Melbourne’s Frankenbok have been around for over ten years. They have a huge local fan base and are continually stretching themselves and their fans. FL recently caught up with the band’s new vocalist, Dan McDougall, to chat about the band and their latest achievements.
During Frankenbok’s 10 or 11-year journey, the band has almost done the parade of labels. After they left Roadrunner, and after the band made the decision to record their next album, there weren’t a great many options available. They ended up with WA’s Prime Cuts: a choice that has so far been a good one.
“We were keen to work with Dysie [head of Prime Cuts], and he was keen to do it. Working with Dysie is fantastic, we certainly believe it was the right choice. We’re very underground and he’s really supportive of underground music.”
Last year, Frankenbok released Murder of Songs, an album that got a lot of conflicting press. While the album is technically about a year old, the band is promoting it at the moment on their extended tour of the country. The story is that last year, due to one band member, Aaron, breaking his leg very badly, promo and touring wasn’t possible. At the moment, the dual promotion of Murder of Songs and concept EP The Last Ditch Redemption is in full-swing.
Given that Murder of Songs did get conflicting press, I asked the McDougall whether they take much notice of what the critics say; and it turned out that a lot of the bad press came from a dude who hadn’t even heard the album. The whole affair rubbed the band the wrong way.
“To a certain degree you have to [listen to the critics], you try not to let it get to you when somebody has a crack. We had a coupla stoushes in the previous year. At Zoo mag, a guy deliberately attacked us. The funny thing was that it didn’t make sense to us. We didn’t send that magazine a copy of the record and that got our backs up. We also know that he has a bit of a hard-on for our old singer, and was using the review as an avenue to plug his mate. We found out through him that he didn’t listen to it. They took the time to listen to the new one, but it wasn’t flattering this time either. But, you know, it is Zoo mag. We’re not talking about intelligent individuals…”
Frankenbok are known for heading out and doing shows in all sorts of places around Australia; they don’t just limit themselves to the capital cities like most bands. Part of their current tour is to get out into the country with a fresh outlook, to build up their fan-base, and to play with heaps of great bands. I asked Dan if they get much of a turn-out at the regional shows.
“It’s kind of hit and miss,” he replied. “Our intention with this tour is to really get out into these areas and build the fan base back up. The band used to go everywhere years ago, and they took a break and that damaged perceptions of the band. If you’re off the boards for a while it can take a while to get things back up.”
In terms of the way the shows run, McDougall said that they have done some awesome gigs. “We did Mt Gamber [in S.E. South Australia], and that show was kick-arse. Everyone there had an awesome time. I’m a country boy – before I was in Melbourne I lived in Lakes Entrance – and bands like Dreadnought and Damaged were as big to us, at 15, as Machine Head! Going to those places is very important, coz it’s all we can do in this country. It’s too big with too small a population to concentrate on the cities.”
The band’s current EP The Last Ditch Redemption is a concept EP. Part of the reason why the band did a concept EP and not a full-length is that they felt they had pretty well covered that sort of ground with Murder of Songs. Originally, The Last Ditch Redemption was going to be just thirty minutes of the one song – but for the fact that it would be too taxing.
“The back story of it is that when I joined the band, they had just got rid of Adam. They were going to promote that but then Aaron broke his leg severely in January, and couldn’t tour or anything. There were four left-over songs from the Murder of Songs recording sessions that were intended as an EP, but Adam never did vocals for them. He saw the songs as rejects and didn’t want to put in the effort with lyrics or anything. So we had some drum tracks and went back and re-recorded the guitars; Timmy wrote lyrics.
“I could see a pattern in the songs’ theme if they were in a certain order. So, to make it more significant than just four songs, we added segues, linked them with soundscapes so that there is no dead air from first to last songs. Originally we wanted just one song for thirty minutes, to fuck with peoples’ heads, but it would have been like shooting ourselves in the foot with radio, so we kinda ditched that idea.”
At the moment the band is going back to concentrating on jamming and playing shows every weekend. They’re also working on more film clips for upcoming releases. It seems that Frankenbok aren’t happy unless they’re busy.
“We wanna do a film clip for all four songs on the EP, join ‘em all together and create a DVD that has the whole concept put to film, rather than just being a visual to go with it. That’s our intention for our next release, that plus a live set that we intent do record at the end of the year, plus footage stuff of what we’ve done on tour. We wanna release it early next year, which will give us breathing space to work on the next record.”
If you are keen to check out Frankenbok, you can see ‘em at the following shows:
22 Aug – The Greenroom, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
23 Aug – Cambridge Hotel (AA – 2pm), Newcastle
23 Aug – Cambridge Hotel (18+, 8:30pm), Newcastle
30 Aug – The Tote, Collingwood, Victoria
4 Sep – Brannigans, Gold Coast, Queensland
5 Sep – Rosies, Brisbane
18 Sep – Sodens, Albury, New South Wales
19 Sep – The Home Tavern, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
20 Sep – Victoria Hotel, Orange, New South Wales
27 Nov – O’Dowds Irish Pub, Rockhampton, Queensland
28 Nov – Bombay Rock, Townsville, Queensland
29 Nov – Meteors Sports Club, Gladstone, Queensland
