; an industrial port-city maybe an hour and a half away from Nice. We were happy to discover that local acts such as Kristallnacht or Seigneur Voland could produce such good, raw black metal and we were highly influenced by them but not especially musically. More in spirit. The idea of making hate-filled melancholic music in a Mediterranean environment appealed to us. That also pushed me to experiment with melancholic black metal in Luci Tristis for a few years.
When did it first gel that you wanted to start making your own music?
The second I picked up a guitar, really. From what I remember I barely knew how to play and I was already writing my first tunes.
What was the first instrument you played, and why were you drawn to it?
The first instrument I ever played was violin. I was drawn to it because my cousins played it.
How did growing up both American and French impact you culturally?
I have no idea. I consider myself mainly American, but I still have some French characteristics. My cooking is Mediterranean.
What were some of the big bands of your adolescence?
There would be way too many for my answer to actually be interesting. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be so passionate about music if my ears didn’t reach Rage Against the Machine’s first record. It meant a lot to me as a twelve-year-old because I realized how much I loved aggressive music. I found my thing. And I had no idea this band was political. When Zack de la Rocha screamed ‘a bullet in your head’ I thought he was just talking his desire to kill someone.I liked the violent, dark and aggressive lyrics about suicide, murder, arson etc. A real rush.
When did you start writing your own music?
When I was 13 and picked up the guitar for the first time.
I’ve read that you went to school in London. What did you study there and how did moving to London impact you musically?
I “studied” music technology, but I didn’t really learn anything. I know nothing about the technical aspect of sound engineering and recording. I know nothing about music theory either. I’m still eager to learn about all this because I do believe it’s terribly useful and essential to good music making. I just copied books and got Cs. I had no motivation because the courses and teachers were no good. So I just spent all my time hustling in restaurants and recording my own stuff. London was amazing for gigs though. I went to gigs like every week or something. There were also really good rock bars and clubs. It changed a lot from the French Riviera which was and remains a cultural desert for the youth. London had no particular impact on me because I was listening to British music before I moved there anyway. And I didn’t follow any particular scene. There was no scene in London I felt close to. I just went to see quality British and international acts.
Tell me about forming Frank (Just Frank) and what the vision was with that project.
Well, FJF started when I was in high school. One night I went to Kirti’s place and we were practicing ‘Black Celebration’ on guitar and synth. The idea of writing our own track came to mind, and that’s how we came up with ‘The Closet Song’. So we started to record our own stuff on a more regular basis just for fun. We had no real vision apart from having the same ‘brutal’ approach to our music as death metal artists would. For example, there was this super technical death metal band from Bordeaux called Voracious Gangrene that we went to see the same year we starting recording FJF. On the back of their demo the official promo pic showed all the members of the band being hanged. We thought that was super cool and wanted to do the exact same thing. We just couldn’t do it because there was nowhere to do it and we had no rope. We didn’t think about butterflies like The Cure or retro-futurist concepts like Depeche Mode. We were playing synth-pop — jangly guitar music with a death metal frame of mind.
Can you tell me what brutal wave is?
It’s the style of music we play. We’re linked to the modern synth scene but we have elements of jangly guitars in our sound. Our influences are varied and we grew up in a different scene from the rest. In the extreme metal jargon, anything cool is referred to as ‘brutal’. Because we come from that scene, our synthy-wavy-jangly punk, to our eyes, was ‘brutal’.
Is there a big cold wave scene in France?
There was a big cold wave scene in France. In the 80s.
What is your vision as Anthem and how does your solo stuff differ from your stuff with Frank Just Frank?
Anthem is pretty much a pop act with influences that go from metal, to funk, to synth-pop, to prog. The lyrics are dumber and the mood is sexier. It’s capitalist.
Tell me about working with Weird and how that collaboration came about.
Glenn Maryansky found us on Myspace. He asked for a few tracks to play at the Weird party and, from what I recall, it was a success. So he asked for the entire “Brutal Wave” demo and played it every week. Through him I got in touch with Pieter and he decided to bring us over to play two gigs in NY. After two badly played gigs that everyone seemed to love he wanted to release a record et voilà !
How does nostalgia manifest itself in your work? Is it nostalgic for something you can remember?
I’m inflicted with the typical Mediterranean kind of nostalgia. The one I share with my fellow Italians. It’s a nostalgia that is based on nothing — just a desire to travel to distant lands because the sun and sea is so tempting. The colors of the sun setting at night in a forest of olive and pine trees. Extreme romanticism that makes you long for something you don’t quite know…It’s a big part of me. I base my best tracks on this strong feeling of nostalgia for something that is not always real like childhood…but something intangible.
What are some of your biggest musical influences?
I listen to such a wide variety of music, so pretty much everything that goes through my ears. For FJF we draw our influences exclusively from bands that were produced in the 80s, but with Anthem it’s a little larger than that. I add some metal, fusion, and funk influences — stuff like Type O Negative, Infectious Grooves etc.
Top five favorite artists of any medium?
Music: Peter Steele, Morrissey, Gary Numan
Poetry: Charles Baudelaire
Painting: Alfons Mucha
If you weren’t making music what would you be doing?
Making money.
Free form list of inspirations
I draw inspiration from anything that affects me. It can be something that happened to me or something creative like a film or a painting.
Best advice you’ve ever been given?
From my mother: “Quand on veut, on peut” (When you want, you can.)
Is there an instrument you can’t play that you want to pick up?
Harmonica.
In what directions do you see yourself starting to evolve as an artist? What are you working on now?
I don’t see myself as an artist. Right now I’m working on FJF’s next release. Don’t know if it will be a 7 inch or a full length, but I’ll keep you posted.
Make up your own question and answer it
Nah.
