The EP, titled Guess Who, caps off a whirlwind year for the band, who formed in August last year. Since then, the band have performed at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, sent two of their members across the Tasman to open for Matt Corby in New Zealand, released their debut music video, had their music featured in a documentary and of course recorded their second EP.
The band, which consists of singer Jess Palmer, keyboardist Nick Marks, guitarist Ryan Lim, bassist Matt Hayes and drummer Daniel Berry, met while studying music together at Monash University.
“Four of us were playing together – not including Nick – for about a year before Hey Frankie, in a band that was under my name,” explains Palmer. “When we were preparing to record the I See You EP we got Nick on board as a keyboard player. One day we got stuck on the arrangement of a song and we started jamming together. That jam session was when Hey Frankie was born, although we didn’t really know it at the time.”
It was during the recording of I See You that Hey Frankie was officially launched.
“I didn’t really like the idea that this EP was going to be just under my name, when we took such a collaborative approach to arranging the music,” concludes Palmer. “I decided that I wanted to release it under a band name, so I put the idea to the boys and everyone agreed.”
Since then, the band have taken a far more collaborative perspective to recording, with the band’s second EP born out of a combined effort from all members of the band.
“The whole process was completely different the second time round,” says Marks. “With the first EP all the songs had been written by Jess and it was originally recorded as Jess’ band. With Guess Who, from the get-go, it was all of us together in the room starting from zero. All of the songs on that EP originated with us and it all came together.”
To compliment the release of the new EP, the band enlisted the help of Marks’ filmmaker brother to shoot the video for Werewolf – a Quentin Tarantino-worthy bloodfest from the eyes of a misunderstood werewolf family. Next year, the band plan to head out on the road to bring their music to wider corners of the globe.
“Touring is definitely on the horizon,” says Marks. “Our focus next year will be playing more shows and building the Frankie fan base – or the Frankie Family as we call them.”
Hey Frankie’s sound is hard to pinpoint – it’s part neo soul, part jazz, with touches of funk and electronica.
“One guy in New York said it’s like Digable Planets and Erykah Badu had a baby,” laughs Marks. “The music that we write, you can’t really categorise it. It’s kind of a bizarre mix in a sense.”
That bizarre mix has garnered the attention of many fans, including Sam Johnson – the man behind the Love Your Sister charity.
“He actually came to our EP launch show, which was a pleasant surprise,” explains Marks. “He asked us if we would play at a charity ball for them and then from that if we would make our music available to use in the TV doco. It was just incredible and beautiful to be part of such an amazing cause. I mean Sam Johnson rode a unicycle around Australia to raise money for his sister who was dying of breast cancer. We were just delighted to be able to help out.”
BY KELSEY BERRY
