FRANKIE AND THE HEARTSTRINGS KNOW HOW TO GRAFT

FRANKIE Francis has to leave soon.
He and his band Frankie and the Heartstrings have just arrived in Sheffield and need to start unloading their equipment for the next free Topman Ctrl gig.

You might think a band that has just reached number 32 in the charts would have roadies but The Heartstrings – from Sunderland – have their own ideas: “We do it ourselves because we don’t want to be “that band” and let the local crew load it. It’s our gear, we’re playing the gig, it’s our responsibility to get the gear upstairs. We’re guests in the city,” said Frankie.
“We’ve all had jobs – pubs, restaurant, office – been the other person, we’ve put gigs on ourselves and we know how people should be treated.”



Frankie’s in high spirits despite being mid-tour and suffering from travel sickness, which is why he’s sitting in the front of the van. He may miss some of the banter but it’s a small price to pay for surviving the road.
He said: “There’s been a lot of travelling involved but we’re full of energy and if one person gets off their backsides to see us they’re going to get as good a show as if there were 10,000 people there. We’re constantly on the road, we get the odd day off to go home and wash our pants.”

Frankie and the Heartstrings play this year’s Camden Crawl (April 30 – May 1), alongside Villagers, Lethal Bizzle, British Sea Power and Simian Mobile Disco.
Frankie, who has never been to the crawl before, revealed the band will play HMV Forum alongside a mystery headliner: “It’s something you always hear about and we’re certainly looking forward to being involved in.”

Frankie’s acutely aware of the band’s good fortune: “Being no 32 is such a feat for an indie band on an independent label, doing things our own way. (It’s) an amazing achievement not just for us but our label Wichita deserve a lot of glory. We’ve all worked in normal jobs so we know how lucky we are and value it a lot more preciously.”

He attributes the band’s style to Sunderland’s working class environment, adding: “(It’s) still very deprived in comparison to the rest of the country in terms of the arts and jobs generally. We’re constantly around that so we’re influenced by it. Growing up in Sunderland, we’ve all got our own success stories in that we’ve done things off our own backs. It’s a mentality driven into you – if you’re ambitious in a good sense you can achieve it if you get off your arse.”

The boys take advantage of twitter to speak to fans, respond to their most mundane requests (“what time you on tonight?”) and give away spare guest list spots: “We like the connection we have with the people who enjoy our music.”
The tweets are also an outlet for wild drummer Dave’s outlandish behaviour – he recently promised to run naked along the beach eating a plate of chips if the band hit top 10.
Said Frankie: “He does that sort of thing anyway, constantly making a fool of himself, so we can’t encourage him too much but if we get top 10 he’ll do that or if he gets too drunk tonight he’ll probably do it anyway.”

Sunderland has shaped their politics “the Tories absolutely desecrated us in the 80s and those wounds still cut deep where we’re from” but not so much that they can afford to turn down offers when they get them.

Frankie said bands might refuse to play for Topman because of the "lack of tax contributions they make as a company, but we can’t afford to do that. Being on an indie label, if someone offers you a headline tour you’ve got to do it. We’re not The Vaccines or the Brother of this world who can afford TV ads”.

Much has been made of Frankie’s new tattoo – a line drawing by singer Edwyn Collins.
Frankie said: “We recorded our album with Edwyn, he’s a massive influence on our band. He had a big health scare, a brain haemorrhage and stroke about five years ago and he overcame that. He drew an image during his recovery in hospital of a man. No-one knew what it was and he kept on drawing it because he couldn’t express himself. He didn’t know what he looked like and was bed bound so he’d draw this image. When he was able to talk he was able to say it was himself.

“I’ve wanted a tattoo for so long. I knew I wanted something memorable. It’s got such a nice story behind it. He’s more of an inspiration as a person than musically now because of what he overcame. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.”

Taking his cue from James Dean, Frankie’s become a style icon, named GQ’s 39th best-dressed man last year.
He said: “I guess it’s a nostalgic look, I don’t think you can go wrong with smart shirt and trousers and a good pair of shoes. I’ve always dressed a little differently.”

His style doesn’t always go down well in Sunderland, he added: “You bring it on yourself if you have a quiff I guess. It takes two minutes to get ready, it takes longer to do my hair.”
Frankie’s bouffant has become a focal point, described as “impeccable” by Hurts’ Theo Hutchraft.

Frankie said: “I never use a brush or much gel, the secret of the haircut is a good taper round the sides, grade 2, a lot of weight taken off the top so you can play with it all day and then the hair dryer in the morning, get it between your knees, blow dry it till it’s bone dry, then it settles into a sort of floppy style for the whole day. “

He recalls one particularly odd gig where they played a teenage party in a village called Stanley, following a covers band playing Blink 182 and the Foo Fighters.
He said: “They went down a storm, the kids were going crazy and then we went on and we’re like this is going to be good, a big stage, loads of lighting, a sports hall. We went onstage and by the 2nd song the whole crowd like 200 kids did the conga out the door. They were dancing in the street while we’re in the venue... They didn’t mean anything by it they just weren’t interested at all.”

Frankie and the Heartstrings truly are men of the people, so don’t leave early if you want to meet them.
Frankie said: “It’s become a tradition, before the last song we’ll tell everyone if we know the area which pub we’ll be in after the gig.”
Frankie and the Heartstrings album Hunger is out now.