More on: FrankMusik

Frankmusik, aka 22 year old Londoner Vincent Frank, released his debut EP 'Frankisum' last year, and we caught up with the whizzkid singer, producer and remixer as new single 'In Step' is unleashed.

Vincent, who has just finished touring with both Alphabeat and Sam Sparro, told us how work's going on his debut album, and how he's being forced to detach himself from his own music.

To find out where all this glorious electro pop has come from, we start at the beginning of the life of Frankmusik...

You went to boarding school - what was life like there?
My mum's always driven really small cars, so we've always had to consolidate one lifestyle, when you go away, as you're literally away for weeks on end. The essentials would've always been food. Nice food, like Jaffa Cakes and discount noodles. They were the essentials. They always fed you quite bland food - you always wanted your sugar intake! I have a very sweet tooth. A very nice featherdown duvet. I'm making it sound bad, but it was quite a harsh school, but it made me all the better. You become very independent - you either live it, or you die. You either become void and you disappear into the fabric of the school or you make yourself a character there. They were very encouraging with the arts - they had a very good art department, and a very good music department. It's what helped me, as you have nothing to do there. Like, if you're not a sports person - and I wasn't - you'd need other things to entertain you. For me, it was sitting in front of the piano for hours on end. It was therapy.

Afterwards you dropped out of university...
I went to St Martins for a year, and I managed to scrape my way through, then I went to the London College Of Fashion and dropped out. I never took any of it seriously. I don't take the latter stages of education seriously at all. It's a little bit too conformed. I was on the back of a bus with all these subjects in front of me, and I thought, well I suppose I should choose my course. I just closed my eyes and pointed. I got in and hated it, so left after a year, and tried to do music full time.

When did 'Frankmusik' start to take shape?
About a month after my grandad died, who was called Frank. I realised how short life could be. He supported me, he sent me to private school, he paid for it. I was indebted to him to some degree. Instead of trying to let him go, I decided to live, and have my career under his name.

What were you listening to growing up?
I think every one of my mum's 1980s 7" collection, there were gems all over the shop. I'm a very nostalgic person - some would say that's a bad thing - and I do look at the years I was born and think that was a really interesting point in music. A lot of good music came out of the Eighties, whatever anyone says! I love 'Valerie' [Stevie Winwood] the sound is so good, the synths and stuff, Billy Ocean's 'Get Out Of My Car' - that's probably one of my biggest tunes. Dire Straits, 'Money For Nothing'. I like big power ballads.

You've said all your songs about relationships - have you had any repercussions, good or bad, from being so honest?
The only repercussions are on myself, only on my own shoulders. Once you're documenting very dark points in your life, you have to relive them over and over again in these interviews, and creative meetings. You never can escape it. I'm in a transition period now, where the events that I wrote about for the album, they only stopped happening seven months ago, which isn't really that long ago, so I'm trying to work out how to detach myself from my own music, but still do it with a passion. It is quite a difficult job.

What are your views on pop music today?
Pop music, previous to the last few years, has had a very bad reputation. It comes with the reputation of being very manufactured, and very plastic. And of course, that's what it was. There are still areas where that happens. New to us, which no-on could've predicted, was the X Factor thing - it's changed the whole opinion on pop music. Everyone's a judge, everyone's now Simon Cowell. There are two sides to it nowadays - there's the music that's coming through that's decent independent songwriters who are the actual artists, with the concept of pop without coming across as brash and manufactured. Then there's the very obvious, selling to the housewives, commuters of this nation we live in.

Who are you excited about in the current music scene?
Me, really, to be completely honest! I always try to do something that no-one else is doing, and I can't find anyone else out there. I'm looking! I want to meet them! If I was to be not so narcissistic for a second, I suppose things that excite me... um... I can't think of anything. There's absolutely nothing that excites me, apart from old stuff that I find and didn't know about.

What's the status of your debut album?
Because the album's not coming out until March 2009, I've got Stuart Price working on the record. I could namedrop the fact that, you know, he did Madonna's last album... but I don't need to... sorry. [laughs]. He's very, very, very talented, and very successful, and I think he sees a bit of me in him, when he was younger. He's very inspiring to work with, and there's no ego, and there's no bullshit, like a lot of big producers can have, when you go into their studio, and take up their time - this is very much an us project. He's gone to America to do The Killers' album, when he comes back in July, we'll be working on mine for about three weeks.

What's your live set up?
Well, the interesting thing is about Stuart is that he's offered to direct my live show, so that's going to change it quite a lot. The current stage show is, a female drummer on a mixture of electronic and live drums, and Terry, who's playing keyboards onstage. A bit of backing track - not too much. And then me being the frontman! Well, I try to do the frontman thing. We've supported Alphabeat and Sam Sparro, and we've held our own! It's early days, but we're really happy at the moment.

What was life like on the recent Wonky Pop Tour, with Alphabeat and Leon Jean Marie?
Pretty wonky. It was my first experience of "the road", and you know, when you're in the studio, it's very controlled. You can be the biggest control freak you want. On the road, you're open to so many variables. Anything can happen, and I wasn't very prepared for that to start off with, and I had to loosen up and relax a bit. It was a learning curve for me, personally.

Becky Reed

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