Neil Frances Brought Blissful Funk to Brooklyn
office spoke with Neil Frances ahead of the show about their creative process, new music, and more.
Your debut album came 6 years after making EPs and singles — how does it feel to be in this moment now, performing songs from your album on tour?
Marc Gilfry — When we started the tour, the album wasn't released yet. So at first, we didn't want to play a bunch of songs nobody knows. We've kind of adapted the set to include some old material along with some of the new songs. There are a couple of moments in the set that are very album-centric. The intro song that we use is one of the interludes from the album and then as soon as we finish, we also play one of our favorite tracks on the album. It's all sample-based. It's something that was edited together from this Patrice Rushen song. So now I feel like we have these bookends to start and end the show.
And you mention samples; where do you guys find a lot of your samples?
Jordan Feller — Recently, Spotify. Spotify has us figured out to a T with its algorithm. We DJ a lot — we'll do long DJ sets in a couple of places around LA. So we play for four or five hours and we need a big array of music. So one thing I like to do is play, for instance, a rap song, and then I'll mix into the rap song what the sample actually is in the rap song. Spotify has picked up that I do that or that I search for music like that and it'll feed me in my Discover Weekly, those exact samples. And then I also have a playlist in Spotify that when I hear stuff, I'll put it in there. So if I'm bored in the studio or I'm not really feeling what I'm personally doing with my hands, I'll go look at what I've got in my sample bank. It's always, honestly, maybe as much fun — if not more. It's not my music, it's not my hands playing the chords or making the drums or anything like that. It's just, 'Grab it. Don't think. Loop stuff,' whatever. And just see what happens.
It's very serendipitous. I also read that you guys have been together as a duo for a while and I’m sure you’ve learned the best ways to collaborate and bounce off of each other. Are your creative processes similar or different?
M — Completely different.
J — Oh, I think we perfectly balance each other's idiosyncrasies. Marc's a lot more gifted at coming up with melodies. Obviously, he's a great singer. I don't sing — can't sing; you don't wanna hear me sing, but I do find a way to squeeze myself on records every now and again. With ad-libs and things like that.
M — There's a part on our song “Downtown” that I, for the longest time since it's been released — which has probably been about three or four years — I thought it was me. I had no idea he snuck something in. And it turns out he threw his voice through a bunch of pedals. And I don't know if he was trying to imitate me or what, but we were in the car driving on tour recently and he was like, 'You know that's me in the beginning of that,' and I was like, 'What the fuck?' That's hilarious. I think that your music gives you such a great opportunity to really interact with your audiences.
What is one song off of your latest album that really gets crowds going?
M — “Where I Become Someone” is really hitting. That's the track that we collaborated with Benny Sings on. I think that it's just such a funky, down-tempo groove that everyone gets into it. It's one of those songs that you can't help but groove to, you know? It's funny, I think that for us — and maybe this is cliche — but it's so much more about the audience and the experience than us performing. We want people to dance. We want people to have this journey with us. We really do care whether or not the audience is happy.
I mean, yeah. I feel like that's more than half of it — that's such a big part of performing.
M — It's this crazy ritual that we've been doing for millennia where people are on a stage and they do something for like a few minutes and then the audience reacts to you and you bounce back and forth and it's kind of strange. It's absurd. I was thinking about if aliens came down and watched that they'd be like, 'What the fuck are you guys doing?' But I don't know. I think that moment of applause is great, and we like that. But it's also about the energy you can feel during the song. That's where it's at. I love a good cheer, but I would almost rather just see everyone dancing and not even looking at us for the whole set.
For sure; you want it to be an immersive experience.
M — A hundred percent.
What is your favorite song to perform, personally?
J — At the moment, I actually really like performing “Where I Become Someone.” I have a lot of things happening in my setup on stage and it's a good representation of basically everything that I have going on there. It's not so difficult that I ever feel like I'm two stacks behind chasing myself. It's a nice balance between everything and it feels good. And for a new song, it's always kind of awkward sometimes playing new stuff while you wait for your audience to know the song. But whether you know it or not, it hits right away the way it comes in and the way we play it.
M — My favorite is “Be Free.” I think that I kind of take it upon myself to try to live the lyrics. I really zone out and kind of go into my own world. So it's almost like a meditated, weird moment in the set where I can forget that I'm on stage.
Do you ever stray from set-lists and instead decide to just play what matches the mood or vibe of that particular show?
M — We change it. We cut songs on the fly. We don't usually change the order, but the other thing that we do a lot of is, we'll start an intro and it's never the same length every song because sometimes it's just not what we're feeling. Sometimes it's just like, 'Dude, I'm not ready.' But that's also a really important part of how we've set up the live set. We don't use any computers or playback or any of that. So we can kind of do things differently every night. And I've been in bands where we've been playing to a click and a computer and it sucks because you can't just be musical in the moment. So this whole tour has been a real reassurance that we're doing this right.
J — There's a real connection between all of the humans on stage. We need each other. It's not just one person, not just the singer, not just me, not just the drums. All of us have to be locked in together. You'll see, when we do “Be Free,” we're not counting bars. We just sit there and wait for him to say, 'Okay, come down.' I've never personally played in a band. This is the first band I've ever played in — I've always been a producer. So I hear when other people have clicks and stuff, they have cues in their ears. But I like playing freely.
M — And, I mean, there are bands that are amazing and use tracks.
Of course.
M — So I'm totally behind anybody that wants to do that. It's just, for me, it's such a breath of fresh air to not worry about using tracks, and I know because I've done it. When you want to make a change, it requires a lot of work and that kind of kills the creative process. Whereas we can just be like, 'Okay, from the top. Let's do it again. Let's do this differently.'
My last question for you guys is coming off of the debut album, are there already plans for another one?
M — We know we will make another one, but we haven't started.
J — We’ve graduated to an album act. We've got a lot of singles and EPs. I've done basically everything you can do without placing an album. And now we've made the album. I feel like, creatively, you can express more with an album than with just making singles. Not that there's anything wrong with singles. You just have to be extremely hard on yourself in picking the best song that's going to be received well. But with an album, you can have moments where it's not about streaming. It's not about what you think will work best. It's about liking the music for what it is, and that's it.
