Chicago’s soulfully psychedelic indie-rocker plays The Pyramid Scheme this week with Grand Rapids drummer Collin O’Brien aboard. The Local Spins interview with Francis, who also plays Ann Arbor.
Michigan-Bound: Neil Francis plays shows in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor this week. (Photo/Jack Karnatz)
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Neal Francis is a musical time traveler.
The Chicago-based songwriter and keyboardist traverses retro soundscapes with originality and ease. Influenced by classic New Orleans soul, Francis harnesses a timeless groove in his recordings that leaps through the speakers and embraces the ears.
Francis performs at The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids on Wednesday (Aug. 20). Advance tickets are $27.50 plus fees, available online here. Doors open at 7 p.m., with Smushie opening the show.
The band follows this with a show at 11:30 a.m. Thursday (Aug. 21) in downtown Ann Arbor as part of the Sonic Lunch series.
The Michigan stops serve as a homecoming for drummer and East Grand Rapids native Collin O’Brien, who joined Neal Francis in 2019. “Super excited to come back home on Wednesday,” O’Brien told Local Spins.
Ahead of those Michigan shows, Francis took some time to chat with Local Spins from the road. He discussed the similarities between architecture and music, making his latest album “Return to Zero,” and blowing up his childhood piano for the sake of a music video. (View that below.)
Local Spins: What are the pros and cons of touring? What are your favorite and least favorite parts?
Neal Francis: Well, when I have time to be in a city and really experience it, it’s just the best job ever because I’m going to all these places I never would have had the chance to visit … if I had done most other things. So it’s just great to travel. It’s great to experience things with my buds. I’ve really grown to appreciate things on the road. I studied architecture in college and so I’m always noticing city infrastructure, like solid public transit. There are certain things I appreciate about urban planning and dense development. And the things I don’t like as much are when we’re living in the endless sprawl of the United States. We have to inhabit those places quite frequently, you know, along the interstate. It’s just economical for us and when we’re traveling in a van, we’re always just in some Best Western off the expressway with, you know, Applebee’s and Waffle House and big box stores.
Touring Behind ‘Return to Zero’: Francis (Photo/Jack Karnatz)
Local Spins: How does your interest in architecture coincide with music?
Francis: I think they’re related somehow for me. It’s part of how my brain works, putting things together, noticing patterns. There’s a lot of math in both those disciplines, but they’re also more artistic than say engineering. So when I was in architecture school, one of the things that I excelled at was drawing. Making models and things I wasn’t so good at or doing what my instructors told me to do — heavy engineering kind of stuff. And I think music is a good example of that, too. I do have a growing proficiency with sort of classical music and notation. But there’s so much listening and there’s ephemera. It’s more like painting in a way. I just really think they’re related. My favorite architect is Frank Lloyd Wright. I grew up in Oak Park down the street from his home and studio. They give tours there. And so concurrently with my appreciation for music and learning how to play piano, I was infatuated with his design. He was a great lover of music. And there’s a great quote by Goethe that says, “Architecture is frozen music.”
Local Spins: I read (and saw) that you blew up your childhood piano for the “Broken Glass” music video. How did that idea come to fruition?
Francis: Well, it had been years in the making. That fantasy was sort of concocted when we first destroyed the piano by it becoming waterlogged when I shot the “Can’t Stop the Rain” video in 2021. It was with my friend Alec Basse, who’s directed a lot of my music videos. And the piano was completely destroyed by that. As you probably know, any sort of moisture entering the cabinet can really damage it. It was completely soaked. This was the first piano I’d ever played. It appeared on a lot of my recordings, too. But we sort of sacrificed it. And then it just sat in a storage unit collecting dust for years.
We knew we wanted to blow it up, but we just didn’t know what opportunity we’d have to do that. Alec and I came up with that whole sequence. And then blowing up the piano … that was a really interesting experience because we went up to this farm in Northwestern Illinois. It was sketchy. I’m not going to name the guy who did this, but he was a demo expert for television for a long time. He actually knew what he was doing, but it had this feeling of not really being all that safe. It was something I’ll never forget. We blew up two pianos that day. We blew up my old piano, which I still have retained a piece of as a sentimental keepsake. And then there was another piano. You can just find pianos on Craigslist these days. And I feel like sometimes the best thing for the piano is to just submit it back to its elemental form. These things are just going to sit in someone’s basement collecting mold. An explosion is a proper send-off.
VIDEO: “Broken Glass,” Neil Francis featuring She She She
Local Spins: Anything else you plan on blowing up in the name of art?
Francis: I’m going to blow more stuff up. Like my old van. I want to do it safely and I want to do it with concern for the environment. Those will be real challenges. What I’d really like to do is some sort of scene where it drives off a cliff or an embankment or some huge gorge somewhere. That would be amazing. Keep your eyes peeled for something like that. I’m really into practical effects.
Local Spins: What were some of the challenges with creating “Return to Zero,” your record that came out earlier this year?
Francis: Oh, the biggest challenge is always myself. I just get in my own way a lot. It was difficult to make this record. It was just boring. We were touring our butts off for years and I knew there was a record due. It wasn’t a lot of pressure from the label, but it was just my own knowledge that something had to come out in order to infuse some life into the whole thing. And so I was exhausted and attached to what I thought things should be and how I thought things should be going. And that energy was pervading my creative process, which is really poisonous and led to a lot of perfectionism and made things a lot harder for me to just call it done. I think it’s a good record and I’ll stand by it. I stand by everything I release. I’m not disowning anything. But it was just that I learned so much about what I want to do next. And so in that way, it was extremely useful and playing a lot of these songs live is super fun. We’ve continued to grow.
Local Spins: What keeps you wanting to do music year after year, wanting to put out records and tour?
Francis: I really think it’s what I’m supposed to do. Things have always led towards this and I’m growing in my skill set in the studio and in composition, and I’m becoming more focused as I grow older. I’m really starting to take it seriously. I’ve been given a real rare opportunity to do this for a living and to squander it would be something I would regret. I still get a lot of excitement out of writing and I’m learning how to play drums and I’m practicing guitar and learning how to notate music. It’s so cool to get paid to do all that stuff, to make a living off of it. And I can tell that it really brings people joy. That’s ultimately I think my highest purpose is to have compassion and kindness for all people and all living things, but also to bring some sort of joy or distraction to people. All of our lives are so tough. It doesn’t matter who you are. So if I can help alleviate that, then that’s my calling.
VIDEO: “Need You Again,” Neal Francis featuring She She She
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