Franks Road To Release First Album

With the May-August Sessions over, Franks Road has spent hours grazing through the close to five hours of material they were left with. The result is the forthcoming “a loosely themed album.” Franks Road, whose members are Scott Graham, Ross McIntyre, Peter Vooys and Trevor White, formed together in May of 2005 drawn together by a desire to create music. Each member takes turns on vocal, lead and rhythm guitars, and all members are comfortable with harmonica. The songs are hugely improvisational, each member feeding off the other and they do it well. I sat down with Franks Road to ask them a little about their music, their album, and trees.

VG – How would you classify your music?
Graham – Amazing. Seriously though, I am constantly impressed with what this band is turning out. The May-June Sessions were very productive and I’m pleased with what came out of them. I think that you’ll see a record that is a mix between Phish, The Acorn, and Explosions In the Sky.
Vooys - We're about making music that you can get lost in. Landscapes of sound if you will.
VG – What should fans expect from your new album?
McIntyre – Well, keeping in mind that it was recorded on a digital camera, I think people will be surprised how good it sounds.
White – The album is hugely improvised. As well there is a very loose theme running through the album that we’ll let the listener determine what it is. It’ll make the listener think about what they’re hearing.
McIntyre – Well, we really wanted an album that was acoustically pleasing, and yet had some sort of undercurrent that the attentive listener could get.
VG – What exactly is Franks Road? What does your name mean?
McIntyre –Well, we were in Peterborough, just before we recorded the Locks Sessions, and thought that it was time to get a name for ourselves. So we started throwing out different names, I can’t even remember what they were, and then said, ‘lets not do this, the name will come when it comes.’ You know? Whatever name we took would mean something and kind of pop out at us.
Graham – Just after that had been said, someone said, ‘what about Franks Road?’
McIntyre – Well, when we heard that, we knew that was it.
White – Franks Road is the road that the Camp we all worked at is on. That’s where we all met, and that’s where a majority of our material was recorded. It just seemed to fit.

VG – You use a lot of tree and outdoor imagery in your work. What’s the connection to Franks Road?
Graham – Some of that comes from the way this album was packaged. We feature some of the work of Dustin Privett, an amateur photographer, member of Concepts.Inc. and a friend of the band. He’s a fan of the outdoors, much like we are.
White – Like I said, Camp Quin-Mo-Lac is on Franks Road. The environment is inevitably tied to camping. We’re big supporters of the outdoors and of appreciating the beauty of the world around you.
Vooys – You have to be able to step back and recognise how incredible things are around you. The earth really isn’t a cold, dead place.
VG – That’s from Explosions In the Sky.
Vooys – I know. I liked the message and the sound of it so I threw in a song. It doesn’t really matter who said it, it just matters that you understand what it means.
McIntyre – Well, we’re just supporting the Earth in our own little way.
VG – Thanks guys it’s been a pleasure talking with you and good luck with the album.
Franks Road – Thanks Glen.

“a loosely themed album” comes out this month from Franks Road.

Glen.Concepts.Inc.