At this time of year, we always end up needing a new summer band. Everyone needs one. A new up and coming band with a summery-indie-pop vibe to take us all away in our heads to a blissful beach. Well, the beauty of St Albans’ Franklin, is that they can literally take you away to Fistral beach and Watergate Bay in Newquay from the 10th of August for 5 days. We at IndieCentralMusic are stoked to be part of Boardmasters this year, and to start we spoke with Franklin to find out what they’re bringing to the festival that is unlike no other.
Stephen McMahon: First of all, what is the band about?
Franklin: We’re a four-piece indie band. We tend to sway to the indie-surf side mainly just because we love to surf and spent a lot of time involved in surfing as children. We like to bring a bit more ambience to our sound. Our track ‘Blueberry Sky’ has the ocean sounding in it and a very beach sound to it. That’s us.
Stephen McMahon: Describe your approach to the festival scene this year?
Franklin: Well, we haven’t really been targeting loads of festivals this year, mainly because we’ve been spending a lot of the year in the studio recording our new EP. The only one we really wanted to play is Boardmasters. We love it there and had a great time last year. We played a few independent festivals as well, but our approach to getting them is emailing and informing them on our band and hoping for the best. Next year will be the main year once all the new music’s out. We will be looking at getting loads of festivals done. We hope to play Boardmasters again, Barn On The Farm, Latitude and Wilderness festival to name a few. We will be aiming for Reading and Leeds, and even asking BBC Introducing to see if they have anything we can play.
Stephen McMahon: When it comes to the reception of your music, how is it going down? Is it a fairly local response or are you seeing fans from broader horizons?
Franklin: I wouldn’t say its local, if anything local is less of a scene for us. We think its because people who know who we are don’t think too much of it. Online our biggest stream is in LA, America. Loads more of our streams are abroad as well in Europe. When we play another gig after the other, we tend to have bigger groups of fans. And when we toured with The Hoosiers and The Pigeon Detectives it definitely wasn’t a local crowd at all.
Stephen McMahon: What initially attracted you to Boardmasters, and made you want to take part in it?
Franklin: Literally just because of where it is, its right on the beach, which means when we get time off over the weekend, we will be able to go surfing. It’s a great festival to be at and its just really chilled.
Stephen McMahon: Your set at Boardmasters, Friday 12:45. What can we expect from your set in particular?
Franklin: We’re going to play a lot of new tracks and we’re trialing the new EP. Overall a fairly new set! The staff and equipment that we will have available at Boardmasters will be great so we can definitely put on a good light show. But the main thing will be hearing all our new tracks smoothly through that we haven’t done before. Also some demos of songs that we are currently in the process of writing and recording.
Stephen McMahon: Who would you recommend to also go see at Boardmasters?
Franklin: Well, there is a cool band called Youth Club on 2 sets after us, they’re a great up and coming band. Obviously the headliners, Chase and Status, James Bay and Deadmau5. We also want to see Craig David as well for sure. We think there will be a great vibe at his set
Stephen McMahon: Where are you heading in the future? What is the plan?
Franklin: We are hoping to go on tour with The Pigeon Detectives over October and November, because they’re dropping a 
new album. We’ve been up in Newbury at Studio 91 recording. We’ve only got 1 more track left to fully record, and that’s a new EP that’ll be out in August/September. Once its out, we will focus on pushing it and making sure we are booked on enough shows. We’re also in talks with a few agencies at the moment to help get booked on tours. We just want to keep playing. Once we get enough hype, we will then be looking at doing an album. We’ve had record deals offered to us, but we
don’t need them at the minute. We can currently do it ourselves.
Stephen McMahon: Lastly 3 things to sum up the festival.
Franklin:
- Really good cider! No other festival does it quite like Boardmasters.
- A lot of bands crowd surfing! But at Boardmasters, you have to throw a surfboard into the crowd and then stand on the surfboard. Literally surf the crowd!
- Beach sessions. Bands like Catfish and the Bottlemen will play their main set and then play on the beach in front of 50 people unexpectedly.
Check out Franklin on Facebook & Twitter.
Franklin – Boardmasters Festival – Newquay – Friday 12th – 12:45 – Land Of Saints Stage
For all things Boardmasters, head to their website here.
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