London-based duo Franc Moody bring the heat, falsetto vocals, and adventure on sophomore record, Into The Ether.

Ever since Ned Franc and Jon Moody released their interstellar and instrumental debut single Yuri (an ode to Russian cosmonaut and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin) back in 2016 under the moniker Franc Moody [FM], the pair have been slowly and steadily designing their very own cosmic adventure. Inspired by the likes of George Clinton, James Brown and more recent artists such as Justice, Franc Moody have distilled an incredibly infectious sound that traverses elements of soul, funk, and disco. Over the last several years the band have cemented themselves as an extremely exciting act, thanks not only to their grooving EPs and 2020 debut LP Dream In Colour but also due to their exhilarating live shows. The live aspect of the FM project is a glorious feat of musicianship and acts as a heartwarming display of camaraderie between Ned, Jon and their live bandmates Amber-simone, Rosetta, Luke, and Dan. Throughout a live set they can whip up a crowd frenzy with ease, It’s something that Franc & Moody have been working on since their support slots with indie-electro trio Friendly Fires in 2018. But don’t assume they’re purely at the stage of supporting slots, Franc Moody is now an established and beloved entity with fans across the world, they’ve also sold-out headline shows in the UK and abroad, with a noticeable sold-out show at London’s renowned Shepherd Bush Empire. Yet you best believe there’s plenty more to come.

Now, Franc Moody are inviting you to uproot and escape into their universe on the duo’s second studio album Into The Ether. It’s a record that is packed to the brim with gorgeous soundscapes (the strings are to die for), lush vocals and dance-worthy moments. Thematically, the LP focuses on the pure bliss of escapism from the monotony of everyday life and sees the band have an “aspirational” outlook whilst they dream about their touring adventures so far, as the record was made during the lockdown. Undoubtedly it’s an otherworldly body of work which you will want to lose yourself in, just listen to lead singles Mass Appeal, Raining In L.A, or the instrumental heavy tune Here Comes The Drop and you’ll be left in a state of euphoria. To celebrate the album’s release today and the announcement of their headline Brixton Academy show next year, 1883’s Cameron Poole spoke with Ned & Jon all about the new record, spending a night out with Daniel Bedingfield, putting on raves, and more.

Hi Ned and Jon, thanks for chatting with 1883 Magazine. Franc Moody’s sophomore record Into The Ether is out now. As musicians and producers, were there any things you took away from the making of Dream In Colour and House Of FM that you wanted to implement on the new record?

Jon: With Into The Ether, because of the circumstance of the lockdown, we were forced into a position where we had to write in a different way compared to how we wrote previously to this record. So we had to work independently basically. Ned and I went away to our makeshift bedroom studios that we sort of bodged together, and we were very much having back and forth conversations where we would send each other tips, ideas, baselines or beats. And Ned would also send over a vocal or a guitar part or whatever. It was a new way for working for us which was interesting. It worked really well to a certain degree. We got to a point though where I think we just needed to get in the same room and just really get ideas from like 60% to 100%. But to get a load of initial ideas going was actually quite a good process. So it was something definitely new for us.

Jon: Personally, I’ll always prefer being in the same room because you can bounce ideas off each other and I think that’s when a lot of chemistry happens. When you’re in a room together you can suggest something else, mix things up, talk through ideas, and it all kind of amalgamates to something that’s kind of a power of everyone in the room. Do you see what I mean? So working separately was definitely the newest method we implemented on Into The Ether. For this record in particular, we also really wanted to use a bigger orchestral ensemble. That was a new experience for us. Usually, we have my mom and my sister. My mum is a violinist and my sister is a cellist, and they sort of layer up parts of the strings. But we wanted to capture a bigger room sound with a full-string orchestra on Into The Ether. So that was an amazing day, we recorded the strings near Oxford, it was just a great experience. I think it’s going to be very hard to come back from that now, the results are really good.

Thematically the album focuses on searching and striving for a promised land, as well as the desire for escapism and the joy of living for the moment. I think in the world we’re living in, it’s easy to get in your head and not really take note of the present. Is there a certain point in your project where you can really take note of the present rather than worrying about the future? If it helps to articulate my question better: for example, I’ve spoken to artists before who have said they’ve played huge live shows and don’t remember playing them, I’ve spoken to bands that have just released an album but they’re already thinking about the future. I think it’s important to take note of the present every once in a while. Especially for Franc Moody when you look back how much has happened in the last four or so years and where FM is now…

Ned: For sure, we definitely feel very satisfied with where we are now. The growth has definitely been relative to the effort that we’ve put in. You can see the gains from the time we put into this project, so that’s great. I think everything’s geared towards the live shows, I know there’s studio and writing albums time, obviously, that’s its own beast. We put everything into that writing time and like you said this particular album has certain concepts that we really went in on. But when we’re on stage playing live, I would say you cross a line at that point, the moment you go on stage. I know it might sound like an old hackneyed old cliche but when we go on stage we really are in the zone. Before that you’re unloading the van, you’re driving to the venue and even before that part, you’re routing the tour, you’re booking on Expedia, you’re trying to argue with someone at hotel reception that there’s an old sock in the room or someone at Airbnb that the bed is broken or as in one case, there’s a used condom in the front yard. But the moment we get on stage, and everything’s been set up and done brilliantly by Matty and Guy who are sound techs, we’re really in the moment and channelling energy from the crowd. It’s all that effort that goes in from writing tunes in the studio to organising the tours, to driving to the venues, that hour and twenty minutes on stage is our moment of being really present.

Jon: It’s a sacred time for me. It’s like an hour and twenty minutes of our time because you can’t think about anything else other than being in that room. It makes it all worth it, the preamble to get to that point. It’s the reward, it’s the good bit.

It does seem like when you’re on stage you really appreciate the moment and take note of the audience as well…

Jon: 100%. Our shows are very interactive I think. Personally, my favourite gigs that we’ve done are those rooms where you can literally just about see the person in the back and make eye contact with them. Case in point: We turned up to Boston, US,  the other day and had no idea what to expect. It was a room that was just about big enough to have that energy with everyone and as a result there, everyone was just swelling together kind of thing. It was very much like one entity that was formed between the band and the crowd and it’s really powerful. We definitely sort of strive for that whatever the venue is. We want it to be a very much an interactive experience. So we get as much from the crowd as hopefully they get from us.

In terms of escapism, Into The Ether is also a journey that finds the band living day to day in a small bubble of touring and visiting new lands, were there any key touring experiences that perhaps influenced this record or you think of in association with the record?

Ned: When we were writing the record, it was an aspirational kind of record because we obviously couldn’t tour at the time and so it was kind of this slightly misty-eyed nostalgia associated with missing tour and needing that creative hit. So we created this record. But for me anyway, we have too many memories to associate with it. We always have them on the WhatsApp groups we have with the band, like ‘Franc Moody 2018’, ‘Franc Moody 2019’, etc. So you have all these photos saved and we will all send each other funny moments from different tours and there are so many great little moments. All of these little moments have impacted the record. Take The Seven, for example, it’s really a celebration of those escapades and adventures that we went on as a band.

Jon: A sort of Motley Crue that’s joined at the hip, cruising through the land in a tin can. The little things like the horrible service station hot dog at 5am and all those kinds of little moments.

Ned: I was going to mention the hot dog as well, It’s all made from these little amusing things. This record is kind of a tongue-in-cheek version of The Odyssey.  Where Odysseus and his men sail around Greece and all the islands and have these crazy adventures with these beasts. For us, it’s kind of on a much smaller, cheaper, tackier, scale. We’re not exactly warriors but sort of strange, out of shape, people; that’s kind of our little way of explaining the record.

Jon: It’s a funk-fueled Odyssey.

Speaking of shows, over the last few years, Franc Moody has really cemented itself as an extremely exciting live act. What songs from album two are you excited to debut live? And now the band is gaining fans in different countries, how would you like to develop the FM live experience even further?

Jon: We’ve actually put most of the ones we’re excited about in the set already over the last couple of months just to kind of tease the record a bit. It’s been quite nice at shows to say, ‘do you want an exclusive preview of the track of the record?’ I think the track which is very exciting at this current moment is the last song on the album called In Transit. It’s quite a quick tune. It’s got a kind of jungle beat to it. It’s got lots of percussion, and a rip-roaring baseline kind of thing. It’s just incredibly fun. I love it because I don’t play any keyboards on it. I just run around the stage with a tambourine, I have the time of my life. But amongst the other tracks, they’re all working really well and have their place. When we write in the studio, we definitely always have one very firm eye on how it’s going to transpire into a live setting because it’s such a crucial thing for us. We’re always thinking about how to grow the show and make that swell of energy during the live set. So we’ve always kind of got one eye on the prize for that. So I think, as a result, there were certain songs written on this record which were very much designed for a certain part of the set.

Jon: I remember listening to this interview with Four Tet once, and he was saying that he wrote songs/produced songs always with the purpose of having a hole in the live set and he would think about the idea of how he wanted the energy to flow during the set and then he would make something that would fill that space within the set with whatever he came up with. I just thought that was a really cool way of doing things because you’re going to get a very genuine sort of product at the end of that because it’ll be something that you need in your set. In terms of developing the show, it’s always a constant development really, I mean, what we’re finding now actually, is that because this is our second full album, and we’ve released a couple of EPs before that, actually, we’ve got quite a few tunes now and we always think that the cardinal sin is playing too long. You want to keep everyone’s attention. So there is always a fierce battle about what songs are going to make the cut, five minutes before we go on stage. But there’s always constant development. We’ve got some great production coming in now for our Brixton Academy show in March 2023. We’ve got a great team so we’re building behind all that to make sure that you know everything grows accordingly to the venues.

When you were saying there are certain songs that particularly were written/designed with live performance being in mind, one song on Into The Ether that I felt is really designed for a live set is Here Comes The Drop. It really stood out for me. We need to talk about the voice actor, the gravelly sort of mysterious voice. Was this a sample you used or was it all recorded for the track?

Ned: From our trips in Louisiana, we had a musical connection in Lafayette, Louisiana. When we were mamking this song, we knew we wanted to do one like we had XX on Dream In Colour for A Little Something For The Weekend. She was brilliant at that and is a friend of ours. So we wanted the same sort of thing but ideally, we wanted a kind of spaghetti western, deep, gravelly voice to fit the kind of ethos of Into The Ether. So we wanted something like Sam Elliot from the Big Lebowski, that sort of thing. He’s kind of Western with a very deep.  We tried reaching out to a few people for the voice, one we got in touch with was Bruce Campbell’s [Evil Dead franchise]. But after getting in touch with his agent, we soon realised he was way out of our budget range. It would have cost $50,000.

No way?! It would have cost that much money to hire Campbell to say a few lines? But fair play.

Ned: Yeah for the couple of sentences we had written, they were keen. But anyway, in the end, we were like “who do we know that has a really amazing voice?” and the answer was Dickie Landry. He is a legend of South Louisiana. He’s a sax player. He’s an artist. He’s Cajun french.  He played with Paul Simon on Graceland. He played with Philip Glass and I think he’s played with a crazy amount of people basically. He’s had exhibitions at the Met in New York, playing his sax and doing these soundscapes. So he is a very cool guy.  So we message dickie and he’s us up for doing anything that he thinks is cool. Thankfully he thought our idea was cool and he was up for it. He then went into a studio near Lafayette and we sent him a script and he read for it. We wanted that Vincent Price thing that’s on Michael Jackson’s thriller.  Price was an old English actor that did the laugh on the song. So we wanted to kind of do our own version of that, but who better to do it than Mr Dickie Landry and he just delivered.

Jon: He delivered that sort of a lovely cajun hint and gravel. When we were cutting the audio up and we found the “Here comes the drop” line, we were so excited.

Ned: He’s just a real legend. It was a real honour to have him on the record.

I can recall the last time we spoke which was in 2018 for a different publication and you were just at the start of being a complete live act. Rosetta, Dan, and Luke all joined FM as live members around then and Amber-Simone joined shortly after I caught you guys live back then. It’s wonderful how there is a big emphasis on the others being part of the FM family. Simply, what do you admire the most about your friends, let’s hype them up…

Jon: I’m really glad you’ve asked this because they’re such a huge part of this project and their energy and what they bring to the live show really stands at the forefront of the Franc Moody culture. I mean to answer your question, they’re outstanding musicians, really one of a kind players and they all have an ability to take things to new places every time we play the same songs. Without fail, they all give their absolute heart and souls to performing, no matter whatever the weather or the jetlag and that’s a very unique quality. That aside, just their friendship and personality wise they’re all such an awesome gang. We feel incredibly blessed to be on this journey with them and we thank them hugely for putting up with all our bullshit and really look forward to growing it all together.

The FM family also extends to Becky and Adam at Juicebox, the record label that you release your work through. Can you share the story behind how you all came to work together and talk a little about the label, they have a great roster (you guys, Amber-Simone, Joe Hertz etc).

Ned: That extended into them having questions about you know… “why don’t you guys write an EP, and instrumental one?” which was our first EP, we are a bit reticent to do because we were so used to writing with vocals and stuff like that. We also didn’t really want to do a band project, we just wanted t do some writing. So that progressed to them managing us starting and then telling us that they wanted us to be an artist project, and we reluctantly did it. And the first gig was at Bermondsey Social Club, back in 2017. Actually, it was really Adam and Becky that kind of coaxed us into going from writing as a duo to into writing as an artist project, and then getting a band together, which we obviously pieced together. Then they’ve taken us on this huge journey. As we spoke about earlier before the interview, those guys have been super instrumental in managing this journey. Unlike a lot of bands, it is such a small team. It’s just those two.

Ned: In the past, there’s been Charlie and also Charlotte but Juicebox and us have really kind of navigated our way and built up slowly without the funds of a major label. It’s quite positive not being attached to a major as you’re then without the millions of fingers in the pie trying to sort of stir it. It’s just been a good journey. Genuinely if they hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have Franc Moody because we would never have started the band and actually got to this space we’re in. Without them, we would have released some absolute duffers but we’ve got quality control.

Jon: Or we would have released stuff at the wrong time as well. In our previous bands, the mentality was very much like gig all the time and they’ve sort of taught us this structured approach of making every gig a real impact point, and building it like that – slow and steady and working it in with releases. They’ve also taught us about…

Ned: Aesthetic.

Jon: Yes and we’ve both learned a huge amount through their guidance. They’ve been awesome. We love them so much. Juicebox is just very fortuitous that myself, Ned, Adam, Becky, Joe and Amber were all coming into this entity at the same time in our lives kind of thing. It was very fortuitous meeting each other. Joe [Hertz] also needs a huge mention here. Shortly after we met Adam as ned just explained, Joe got kicked out of his studio and then Adam persuaded us to get a room next to Joe’s new place. So we all went in and then suddenly we’re under the same roof as Joe and we had no idea how to produce or use a computer. We could barely send an email sort of thing. We were used to recording on tape, right analogue nutters. We would go into Joe’s room and be like, “Oh, Joe, can you help with EQing?” or “what’s a compressor?” that sort of stuff. In return, he would come in and be like “I need some new chords on this song. Can you just have a go?” for example.

Jon: It’s just been a really lovely and productive few years actually. Joe very much helped us, He mixed our first records as well and he was instrumental with some of the music aesthetic actually as well if I’m honest. For the first track we ever did, he hoiked those drums right up in the mix, which I think he probably just did very instinctively. But for us it, we suddenly heard everything in a new way. It sort of suddenly had a bit of a dance-y element to it and it’s more contemporary, I suppose with a big fat juicy kick drum right at the top of the mix. Before then we were all very much one mic on a drum kit and very old purists, daptone-esque, kind of produces, I suppose.

Just for any new readers who haven’t discovered you guys yet, you two have known each other for a fair few years and previously owned a warehouse space in Tottenham which you used to record music but also hosted parties in. Can you tell us a bit about these functions, are we talking full-on raves here?

Jon: 100%. So we moved into the space and we started trying to build our dream and then very quickly realised that the sort of £20 we had in our back pocket wasn’t going to get us very far and we need to find a way of getting money in. So we thought we’ve got this great space, we’ve know loads of bands, loads of DJs, let’s go buy a lot of booze and have a party. It was such a success and actually the fondest memories I have of that place by a mile and actually probably when Ned and I first started working together in a way that was just like we were sort of the driving force putting the parties on and helping run the ship. They were raves. One went on for a day and a half… a couple of days? haha. We’d have everyone wedged into this grotty warehouse with a band playing on the side at like five in the morning, DJs running all night, us desperately trying to run a bar somehow… a bunch of musicians trying to run a bar wasn’t the best move was it? haha. But that party culture/rave spirit thing is obviously something that we absolutely adore and live for and want it to be at the forefront of  how the Franc Moody live sets are for us. We wanted that kind of real raucous, sweaty, unavoidable energy kind of thing to be resonating through the shows.

As you both like to party, give me the go-to drink that you would concoct when letting loose…

Ned: Well the other day we had The Hoff’s birthday [Franc Moody’s Sound Engineer] and we were in Hamburg drinking whiskey sours all night. So maybe something like that.

Jon: Well tonight we’re going to another celebration for Hoff’s birthday at Amber’s house and I am instructed to bring the ingredients for coconut margaritas, so god knows how that’s going to work. Personally, I like a spicy drink, so I might make it a spicy coconut Margarita. But yeah, there’s often a hell of a lot of tequila kicking about backstage.

Ned: I mean I love a pint of Harvey’s which is a nod to my hometown.

Good choices.

Jon: Basically anything alcoholic and liquid haha.

Okay, I’m a big fan that you’ve both been taking note of the quirky hotel carpets whilst on tour. It’s really sad but I like to do something similar, if I’m in a new location, I like to check out the local Wetherspoons to see what it looks like. Extremely sad, I know.

Ned: It’s not, there’s a great legend, DJ Derek, who used to do that. Have you ever heard of the guy? He’s a Bristol DJ legend. Sadly, he went missing and was found passed away several years ago. But he was a legend. He was an old wrinkly white man that would DJ with a kind of patois Jamaican accent and DJ Jamaican tunes and old scar, it was just amazing. But his thing before he would DJ was that he would go to like seven different Wetherspoon pubs and have a pint in each one. What has been the best spoons you’ve been to? 

Not because it was like a really fancy interior or interesting building renovation but just because I’ve never been into Wetherspoons where they’ve played music. I went into one at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and they were just blasting music. It just made it more enjoyable.

Jon: They were well ahead of the game with the whole order and service thing when COVID came. They had the whole system down, that was a big appeal. I remember the big spoons at Gatwick, just find a seat, order up, and then suddenly you’ve got a plate of chips and a pint, it was great.

Ned: And also your friends could order for you from afar.

Jon: Yes, that’s also been quite a good gag, hasn’t it? Easy Life did that want, they put out “we’re on table 35 – please send things” and they got so much ridiculous stuff haha.

Okay, I got us a bit sidetracked there, alongside the wild carpets, what is the wildest thing you’ve seen happen whilst being out on the road?

Jon: It was wild in a very fan boy/girlish way but funnily enough, Daniel Bedingfield came to one of our shows in LA. He gave Hoff  such lovely feedback after the show and they exchanged numbers and Hoff was like “Daniel Bedingfield came up to me and said some lovely words and everything”. We were so gassed and were like “what the fuck? that is so nice!” The next night was our last show in LA, so we went out for a drink afterwards and I was like “Hoff, give your new mate a call. See if he wants to come out”. Ten minutes later Daniel rocks up in his Tesla and then before we know it, we’re sort of charging around the streets of LA in the back of his Tesla, blasting music and having a big old knees up and that was very much a kind of like…the garage loving 14-year-old Jon was pinching himself in this moment.

Ned: He was kind of dressed like a spaceman without the helmet.

Jon: That was wild, insanely wild.

Ned: There are so many strange moments…

Jon: That hot dog in that service station somewhere outside Bremen was pretty wild.

Ned: Yeah, I think that’s a pretty wild moment. The carpets were just something I noticed when we stayed in different places. Charlie Watts from The Rolling Stones used to draw every hotel bed he stayed in.

I think if we don’t mention the Franc Moody Telegram group chat, some of the fans might get a bit annoyed. Who came up with the idea for it and how easy do you find navigating being available to fans but also maintaining a private life?

Jon: it’s an interesting thing. It’s something that everyone battles with quite a lot and not just artists, literally everyone. Where is the line drawn in terms of what’s private and what’s public? but in terms of the Telegram thing, it started as a WhatsApp group actually and we just wanted to plug some ticket sales and before we knew it, we had quite a few people joining in for presale tickets and it was an opportunity to sort of build a hardcore unit of fans as it were. It actually turned out to be so lovely. It was such a nice community there. But we had it on a separate phone and that actually became problematic because we’d always lose the charger or not be able to get onto wifi, it just wasn’t quite as easy as we wanted it to be because we had this idea of it being very much just in your pocket and you can quickly send a picture or whatever or send a voice note or reply to something. Through leveller, which uses Telegram, they have built this infrastructure to be able to do this and to remain anonymous, our numbers are private.

Jon: We can chip in as much or as little as we want, and it’s really lovely, It’s such a nice bunch on there. Everyone shares songs and stories with each other. I think a lot of them are meeting up for some drinks before the show next week at Koko in London. It’s just a really nice way to build more of a focused community rather than your Instagram and your Twitter and all that kind of stuff. I always look at them as more like notice boards really, you know. But this is growth which is much more interactive, which again is at the heart of the Franc Moody show.

The WhatsApp chat was wild in the past, I’m thinking of Pastor Desmond as a prime example. That fake spam account.

Jon: Yes haha, we wrote about that as a bonus track for Dream In Colour.

Ned: We should actually put that track on the telegram now because it was on Patreon.

Jon: Yeah for those that have just joined. Yeah, that spammer account was just telling us that we can all get one step closer to God for £50  a month or whatever. 

Still cheaper than Campbell’s fee.

Both: Haha yeah.

Jon: But anyway, it turned into a good gag. There’s a legend of a fan out there called Oisin, the Irish lad. He made the Franc Moody t-shirt but has put Pastor Desmond in the same font on the back of it, big up Oisin.

Finally, what would you like to manifest for yourselves in 2023?

Jon: Our own hotel rooms probably haha. Not having to share would be good.

Ned: I just hope that the album is well received and that we play some good festivals and we have a good American run, a good UK/EU in March, and get our own hotel rooms. What else would be nice?

Jon: We have got Brixton Academy on sale now which is just crazy. It is such a mad thing to get our heads around. I think that will just be such a momentous moment. We’re just going to take everything as it comes and roll with it really and just try and Keep putting the show on.

Ned: It’s really funny when you look back at photos of us playing at Brixton Academy when we were supporting Friendly Fires, and we just have that small neon sign and nothing else. No gimmicks, just all of us together. It’s really cool. We should get two pictures of before and after – 2018 and 2023.

Jon: It should be a fun. We really hope that we can get some new countries as well. We’ve never been to Australia yet and I know we’ve got a little fan base out there. So everything crossed that we were able to get over there in 2023.

Ned: We want to also keep writing some bangers and some duffers. It’s going to be a mix of 90% duffers, 8% unfinished, 1% Publishing songs and  1% classics.

Jon: Haha! We’re going to have to start writing a lot of songs.

Into The Ether is out now. Follow Franc Moody @francmoody

Interview by Cameron Poole

Photography by Garry Jones Photography