Canción Franklin

I saw Canción at my favorite bar in the East Village a few years ago and was impressed and excited not just by his music, but his performance – it is really rare to see someone having as much fun on stage as he does. He’s really electrified when he’s playing, his whole body becomes animated. With a name like his (it’s real), it’s not surprising that nothing can stop him from playing music, be it a broken arm or a global pandemic. Thanks to Canción for being the first interview I ever conducted for a now-defunct pub. I can’t wait till we’re back at 11th Street.

Originally published on MiniMusicReviews.com in May 2019.

How’d you get started in music?
I got a guitar for my 14th birthday and I started writing songs pretty shortly after that. I think the first music that I heard that made me want to participate was Howlin’ Wolf. I don’t think it’s surprising but I really love Motown. I really love Carole King. If I could I’d play the blues until the sun comes up… actually, if I could I’d play Def Leppard till the sun comes up. But that’s not me.

What non-musical things inspire you?
Conversations with people… or gaps in conversation. One reason why I completely love language is that you can make a mistake and it can still go in a direction that makes sense. There’s poetry in everyday life if you’re paying attention and listening.

What do you like about touring?
When you are going on tour you have no idea what’s going to happen. Especially earlier on, you’re booking in places that you’ve never been to and hoping that you see people there. And a lot of times it’s whatever riff-raff – and I don’t say that in a patronizing tone at all – I’m part of that scene. It’s super exhilarating to be somewhere where no one knows you. That’s what I liked about the city when I first got here. I still like it about the city. I love the anonymity of walking on the street. No one knows who you are and you can kind of define yourself in whatever way you feel like that day.

Did you choose this life or did it choose you?
My dad lived here [in NYC] in 1971 for a year and he paid 60 bucks a month for rent on the Upper West Side. So you know, it was a different time and ’71 was a golden era in music, in a lot of ways. I thought when I moved here that there would be a ton of people and music venues and it would be easy to get work. I thought I was God’s gift to music, you know, I had a big ego. The most shocking thing is if you go into Arlene’s any given night, there’s a touring band from Nashville there, and a bunch of other musicians and that’s who you play for. I’ve been here 10 years, and I left the city for two funerals and tours. I’ve never gone on vacation. Which is okay. I have a great life.

How do you know when you’re finished with a song?
I try to let it happen naturally, until I run out of ideas. And then I take that and I break it down until I feel I’m done. Sometimes you write three verses and you’re like, that’s everything that I need to say here. Sometimes you write one verse and then you go, I can’t write the rest of this song, so you put it away for a year and then pull it out later on. I have a whole junkyard back here, so sometimes it’s like all right this car needs a good tail light. It’s a ’97 Toyota Camry and I have just the verse I wrote a few years back to add on.

MM : What’s your favorite song on the latest EP, Stone for Stone?
It’s kind of hard to say because they are all kind of different. The songs are kind of like your tool box. There are different songs for different moments and they all serve a different purpose. Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you need a screwdriver. I think the one that probably came out the best is Smoke.

We’re still learning what our sound is in the studio. We played together for like two years before we got into the studio. I never wanted to be a band that had a record that sounded amazing and couldn’t do it live. The first EP is almost completely live in the studio with overdubbed vocals, whereas the second one was made in a more traditional sense. I try not to be too scientific about the studio and I’m still learning.

What’s next?
We’re almost done with more songs. Maybe we’ll make another EP, we’ve been doing one a year. Maybe we’ll hold tight and put out a full-length, I’m not sure yet. But I think that this time I’d like to work with a producer. I think that we are getting to the point where we’re relatively ready for representation. Our first EP debuted at number 30 on Roots radio, but our last EP has spent four weeks in the top 10 right now. Which is awesome.

MM : What are your thoughts on Spotify?CF : I think that once the bullet has left the gun there is no gun. It was inevitable that something like Spotify was going to come along. I’m not the type of person to gets mad at Spotify or any streaming service because that’s not where the money is in the industry anymore. So it’s a waste of time to get mad. I think Spotify does a pretty good job at the curation side of things. If I had one issue with it, i think that is I don’t want anything to decide what I want to listen to next. The other day I was DJing at one of the bars I work at and I put on Harvest by Neil Young, and the sun was setting, and then it gets harder and harder and it starts to rise, and the sun goes down, and then I put on Led Zeppelin II. Spotify would never do that. It’s not just Spotify, all the platforms are using an algorithm to kind of dictate our taste and it’s kind of silly. I never really let Spotify give suggestions. Everybody is worried about those streaming platforms. I think it’s very tempting to blame society as musicians but I think that it’s very rare to make timeless music will stay forever. I think that many people’s concern is “how do I get my music out there?” But I think that the concern should be, “how do I write a song?” That’s extremely hard to do. But there’s a reason why people still listen to music from an era that they didn’t live in.

If you listen to a Stones record you’ll probably hear one or two songs that are just filler. It’s really easy to feel pressured. JJ Cale said that he spent 20 years writing his first song, and then after he put that out the the label came to him and said “all right, in six months we want another.”

Get Cancion Franklin’s Stone for Stone here.