FRANKIE CHAVEZ

foto a 24/10/2014 @ Bar Bafo de Baco - Loulé

http://www.frankiechavez.com

https://www.facebook.com/frankiechavezmusic

About

About Frankie Chavez’ latest record “Heart & Spine” was not an easy birth. It was written during a tumultuous time, when balancing a very recent family life with an increasingly busy life on the road, became an every day struggle. Ideas were popping out in every direction and after an acoustic based record release in 2011, Frankie’s deepest, most electric and fuzzy references emerged and blended with his portuguese heritage.

Touring almost 2 years as a duo with friend and drummer João Correia led Frankie to write almost 20 songs where he talks about love, loss, overcoming bad times, watching friends leave their hometown and about the birth of his second son… a real roller coaster of emotions where he approaches both political and personal matters. Heart & Spine has become the expression of portuguese hypnotic blues rock.

Recording started out at his home studio in Lisboa, Portugal. Soon he realized that drums had to be recorded in a proper studio so they went to Paço d’Arcos Valentim de Carvalho Studio. After cutting 80% of the songs, the studio and sound engineer were no longer available to finish work, so Frankie moved on to Studio Praça das Flores in Lisbon where the recording process was completed. He needed someone to mix the whole thing. The name of Tommaso Colliva (Muse, Mark Lanegan, Calibro 35) popped up and that was what made the difference between a bunch of songs and a record “with a heart and a spine”.

Songs like “Fight” and “Voodoo Mama” manage to reflect the live feel Frankie can pull out at a live show; raw guitars mixed with a seventies approach to drums show this new blues style, that has become Frankie’s trademark.

On the other hand, “Sail Upon Your Shore”, “Truth Can Break a Bone” and “Sweet Life” show the softer, folkish side of his music. Inviting Erica Buettner to sing on “Don’t Leave Tonight” reflects all the “sunnier” influences from Frankie’s surfing background and his love for indy folk. Phsycedelic rock is present in songs like “Her Love” and “I’m Leaving” and there’s also place for a couple of instrumental songs, where Portuguese guitar and Weissenborn slide guitar step up.

On “Morning Train” he invited Groove Quartet, a funk jazz blues four piece band that, with some raw piano lines and an incredibly balanced upright bass, brought a saloon blues feel to flavour the record, finding Chavez channeling Robert Johnson “Hot Tamales” into a new and orchestrated sound, bringing a gutsy revival sonority to it.

Heart & Spine has become a versatile record, where folk, rock and blues blend as if somehow the 3 genres were meant to be together.