Franc O'Shea - One More Quiet Giant
by Warren Murchie, Bass Inside magazine (click to see original version). April 2003
In a copy-cat world, where an idea that even remotely looks like it might be innovative or new is eaten by your contemporaries and then released as their own, it is a rare thing indeed to find someone who is not copying someone. A perfect example of that is the obligatory slap, tap and pop technique found in 95% of all releases today. The "let's see if we can cram 512 notes into this next three bars and do it all in 11/7 time!" mentality. If I could go to one gig, one show, even one trade convention and not hear every bassist there trying to outdo this, that and the other guy (or girl), I think I would die!
How did we ever devolve to the point where next to no one has the guts to just be unique, just be truly different, to be content with trying to capture the hearts of their listeners instead of their aggression? Chances are high that Bass Inside hears more bass-focused albums than most of our readers (it's our job!), so the same chances are that we have a pretty good idea of what is going on out there. Sad to report, not a whole hell of a lot. Things seem to be on hold here, with most bassists standing around like sheep watching what the other guy is doing. To grow, there HAS to be leaders, the rare and special few who don't care what the other guy is doing.
You're gonna meet one now…
Franc O'Shea released a totally self-financed album in '99 that caught a lot of people in the jazz world by surprise, a pleasant surprise. Franc is just about ready to release his newest CD entitled Alkimia, a term which, according to his latest bio means "the power to transmute different existing forms into a new form." In light of what was said earlier, boy, do we need that!!! Transmute, Franc, puleeeeze! Take a minute or so and read into this lad a bit, hit his website and our audio sample at the end of this interview. A bit of a breath of fresh air. And he sounds like…nobody but himself. What a scary concept, eh?
Bass Inside: The release of Alkimia, your next album, was slated for some time this mid-summer (2003). Does it still seem that things are on track for that date?
Franc O'Shea: It is now looking more like an autumn release as it is a big project. There are going to be lots of different musicians on Alkimia, and it is impossible to record them all at once due to everyone's busy schedules. I am recording it in Spain, but some of the musicians are flying out from England to do it. There are also many Spanish guys doing it too, like Jorge Pardo (flute), Rubem Dantas (percussion) and Juan Manuel Cañizares (flamenco guitar). These guys are renowned for their work with people like Paco De Lucia, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Al Di Meola and Peter Gabriel, so obviously they are really busy too.
BI: Your approach for Alkimia is a broad-minded one indeed. What a combination of styles and instruments. Your bio states that the instruments are a diverse collection from around the world. Tones drawn from dulcimer to udus & congas, flutes to violins, then voices and on and on; a veritable choir of potential. Influences for the album will be from Africa to Arabia, from Spain to Ireland, and not surprising three of those four areas were once, or are now, places you have called 'home'. I can certainly see where the resolute power of the liquid and fathomless sound of fretless bass would fit in so well! How did you come to choose these exotic instruments over other choices? Was there a sound in your head and heart that you set out to capture?
FO: I chose flute and violin as the main melodic instruments for many reasons. There were no other choices, the sound was there as I wrote the album. Both these instruments have a real magical quality about them, which is the theme of this album, and they are perfect for the type of Flamenco, Arabic and Irish melodies which I have composed for Alkimia. They are in a much higher range than the fretless, so this gives them good separation, but yet the sonic qualities of all these instruments blend together in a most beautiful way. They also both have great dynamic range. They can play from the most subtle enchanting melody to real blazing virtuosity. Alkimia will also feature Flamenco guitar, Arabic dulcimer and many Spanish, African and Cuban percussion instruments. A little imagination will help you realise how well all these instruments blend together.
BI: It has been said to me on more than one occasion, particularly when an artist is embracing a more organic overall sound, that the music (perhaps because of that very organic nature) seems to almost develop a mind of it's own, going its own way. That the album tends to head in directions far different from the original ideas set out. Can you describe the development of Alkimia for us in that light? (if it applies!)
FO: The way I see it is that I am a channel for this music. I have studied percussion instruments from all over the world, I have created my own music theories etc… but obviously music is more than just theory. I get all these separate ideas that seem to have no connection at first but then they all just fit together so well that it is unbelievable to me sometimes. It is real serendipity. It is like if the music has a mind of its own, and I do think that music is a living, breathing entity. Music is a celebration of the Universe and we are the ears and the soul of the Universe that experience it. We are the Universe listening to itself.
BI: When reading your bio, it is obvious you have not lived a simple, quiet life. High school, suburbia - the route most people take in life - was not your fate. You were born in a seemingly exotic place, of Irish, English and Spanish blood. I cannot help but wonder how different life might have been if you had not moved from Swaziland. Does the musical direction your life took seem to you that it would have likely happened regardless of where you grew up?
FO: It is hard for me to say if I had stayed in Africa would my life have taken a different musical direction. I left Africa when I was 3 and then we moved to Indonesia and then later to England. I was originally a very gifted artist when I was very young. I was drawing things in three-dimensional perspective when all the other kids could only draw matchstick men. So maybe I would have been an artist, but I must say that music did captivate in a very big way. I was drawn to the immediacy of it. The fact that it is something that happens in the now and is constantly changing, and has the power to invoke the deepest emotions, and yet it is totally invisible.
BI: It is odd that a person can be born somewhere, live most of their life there, and one day find a new home or country that just feels so right, that there is a recognition that demands you relocate. I grew up in Canada, yet after 50 years found that Switzerland was where I was supposed to be. Is that how you feel about Spain? Is it your true home?
FO: Many things drew me toward Spain. I had already been a great admirer of the Flamenco guitarist Paco De Lucia when I met my wife in England. She is Spanish and we married in Granada in the Albaycin facing the ancient Arabic Alhambra Palace. I love it here, there are so many things I could mention including obviously the weather, but Granada in particular is a very mysterious magical city. I do feel this is my true home and the warm and generous people here make me feel that way too.
BI: You started playing bass at the ripe of age of 12, pretty early in the game really! What brought the bass into your life and what were the circumstances that made it obvious that bass was where you wanted to stay?
FO: I originally started on guitar when I was 11. My father knew I was keen on music and one day he presented me with a guitar. I started playing bass lines on the guitar. Then a year later my eldest brother was in a band and he was designated as the bass player. He had a Jazz bass copy which I don't think he ever played, and it was lying around the house, so I picked it up with great enthusiasm. This was in the late seventies and Punk had hit. I was really into the Stranglers and their great bass player Jean Jaques Burnel. I was hooked by the sound of the bass but I obviously liked other instruments too.
Over the next few years, I just began discovering lots of different music from Hendrix to Pink Floyd to early Level 42 to Rush. Then, in my late teens, I got into Jazz and Jazz Rock with groups like Weather Report, Brand X and John McLaughlin's Trio. And then into World Jazz with groups like Shakti and Paco De Lucia's Sextet and then all music from around the world. It was like going back to my roots in Africa when my mother would take me to the Tribal gatherings, or re-encountering strange instruments like the Ankalongs from Indonesia which we had a whole set of. Also, along the way I discovered some great classical composers like J.S. Bach and Henryk Gorecki. So, it wasn't just bass I was influenced by.
BI: When I look at your work itinerary, it seems that at this time you do most of your work in Spain, your adopted home. Is this a case of "well, that's where the work is!" or is it a matter of appreciative audiences you can connect to?
FO: The audiences here are great. People really know how to have a good time and they love their fiestas. So, I can definitely connect with the audience here. People here really love music. As far as work goes, I can get many gigs in Britain and other places and I will too in the future. I have played all over the world and every country has its good points. But I am waiting to finish Alkimia before I start travelling abroad with it.
BI: Do you hope to take a project to other countries, (like Switzerland? Hint hint hint) once Alkimia is on the shelves?
FO: Switzerland will definitely be on the list!
BI: How did you come to hear of Jeff Chapman, UK luthier for the basses you endorse? What about these basses drew your admiration?
FO: I met Jeff Chapman when I was living in Brighton in England. I wanted someone to make me a bass exactly how I wanted it. I also wanted someone that I lived close to so I could drop in to see how the work was going. Jeff was incredible. He pays so much attention to detail and has a fantastic mind. He would call me up at every stage to see the instruments or try them out. He built me a really good five string fretted and has nearly finished a fretless for me. He also totally rebuilt a Tobias fretless for me, including changing the electronics and the fingerboard. For the fingerboard he used a piece of rosewood (with such a tight grain it looks almost like ebony) that came from an old Victorian dining table. So, it’s over a hundred years old with a history of people living around it. Someone was throwing it away for the garbage men in the street and he asked if he could have it. It sings like an angel!
He has this great knack of finding extraordinary pieces of wood. The fretless he is making me now is going to be a killer, too. I have some design features that are really unique. The pickups have ebony attached to the covers which is scalloped under each string. This is because I have the pickups really high as I play over them. Normally the strings would rattle on the pickups with them this high but the scallops prevent this. These wooden attachments also match the exact camber radius of the fingerboard so that both hands feel the same symmetry. Jeff doesn't have a catalogue and he doesn't have a website yet (he has one coming soon). He basically works on his own and makes acoustic guitars and basses for people to their own specifications.
BI: Having your music chosen for various bass compilation albums is a good way to get the word out there relatively inexpensively. Is this something you actively pursue, or do they contact you?
FO: At first I contacted them to get my music out there amongst bassists, because it is very orientated to all musicians and people, not just bassists. But now they seem to be contacting me.
I do find that the bass community is in a big crisis at the moment. It doesn't seem to be so much about music anymore but about what the latest technique is. Bassists often go on about "have you seen so and so, he's amazing. He plays the bass with his nose while standing on his head and he's only 4 years old!" This isn't music, this is a circus!
Unfortunately, bass seems to have suffered this fate. When saxophonists talk about different players, they say so and so is great because of the quality of his lines. Because of his musical inventiveness, not because he plays his sax with drum sticks! I think people get too worried about doing something completely new and don't focus on playing good music. If you are a channel for something new, that will come naturally from artistic necessity rather than sitting around pulling out your hair thinking how can I be different from everyone else. You ARE different from everyone else; it is not something you have to try to be.
Also, bassists will often rant on about so and so is great because he has played with someone famous. Just because they play with someone famous doesn't mean they are great. Use your ears and your heart, not your mind! Everyone seems to be trying to sound like Marcus Miller at the moment. Marcus sounds great but the copyists don't. The music just sounds like bland television theme music now. There is no soul, no real thought, no dynamics, no originality, no taste and then people wonder why the general public don't buy bassists' albums. When Jaco released his first solo album it wasn't a bass solo album. It was excellent music that EVERYONE could relate to. That's what the bass community needs to get back to, making good music.
BI: In a world of bassists all competing for limited work, what did you do to capture the attention of all the fine people you have worked with over the years? Would you say it is no small amount of business savvy, aggressive publicists, and some reeeeeaaaally hard work on your part?
FO: People have asked me to play with them over the years because they like what I do. I haven't chased it. I built up a reputation with all my gigging around, by word of mouth and by records I have played on. They realised that I could bring something special to their music not only with my playing but often with my musical knowledge, and production and arranging skills too.
BI: Looking back in time a bit, you financed the first CD you put out by yourself, relying on no one but yourself, giving you the freedom to choose the right companies and people to work with. A lot of bassists and musicians these days also go the independent way, and find happiness that way. You were on that path to independence quite some time before most of them. What was different about the Alltone label that made them worthy of your trust, to hand over that independence, you must have felt they were different. If so, in what way?
FO: I paid for Esprit myself and then put it around different labels. I knew that no one would want to sign up a bassist unless they had something feasible to go on. So, I just produced the finished product before I approached anyone. It was like "this is what I do, take it or leave it, I have other companies interested". I chose Alltone's offer over others as it was a two-album deal and they really care about music, being musicians themselves. Although now I am setting up my own label, so I can have absolute control over every aspect of what I do.
As far as the major labels go you may as well just forget it. They have been killing music slowly for the past 30 years. They are stupid. Music has become a disposable commodity like Mac Donalds hamburgers. People eat one burger and it doesn't fill them up, so they have to buy more. Major label music is like this now. Major labels won't promote good music as they want people to buy rubbish music that they get bored with really quickly, so that they have to go out and buy more crap the next week, and so on. They don't want people to have CDs in their collections that they can enjoy listening to for years. But this has backfired, and much of the general public has lost respect for music altogether and they don't want to pay for their worthless crap. They just want to download it for free on the internet.
The major labels are stupid because if you look at some of the best-selling albums of all times you have some really good music, when the bands had the freedom to create something special, like The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Instead of developing people’s curiosity and fascination for good music they have destroyed much of it.
But as Goliath falls hopefully the independents will rise.