Frank & The Beats: Four Lads Who Shook The Attic And Brought The Roof Down With Them

The Punk Site caught up with front man Frank to talk about all things to do with the excellent agit pop band. Frank And The Beats are the kind of band NME would’ve slapped on the cover in ’94 and called “The Only Band That Matters This Fortnight”. A Molotov of northern grit and terrace-poet choruses, they’re mainlining agit-pop straight into the national bloodstream. Fresh from reducing Neck of the Woods to rubble and road-testing new bruiser ‘Never Forget Where You Come From’, they’re living proof that guitars didn’t die – they just got angrier, funnier, and better dressed. We collared Frank backstage: fag in hand, eyes like lit fuses, ready to hold forth on everything from analogue hiss to anarcho- democracy. Cue the sermon.

Let’s start at the genesis. How did Frank And The Beats coalesce, and what incandescent, epoch-defining records were in heavy rotation when you first electrified a rehearsal room? Think birth pangs, divine interventions, and the kind of vinyl that leaves scorch marks.

“I’d been playing solo for years, and had never actually been in a band until now. One day I thought ‘right, life is short, I’m actually gonna do this’. So I put out a Facebook ad with links to my demos, and John (guitar) and Nate (drums) found them and contacted me. By our second practice, we were absolutely smashing out some of the songs. We couldn’t find a bassist for a bit, and briefly had Ben in the band, but he decided to leave to start his own. We then found Dan (bass) in quite a funny way. John and I had met for a pint to discuss how to replace Ben, who had left the band the night before. Funnily enough, there was a jam night on at the Spinning Top in Stockport, where we found Dan, and immediately asked if he’d be up for joining. He’d only rehearsed with us 3-4 times before we played our first set together. We all just gelled immediately to be fair. John & I were listening to a lot of 60s and punk-poet type stuff around then, like Protomartyr, and Nate and I likened our stuff to Yard Act, who we love. There was quite a 60s edge to our initial setlist, but some of these songs don’t quite cut it now that we’re playing our more recent material. The shows have since evolved into sweaty, dance-fueled events, really. Each gig got a bit more manic, a bit sweatier, next thing, you’re being asked to headline the Deaf Institute, and being invited to play with the Blockheads, it’s outrageous when you think about it! But I live for it. I don’t want to be doing anything else.”

Your live shows are visceral, unhinged, transcendent – a sort of holy pandemonium. RGM posited you “channelled chaos, fun, and real crowd connection in equal parts”. Articulate the maelstrom from the stage. And the perennial dialectic that divides men from poseurs: do you venerate the corporeal communion of live performance, or the meticulous, hermetic control of the studio?

“Thank you. Nothing beats that feeling of performing with the lads. You can see this when we play. We move about, we give it some. We leave everything on that stage. Our shows invite the crowd to let loose and enjoy themselves. I think this is why we connect with people. Personally, I can’t be arsed going to see a band and not feeling them give it some. And I don’t mean they have to be jumping about like idiots all the time, but I want to hear what makes them feel alive, and what keeps them up at night. I want to connect, and the performance needs to be an invitation to do that. So naturally, I think, you do that yourself. We’re putting on a headline show at the Eagle Inn on the 30th of May, going back to where we played our first ever set. The Eagle have supported us since day one, and they do so much for grassroots music. We want to get that room bouncing and absolutely tear the roof off. Give the people something to remember. The creative side feels more solitary and therapeutic to me. I generally write in my own space to try to make sense ofwhatever’s going on. If I feel something, I’ll make a demo, and then we’ll play it together and see what happens. Performing live with the lads is the thing I love more than anything in the world, though. It’s more than love, really. I don’t have a clue what we’d be doing without music. We say it all the time.”

Current dispatches from the front line – what’s available now for the ravenous public, the converts, the yet-to-be-radicalised? You’ve debuted ‘Never Forget Where You Come From’ and it’s already a set-closer-cum-riot-starter. What else comprises the canon? And presciently, are you already immured in the studio, alchemising the next transmission while the last one still smoulders?

“We have four tracks out. Shoot the Cameras and Life Will Be the Death of Me have been really popular, and Life was played on BBC Introducing, which is cool. We recently recorded ‘Never Forget Where You Come From’, which feels very universal. I think that’s a song for anyone and everyone. We’ve also just recorded live versions of ‘I Found Heaven’ and ‘Coming Up’, in Salford Arts Theatre, of all places. John the engineer described it as like ‘recording Led Zepellin in a fucking castle’. Sometimes the energy can get lost when recording track by track in a studio, and our live shows have really blown heads in the last year, so we thought, why not try to capture this and build the song around it? We’re still figuring some things out, but we are planning on recording and releasing a lot of music this year.”

Influences – eschew the sanitised press release and the Top 5 Albums You’ve Never Heard. We demand the granular, forensic truth. Dissect it, member by member. What spectral fingerprints haunt your basslines, what atavistic ghosts possess your drum patterns, which dog-eared vinyl and pilfered C90s forged your guitar tone and lyrical lexicon? Bedrooms, older siblings, youth clubs, stolen moments – give us the anthropology of your noise.

“My Dad performed in soul bands when I was a kid, so there was a lot of The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye. Heis a massive Prince fan, so I grew up heavily on Prince. In my teens, Arctic Monkeys and The Streets were two of my favourites. I loved Oasis too, but it was actually Noel Gallagher’s first solo album that inspired me to learn the guitar and start writing songs. Then you start digging into the past, The Beatles, The Clash, Sex Pistols. I’d say Bob Dylan was the big find for me, though. Dylan’s run in the mid-sixties I don’t think will ever be topped, Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde, just unbelievable. I remember first hearing Dylan and thinking, ‘this isn’t how people usually sing, and it shouldn’t sound good, but it sounds incredible’. Refusing to be what others told him he is, that’s punk at its core. And this gave me the confidence to hone in on what makes me stand out, and use limitations as strengths. John Cooper Clarke has massively influenced my writing as well. ‘I Don’t Want to Be Nice’ still blows my head off every time. I think in recent years, I’ve been massively inspired by a lot of literature, especially philosophy. You start to do some digging on yourself as you grow up. Albert Camus is a big one. My lyrics are very philosophical in nature and grapple with what it means to exist, which I guess we’re always figuring out over and over again. As a band, we have quite different music tastes, really. I think this is one of our strengths. If we were also listening to the same things, we’d probably end up sounding like the thing we’re listening to. But each of us brings a different edge to the music.“

Influential albums

John: “Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf, Red Hot Chilli Peppers -Californication, The Clash – Combat Rock, The Stooges – Raw Power, FOALS – Antidotes”

Dan: “Nomeansno – Why do they call me Mr Happy, Ezra Furman – Day of The Dog, Black Country New Road – Ants from up there, Streetlight Manifesto – Somewhere in the Between, Victims Family – The Germ”

Nate: “Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, The Collected Highs – Angelic Upstarts, Pink Floyd – The Final Cut / Animals, The Who – Who’s Next, Red Hot Chilli Peppers – By the Way, Limp Bizkit: Chocolate Starfish and Hotdog Flavoured Water”

Frank: “Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited, Fontaines DC – Dogrel, The La’s – The La’s, The Streets – Original Pirate Material, Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues”

Songcraft – anatomise it with surgical precision. Frank, elucidate the process and burn the rulebook. The hoary cliché be damned: what begets what, lyric or melody? Chart the metamorphosis from inchoate kitchen hum to ‘Life Will Be the Death of Me’ detonating in 300-cap rooms like a dole-queue psalm. What leitmotifs obsess you? Where does the epiphany strike – insomniac 3am dread, rain-streaked bus windows, internecine fallouts, or obstinate, blue-collar hope?

“Epiphany strikes any place at any time; you just need to be aware so you can capture lightning when it strikes. Conversations with people present the best lyrics to you, I think. Sometimes, a line that sounds phonetically pleasing will spark inspiration; sometimes it is a chord progression and whatever you belt out over it, and sometimes a beat will do this. I try to put as little thought as possible into the initial creative process; it’s almost like a stream of consciousness, or a moment in time that you capture. I like to scat over the guitar. Sometimes you strike gold, sometimes you don’t, and usually you don’t! But you have to enjoy the process. You know when you’ve struck gold, because you’ve felt it before. Sometimes the songs write themselves, but some take a bit more time than others, usually the lyrics. Like the lyrics to our song ‘Lullaby’, which is one of my favourites, came to me in a 10-15 minute period, 9 months after writing the initial chord progression and hook. My sister was in labour with my niece, and something seemed to spark inspiration. Was Lullaby about my niece being born? Fuck knows, but it sounds mega, and who am I to tell people what my songs are about? Art is subjective; it doesn’t matter what it’s about, it’s how it makes you feel. That’s what keeps me inspired, as you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I’ve even written these songs, and it feels like something that has just happened to you, you know? You just need to be present to catch it. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Format fetishism and fidelity: This is the hill scenesters die on. What’s your preferred medium – the ritualistic heft and sleeve-art sacrament of vinyl, the utilitarian ubiquity of MP3, the lo-fi romance and pen-scrawled inlay of cassette, or the gloriously obsolete, dashboard-relic 8-track cartridge? And in the studio, are you an analogue purist genuflecting at the altar of reel-to-reel tape warmth, or do you embrace the cold, unblinking omniscience of digital?

“I have a vinyl collection, albeit very small. There’s Prince, D’Angelo, Wu-Tang Clan, The 1975, The Clash, The Fall, Bob Marley, Bon Iver, Fontaines DC. I love listening to records, but I’m not going to pretend that I don’t use Spotify every single day! How we consume musically has obviously drastically changed over time, but we don’t have to let it change what we nconsume. We can’t allow our tastes to be manufactured by algorithms. I haven’t had much opportunity to experiment with traditional ways of recording, that’s just because I grew up in the 2000s, with MP3 players and iPods. I’ve been using voice notes on my phone to record ideas forever. I’ve got around 10,000 or so recordings or something silly. And I record all of my demos on Logic Pro. I fucking love Logic. I’ve used it for years. Where we record at South City Studios has a lot of beautiful analogue gear, and I bet the compressors there cost more than Logic alone. Unfortunately, gear is mega expensive, so kids just need to record by whatever means they can, and buying a DAW and a couple of cheap mics is quite an efficient way to start. You can worry about proper studio gear once you’ve worked on your craft and have a body of work worth recording.“

Praxis and process: When tracking, is it a spartan, DIY signal path – everything straight through the desk, no frills, no lies – or do you marshal cathedralic stacks of amplification until the plaster cracks? Where’s your ecclesiastical space – a bedroom under siege from next door’s telly, a damp lock-up with more mould than mics, or a hallowed studio with actual tea-making facilities? And pragmatically, is DIY recording a financially punitive endeavour fornthe skint and principled, or can salvation be found on a shoestring and a prayer?

“In a live setting, John (guitar) and Dan (bass) go through their amps, and I plug my acoustic into the desk. We are minimalists by nature. We don’t need shiny bells and whistles. Our energy is our performance, and the songs speak for themselves. Saying that, it doesn’t mean we don’t give anythought to our live sound. John is meticulous in his tonal approach and has a fantastic ear for these things. Dan is very similar, and he is very good at using modes. I’d say Nate’s drumming is the true orchestrator of our live sound. If he’s firing, then we’re all firing. But the thing for me with these lads is their decision-making is top. No one overplays. They never shred or go wild on their instrument just because they can, and trust me, they can! We all trust each other, we play to the songs, and we shine together because of that. The songs we’ve put out were recorded at South City Studios in Stockport. George, the engineer, is top drawer. They have a lot of analogue, and our recent recording of ‘Never Forget Where You Come From’ was done there. I mentioned we also experimented with live recordings at Salford Arts Theatre. So, I’m really excited to see how these live sessions turned out. They feel very human, which I think is the kind of music that people are craving. In the age of social media brain rot, we’ve seen how popular bands like Geese and Angine de Poitrine have become recently. It’s because they are raw and real, and unusual. Our band is a real-life experience. I want us to hone in on that, the raw, flawed human edge. So yeah, artists should absolutely be DIY recording. I record DIY in the form of a demo. I would love for us to take complete charge of our recordings, and perhaps one day that will happen. The reason we can’t do more of that is that we don’t have a drum kit between us, nor do we really have the means of recording drums where any of us live! You just need to do what you can. There is no right or wrong way.”

Power dynamics and polity: Peel back the curtain. Does Frank And The Beats operate as a utopian, four-way democracy, or are you the benevolent autocrat, the de facto Minister for Agit-Prop? Do you delegate with comradely generosity, or do you dictate repertoire, aesthetic, and image with an iron, albeit velvet-gloved, fist? Who calls the shots when the shots matter?

“Hahaha, Frank the Autocrat. I suppose there is a balance. The band was initially my project, and we have evolved to become a proper band, rather than a solo project with a band. I will write the songs, demo them, and send them to the lads. I‘m not particular about everything being exactly as I’ve written. John makes his solos and has added riffs, Nate and Dan take the rhythm sections to other places. It stems from my vision, but the band is what makes the songs come to life. I trust them in their taste. They are more experienced in band settings than I am and have been doing this longer. I rely on their input and their thoughts on everything. We are a team, and I suppose I am the captain, as Nate puts it.”

Demographics and design: Survey the pit. Who’s foaming at the barrier? Do you have a target audience, a sociological profile you’re courting with laser-guided precision, or are you proselytising to a broad church of the pissed-off and passionate? Are you agit-pop for the disenfranchised few, or are you gunning for total cultural ubiquity – the kind that gets you banned from breakfast TV?

“We make real music for real people. We don’t hide from who we are. You know who we are when you watch us perform. Not just from what’s being said, but how it’s said. Our band was formed on the notion that life is too short to not be doing what you love. Our music is for anyone who truly embraces themselves, as I guess our songs are essentially about me wrestling with existence, and that is something we all do each day. No one is out of place at our shows; the invitation is open. In Manchester, we’ve already had some nights we’ll remember forever. This is what’s important, and naturally, we want to do this on a wider scale, but I don’t really think much about whether we want to become a cult band or a widespread cultural phenomenon. I don’t know if we have any say on that. Like, you don’t get to choose what your best song is, do you? The fans do that. What I care about is building real connections with others through doing what we love the most, which is playing and making music. As long as what we’re doing is real, then things can happen.

The industry is a desiccated husk, a zombie in a waistcoat flogging NFTs. Securing a traditional record deal is now Sisyphean, and probably undesirable. Are you soliciting third-party contracts, major-label Mephistopheles or venerated indie imprint, or will you remain proudly autonomous – self-promoting, self-releasing, retaining your masters, your publishing, your soul, and telling the gatekeepers to swivel?

“Hah, yet one must imagine Sisyphus happy, right? We only want to work with those who believe in what we’re doing. We are a DIY band, we run our socials, we fund our recordings, we go to other gigs on the scene, build relationships with other artists we love and respect, and work with promoters who do it for the love of the game. We aren’t against signing a big record deal, it just has to allow us to be. Frank & The Beats simply couldn’t work if we were to have to ‘tweak’ anything to a certain demographic. You don’t get anywhere by submitting to what a suit says will work. The concept is a bit stupid anyway, how do record labels know what the audience wants? I remember seeing Yard Act play at a festival years ago and thinking, ‘what the fuck it this? I love it’. I would never have been able to describe wanting that sound. As I said about Geese and Angine de Poitrine earlier, this doesn’t fit ‘what works’, yet, people fucking love it. Imagine telling Joy Division to polish their sound, or Peter Hook to play the bass like a normal bassist. Or telling The Fall ‘this is a bit too gritty this’. The audience doesn’t know what they want until they see it! So just get out there, do your thing, connect with people through your passions, and enjoy your life.

For more on Frank & The Beats head here. Catch them before the hype goes supernova and you’re telling people you “liked them before they were cool”