An Interview with JW Francis

2:46 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? I am joined with J.W. Francis on this episode of Love Music More. My name is Scoobert Doobert, and we are going to talk about the journey as an independent musician, navigating all of the non-traditional tour venues and the interesting, like, you know, the artist's journey. So welcome, J.W. I'm so excited to talk with you.

3:09 JW Francis Thank you, Mr. Doobert. I love your stuff as well, and I'm just really happy. Really happy to be here.

3:14 Luke F. Walton Well, I actually, so I first discovered your music, I think in 2020, and it was two things. So one was Vinyl Moon, which I'd love to talk to you a little bit about because they're a sponsor of the show. And I think it was 2020 that you were first on the Vinyl Moon compilation. Yeah, it was somewhere around there.

3:32 JW Francis I mean, somewhere around there. It was all kind of blur at that time. It was either 19 or 2020,

3:36 Luke F. Walton Maybe

3:36 JW Francis I 2019. can't remember.

3:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

3:37 JW Francis One of those. So how did you end up on the vinyl moon compilation? gosh i mean i i'm pretty sure you know i want to say it was 2019 because i'm pretty sure they were the first to press me to vinyl yeah

3:52 JW Francis Cool. I love that. it Same. was Same. before my first record came out so i was just super excited to be on a physical medium you know i put music on tape before but that felt like just so easy and cheap that i was like You know, I can't remember if it was an email. I'm pretty sure it was some kind of email or something. And I was a little scared at first because there was a contract involved. It was a very chill contract, but that always scares me as

4:25 JW Francis Yes, an absolutely. individual, even outside of music. Same. Yes. And I'm so happy I did it because, yeah, they sent me several copies of it, which I still cherish and hold on to. I definitely want to frame those at

4:43 JW Francis Yeah. some point, settle down a little bit more and build my shrine to myself. But it was such a beautiful experience because I really love the other artists on there as well. I can't remember who it was. I just remember being such good company.

5:00 Luke F. Walton Yes. And you were the lead off track too.

5:03 JW Francis I was, yes.

5:04 Luke F. Walton That's crazy.

5:05 JW Francis Yeah,

5:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:05 JW Francis I remember being the first and that was so cool. so cool because but i remember getting the vinyl and being like wanting to put it on so bad because that was the first one i

5:13 JW Francis Yeah. was like dude easy great yeah i think it wasn't too fast maybe it was too fast i can't remember the song not the the way it happened but or

5:25 Luke F. Walton Oh,

5:25 JW Francis might

5:25 Luke F. Walton well, I get it.

5:26 JW Francis have been one that ended up

5:28 Luke F. Walton Is

5:28 JW Francis the

5:28 Luke F. Walton that the

5:29 JW Francis first record

5:29 Luke F. Walton one?

5:30 JW Francis Is that the one? Yeah, There you go. Well, yes. Yeah, so that ended up on my first record.

5:36 JW Francis sweet. And that's actually a song about my grandma, who I'm living with right now.

5:41 JW Francis Wow. Now it's just a great thing to do. It is. yeah

5:46 Luke F. Walton They are

5:46 JW Francis so that's they are that was really cool i just couldn't believe that they found me you know i felt so underground at the time so i i can't believe you know Someone found me.

6:02 JW Francis Right.

6:03 Luke F. Walton So I want to talk about that journey from there to now.

6:07 JW Francis So I think I, so I started following you when you were hiking Appalachian Trail. So I want to talk about that a little bit too.

6:14 JW Francis But then I saw you, I think it performed at the Observatory in San Diego opening

6:20 JW Francis Yes. up for, was it Mile My Club. High Club? Yes, Yeah. Mile High Club. Yeah. Yeah.

6:26 JW Francis So I want to understand that journey.

6:29 Luke F. Walton So you get pressed on vinyl for the first time, you're making your full length record, pandemic

6:33 JW Francis Yes.

6:34 Luke F. Walton hits.

6:35 JW Francis Yes.

6:36 Luke F. Walton And then how do you how do you like shape your career during the chaos of the pandemic and then come out, you know, it's like a nationally touring act opening up for like this big band.

6:45 JW Francis It was, gosh, it was, I feel like everybody's story. is random and has a lot of luck and weird bits and whatnot and so I came out with my first EP in 2018 and i had a lot of luck because i sent it to all the youtube curators and david

7:04 JW Francis Oh, deanberg yeah. should Yes. check that out yes he David Dean. Hell yeah. was i kind of i had already kind of identified who the quote-unquote tastemakers in my genre field were and he was a big one for me so my first single he put it on his youtube channel and it got like 40 000 views and i was like oh my god

7:23 JW Francis Yes. It's funny because there's a lot of little moments where you think you've made it and

7:29 JW Francis i absolutely that it's really hard to ever like I really do not feel like I've made it because I'm living with my grandma and I can't afford to live on my own kind of thing, you know, there's

7:40 JW Francis totally yeah a thing but to a lot of other people I have made it at this point, you know, I still feel very much in the journey so it's kind of funny to talk about the journey already but

7:51 JW Francis but actually i really like that because so i was talking

7:54 Luke F. Walton I was talking about this on the like last week's podcast about how I would find it more fascinating to talk to someone that's like a couple switchbacks ahead of me rather than already summited the mountain, you

8:03 JW Francis Right, yeah,

8:04 Luke F. Walton know,

8:05 JW Francis because you're...

8:05 Luke F. Walton like.

8:07 JW Francis Your legs are still pumping you're still a Yes. blood flowing through you're not like ah, that was nice You're like I'm still in it like

8:14 JW Francis Right. Or like, yeah, when I was successful 40 years ago, this is how the industry worked. It's like, yeah, I mean, it's a little different. Like you're talking like, okay, what YouTubers can help me break and finding those little moments. Yeah,

8:26 JW Francis Yeah, I hear you. and that's that's actually funnily enough still relevant i feel like

8:31 JW Francis Yeah. a lot of things kind of fall out of favor like spotify playlists 2018 they were a thing but they weren't the thing which that it's what it is now like getting a youtube curator to find you is great because they probably also have a spotify playlist now that's it's like you're mostly looking at spotify but anyway so that was the very beginning and i started to play as many shows as i could basically i was in new york

8:57 JW Francis York and it's great to be in an area like that because you've got Boston Rhode Island you know you can do little regional tours on the weekends and really kind of build a little bit of a profile just playing and meeting and really putting yourself out there and that's really what happened is 2019 I had just played for a year straight almost every weekend I got my name out there enough that

9:25 JW Francis that I got asked to open for an artist called LA Salami at Rough Trade and it was just someone at Rough Trade who loved my music and whatnot and LA Salami was on a label called Sunday Best I think he still is which is based in London That was November 2019, and at least Salami's manager saw my performance, was like, immediately

9:50 JW Francis All right. texted me saying, do you have any unreleased music? And I had finished my first album and was slowly releasing singles. So I said, here's what I've got.

10:03 JW Francis and then i got the call january 2020 saying he was like i've got a label interested i've got a publisher interested i've got an agent interested and i was like what's the catch and he's like

10:12 JW Francis Yes. it would manage you and i was like okay that seems okay and it really worked really well like and it was really good to have someone throughout that process especially because three months later as we all know the world fell apart and

10:28 JW Francis Yeah. i was like oh there's no more money money in the world there's no more deal but

10:32 JW Francis Mm we -hmm. kept talking in may 2020 we pinned the deal and my first record came out that fall and luckily it had some some label push behind it it's they're not at all a major they're completely independent but that was just huge and Yeah, I mean, the funny thing is, like, by the time we signed the deal, I had finished the second record already.

11:02 JW Francis Cool awesome. And so I was like ready to go. Yeah, just gunning And 2021 came around and I knew the shows were going to be kind of slow to come back because people were.

11:16 JW Francis in the spring of 2021 like let's go and it was you know we still had omnicron we still had the beta we still had all these variants to get through so that's why i went and walked the trail because i didn't

11:27 JW Francis Yeah. want to i really didn't want to get involved in the people like making people mask or do

11:36 JW Francis Yeah. i mask on age Yeah. or like how do you like the whole etiquette around it every also when you're playing shows you're traveling and everywhere is different everywhere has different etiquette i

11:45 JW Francis Yeah. Right. just didn't really i just didn't really want to get involved in all that so that's why i went and walked the trail and then the fall i was ready to come back and so i hadn't played a show in two years almost at that point and it was amazing it was so good to get back and

12:05 JW Francis Yeah. the What was the first show back? first show back was in new york which is you know that's where i was eight years so i had never sold out a show before before then then it was like 250 capacity and i was like oh my god like wow and it was funny because that first tour because i went from there to the uk to meet the label i had been working from working with for over

12:28 Luke F. Walton Oh,

12:28 JW Francis a year they

12:29 Luke F. Walton that's awesome.

12:29 JW Francis were great yeah and we did i did a tour over there and that was awesome and and i just didn't really look back after that i was like okay i've got another record in my brain can i have somebody to go make it and then they did and that was dream house which came out at the beginning of last year and yeah so i just haven't really looked i haven't really got my head out of the sand since that moment because i kind of took the opportunity and just ran with it you know

12:58 JW Francis Yeah, totally. And I love that. And I think.

13:01 Luke F. Walton I think that it is such a good idea to have been like, okay, I'm going to walk the trail, reconnect with myself just as a person, as an artist. And then you have more in the tank to be able to draw from now.

13:14 JW Francis exactly oh totally that that well is a very deep one that keeps giving yeah yes i love it

13:23 JW Francis yeah i want i want to talk about where so where do you think your ideas come from like where yeah how does that how do you source stuff where is it just from the ether do you have moments in your life you're like oh that's it or how does how does that flow

13:36 JW Francis i think you have to do it all if you want to if i think for me i have an underlying

13:44 JW Francis Just need to document almost like document life and just the experience of being a human is something to be celebrated. But for like, so there it comes from a very almost primal like urgency of

14:04 JW Francis Okay. putting it down on paper kind of like Right. just Yes. I get that. how ephemeral everything is. I'm like, I'm just very aware of death at

14:13 JW Francis Mm-hmm. any moment, any point, you know, but Yeah, absolutely. then when it comes to actually doing the thing.

14:21 JW Francis I feel like a lot of time I'm very lucky because I kind of consider myself like an antenna and I'm just into certain frequencies and, you know, I mean, the real nitty gritty is, you know, you hear a melody, you grab your phone as quick as you can, press record on the voice by most, get the bass of it down and then you take that to Logic Pro or Ableton or whatever you use.

14:47 JW Francis put it actually give it some structure and sit down with the guitar and figure out what the heck you just heard you know kind of deal but other times like i've got a song coming out this year that's called more hurt for the hurt pile and that is that was just like something i i woke up with because i was

15:07 JW Francis not feeling good and sad so i woke up and i was like well more hurt for the hurt pile that was just the first thought and i was like a funny emo joke self

15:18 JW Francis yeah it's great yes -pitying thought but i was like it's got to be a song so yeah so i feel like you got to take from you got to take it wherever you can get it really

15:27 Luke F. Walton I like that. And I resonate with that too, where you just kind of have your antenna up, you gather these little fragments of things that kind of the void or God or whatever the universe whispers to you. And then you sort later because a lot of it's trash, but some of it's gold.

15:44 JW Francis oh yeah and a big part of like being a quote-unquote artist which is kind of funny I have a hate love relationship with that word I kind of think of myself more as an entertainer that you know because artist it just feels like a little too up there for me but

15:45 JW Francis Oh, yeah. And a big part of like being a I think the real art comes in being able to discern being going into the listener seat and seeing what is good or bad.

16:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:13 JW Francis It's

16:13 Luke F. Walton yeah

16:14 JW Francis about decision making. It's really art is just decisions. It's both. It's the inspiration and then the decision to let no one hear it through art.

16:23 Luke F. Walton yeah right well but the decisions are so much more numerous than the inspiration so like yeah like you have you have all this inspiration you go okay little like here's a title or here's a little melody and now i gotta make a billion decisions of like okay what does the snare drum sound like what does that

16:39 Luke F. Walton does the hi-hat sound like how does this part go like how does the guitar fit in what kind of tone how would i play this live like it's like like a million things that are just around that little tiny nugget of an idea yeah

16:49 JW Francis yes exactly yeah i just like right before this i was editing a music video and that is like such a exercise in decision making because you have something like 30 minutes of footage that you need to get two and a half minutes that is interesting to look at out of and say you're just cutting you know just decision decision decision and Just trust yourself.

17:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah. And it's like a skill like anything else. The more you do it, the more you trust yourself and the more you know what the right decision to make is for you because there's no real right decision. There's just the right or decision for what you're going for, I guess.

17:34 Luke F. Walton I like the concept too of the art is in the doing and in the crafting and in the decision making because i feel like that's that's an easier thing to own because

17:44 JW Francis Yes.

17:45 Luke F. Walton it's the arts and the inspiration it's like i don't own that it just kind of comes or goes

17:50 JW Francis Exactly. Yeah. It's decision making, which is, yeah, like you said, it's a skill you have to practice a lot to get good at it.

18:00 JW Francis and it's not necessarily speed you know speed is a factor um you should i think you should work quickly i mean that depends on you know what you're crafting if it's like your masterpiece album take as much time as you need but on the other hand i feel like you know they say you know what was picasso or someone said inspiration finds you working like you should be working that's when your antenna is going to really be fine-tuned

18:29 Luke F. Walton I agree. And a lot of times when you're in that flow, you know the next thing that you have to do.

18:34 JW Francis yeah it's like you do i i do feel like you do get faster and you do like you are like you see where the bottlenecks are there's

18:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:44 JW Francis it comes to songwriting for me there's i know what my bottlenecks are and it's it's

18:49 Luke F. Walton What are they?

18:50 JW Francis lyrics for

18:51 Luke F. Walton Okay,

18:51 JW Francis sure always

18:51 Luke F. Walton okay.

18:52 JW Francis lyrics melody on chords to go under that are fun harmonies are fun arrangement is fun lyrics are hard they can be fun and they can be funny but it so often it's just like that's where you're like oh my god this is too cringe is it whatever you know what am I saying what am I trying to do you know you know

19:18 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah no and there's a weird uh feeling of like divination where especially if you have a melody it's like what does this melody want to say

19:25 JW Francis yes what does the song want what does the song want to say and that actually lets me get out of my own way more so than what am i trying to say as an artist i kind of i do kind of try to hear what the song wants to say

19:40 Luke F. Walton how do you do that

19:41 JW Francis i just i you know it's about the antenna having the antenna up and hearing like okay this is more long game this is more you know um this one feels like an anthem uh you know like it's really about the feeling and trying not to get too i know that wilco do this really smart thing of not describing any sound with another band by with another band they don't

20:07 JW Francis i don't want them to say oh i want this you know um i want the steely dan guitar whatever like

20:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Okay.

20:13 JW Francis one of their rules they don't allow you to do that so i try not to be like oh i want to write another version of is this it by the strokes or something like that but try to get away from that um you know that's the only thing i i mean i'm sure there's other stuff but you have to be wary of certain things You learn wearing certain things, I guess.

20:36 Luke F. Walton I like that. And because it's so natural, especially when you're collaborating with people. To

20:41 JW Francis yes

20:41 Luke F. Walton want to reach forever.

20:42 JW Francis actually collaborating yeah you really want to reach for references which i mean i i don't think there's inherently anything wrong with them it's like how you're doing if it's like a crutch versus

20:52 Luke F. Walton Okay.

20:52 JW Francis i would i would much prefer to use descriptive words like a bouncy guitar or like a rather than uh this cut this specific listen to this we need to copy that

21:04 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Exactly. Do you feel like but internalizing references is kind of part of what you like to do? Because there's

21:15 JW Francis yeah absolutely

21:16 Luke F. Walton a different thing of if you just ingest a bunch of that music over time, it kind of becomes part of you and then it's not really a reference anymore. It's like filtered through you.

21:25 JW Francis yeah i think you do i think you do that subconsciously already so you might as well take ownership over and be conscious about like what you're because you are kind of the summation of what you everything you've ever heard

21:37 JW Francis heard that is that that is your unique footprint you're going to put on the song besides like also your own inclinations or whatever but a lot of that is based on just what you've in in took you know so but that's the funny thing is like i i think everyone thinks they have good taste in music so

22:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:00 JW Francis like i don't really worry i don't i'm not too precious i'm not like i can't hear it's bad music or bad music you know like i

22:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:09 JW Francis do enjoy some music that i also think is bad and

22:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:13 JW Francis i'm like it's

22:13 Luke F. Walton Same. Yep.

22:14 JW Francis just about intention and and being conscious of you know what you're doing What you're putting out there.

22:24 Luke F. Walton yeah and and like i think the idea of trying to cultivate your own personal type of taste not necessarily mean that my taste is better than your taste it's just like this is my taste and um like there are some songs that i listen to and i go i love this song the snare drum sucks though but like then that makes that actually makes me feel good because it's like i

22:42 JW Francis Yes.

22:43 Luke F. Walton like this thing but not like that thing so that means what i'm going to add if i was in a session with that artist i'd fix the snare drum

22:49 JW Francis That was something that really changed everything for me when I started to really make records, which

22:54 Luke F. Walton Okay.

22:55 JW Francis I mean has only been the past four years really when I started to get into the nitty gritty of recording. I mean, I don't I don't record every part. My producer does the drums for the most part.

23:09 JW Francis then we bring in certain people if i want if we want like double bass or whatever you

23:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:13 JW Francis know but really hearing every level and you know going over the mixes many times and everything it does change how you hear music um because then you because you start to say stuff like i would have picked a different snare or i wouldn't have put so much reverb on that or you know it's like like the nitty-gritty but then even with songwriting i find myself

23:36 JW Francis a lot of times being like oh because one of the things that happens most often in my songwriting is that i'll write a song realize that i just want to hear the chorus and that actually the verse like that actually i want the chorus to be the new intro because

23:53 Luke F. Walton Okay.

23:53 JW Francis i think i can go somewhere even more interesting and

23:56 Luke F. Walton Right.

23:57 JW Francis and then just and sometimes that process gets repeated and the new chorus becomes the new intro and stuff goes around so a lot of times i do hear a song and i'm like why didn't they put that part first it's

24:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah, totally.

24:10 JW Francis like so much better you know it would have been like i kind of find myself wanting to rearrange other people enjoy

24:15 Luke F. Walton That's

24:15 JW Francis the people's song

24:16 Luke F. Walton cool.

24:16 JW Francis yeah

24:16 Luke F. Walton I like that.

24:17 JW Francis it's fun yeah you're

24:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:19 JW Francis like that's cool but you're also like you also come to appreciate because i'm like i am a songwriter in the digital streaming era so i am a little biased to put the hook sooner i

24:33 Luke F. Walton Yep.

24:34 JW Francis even my own songwriting i kind of put the hook in the first five seconds if it's like a guitar riff it's gonna hit you right in the face and part of that is just the medium that i have to go through

24:48 Luke F. Walton I mean, it's the same thing as like late 50s radio, though. You know, it's.

24:52 JW Francis yeah exactly yeah it's like boom in your face space

24:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:54 JW Francis whereas if i was more in the era of an album uh like a 70s artist i feel like i i would write slower songs and i would write songs where the it's more of a build and i appreciate those but it's just like today's music is a little different

25:13 Luke F. Walton totally i'm actually i'm in the process right now of trying to do both and it's really hard but i'm trying because i'm writing an album it's gonna it's my first album that'll be pressed to vinyl as a whole thing and so i'm i'm thinking of it like more of a 70s artist but i have to have at least three or four songs that it's like hook hey streaming song without without making it feel like an outlier on the album and also making music that like i love so i'm trying to chart that those difficult waters waters

25:40 JW Francis It's difficult because you're kind of given to success for a good streaming song.

25:47 Luke F. Walton yeah

25:47 JW Francis It has to either work really well in the background and essentially no hooks or very hook heavy, front loaded.

25:57 Luke F. Walton yeah

25:57 JW Francis You know, those are the two things that get put on repeat.

26:01 Luke F. Walton and it is such an interesting thing about playlisting because

26:06 JW Francis Hmm.

26:07 Luke F. Walton it's it's hard i don't know like you're saying there's like a certain element of a song that works well around other songs of similar genre that provides just enough of an angle but isn't so angular that it sticks out

26:22 JW Francis Yeah.

26:24 Luke F. Walton and it's it's like like obviously you don't want to write or produce too heavy into that direction but it is the medium in which you're like success is determined so you have to be somewhat you know willing to think about it

26:36 JW Francis yeah also like the song doesn't die I don't know like I feel like you make a painting and it goes into a museum and like

26:45 JW Francis i don't know like but you you make a song and it's going to live with you for the rest of your life like you're going to have to play it all the time you're going to have to whatever um but not only that it's like where is it going to live it doesn't live in a museum whatever it lives on spotify and

26:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:58 JW Francis so you have to think about that like you're a little bit more beholden to The medium, kind

27:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

27:07 JW Francis of.

27:07 Luke F. Walton for sure. For sure. Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go into the podcast screen, right?

27:25 Luke F. Walton You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify under there. It says rate show and you go and you click it.

27:31 Luke F. Walton five stars if you could do that for me that's the best way for the algorithms all this stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots on a five star would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode and i think that it'll be interesting to see how that continues to evolve too because obviously video games are a big part of

28:00 Luke F. Walton music

28:00 JW Francis I

28:00 Luke F. Walton without

28:00 JW Francis think it's

28:01 Luke F. Walton technology

28:01 JW Francis going to

28:01 Luke F. Walton continue yeah

28:02 JW Francis to grow. I think it's going to continue to grow a lot. I have a lot of thoughts about that because I did not know until recently that 60% – we'll have to fact check on this, but I'm pretty sure it's – 60% of Americans between the age of 5 and 14 are on Roblox.

28:19 Luke F. Walton No

28:19 JW Francis yeah

28:19 Luke F. Walton way.

28:20 JW Francis like

28:20 Luke F. Walton You're kidding

28:21 JW Francis no

28:21 Luke F. Walton me.

28:22 JW Francis over half of people that that are young are on roblox which i didn't even know is that big but i also didn't really what roblox was like and a big component of it is kids making and designing and coding video games and

28:42 Luke F. Walton Okay.

28:42 JW Francis i'm like there's going to be a whole generation of indie game developers that

28:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

28:49 JW Francis are going to need music i'm

28:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Right.

28:51 JW Francis trying to make my video game music go so when they come knocking i got i got some for him i

28:59 Luke F. Walton Yes. I like that. So what are you, are you working on video game music right now?

29:03 JW Francis am it's

29:04 Luke F. Walton Cool.

29:04 JW Francis not

29:04 Luke F. Walton Tell me, tell me some.

29:05 JW Francis well it's like i've just i just kind of i guess i'm working on it's not the right way to well

29:11 Luke F. Walton Mm

29:11 JW Francis it's

29:11 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

29:11 JW Francis like there's a pool and i'm filling up the pool right now i don't i can't swim in the pool yet and like make decisions i'm just kind of like accumulating sounds and

29:22 Luke F. Walton Nice.

29:23 JW Francis like 808 stuff and like super nintendo sounds and stuff like that that i can i'm kind of putting those all into a bank of sounds so that i can kind of i'm kind of like creating my color palette so

29:37 Luke F. Walton Mm

29:37 JW Francis when

29:37 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

29:38 JW Francis i do go paint on the canvas i've got this like kind of video game uh you know Colored smatter.

29:46 Luke F. Walton i love that that's a great way to put it and i don't think people talk about that enough because i do the same thing before every album i try and select some sounds some new plugins maybe some presets like some just some vibe statements that are like this is part of the defining sound of this thing and i'm not gonna stray too far from it i'll obviously add stuff and do things but the the the pre-production

30:11 Luke F. Walton in the modern digital streaming age is a really fascinating concept that i don't think it's like explored very much i think we're all just kind of doing our own thing yeah

30:19 JW Francis everyone kind of doing their own thing which is great and some people are doing it really well and it's what it's really is what it really is about is world building like you really have

30:30 Luke F. Walton cool

30:30 JW Francis to you

30:30 Luke F. Walton world building yeah

30:31 JW Francis have to build your own world that people want to come back to that is like you said like different enough but still familiar but it's like your own world you know kind of deal yeah

30:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

30:42 JW Francis yes

30:43 Luke F. Walton And I love that analogy. That's part of the reason why I like working in headphones a lot, because it feels like the ultimate like mental world. that's cool yeah i so if anybody's out there indie indie games um

31:02 JW Francis I

31:02 Luke F. Walton look

31:03 JW Francis know,

31:03 Luke F. Walton for

31:03 JW Francis yeah,

31:03 Luke F. Walton hit

31:03 JW Francis hit it us

31:03 Luke F. Walton up up. jd that'd be rad um yeah i'm so fascinated to see how this whole this whole thing evolves and changes because it already has just over the last few years um yeah

31:14 JW Francis Sure.

31:14 Luke F. Walton um in terms of songwriting anything that you do uh if you get in a rut or if you don't know how to kind of get to the next um

31:23 Luke F. Walton next thing like any techniques or anything that you pull out the bag to try to progress or do you set it aside work on something else like how do you how do you how do you flow once you hit a wall yep

31:32 JW Francis zigzag i think that's the way to just always stay on your toes it's like if something's not working throw it away go work on something else and then like maybe that will be i have a lot of songs that are frankenstein that like i just

31:32 JW Francis zigzag i think that's the way to just always stay on your toes it's like if something's not working throw it away go just work on something else and then like maybe that will be i have a lot of songs that are frankenstein that like i just the chorus wasn't there never i just couldn't find something that was interesting and then i go write another song and i'm like oh my god

31:54 JW Francis this chorus actually belongs to this song you know and you're like oh it's like you've got kids and you're dressing them up and you're like oh i put the i put your socks on you and blah blah like let me uh switch this back around and figure this out yeah i'd say just because i'll marinate on songs for long time like and they'll just kind of live on the outskirts of my thoughts you know uh

32:17 Luke F. Walton Yes.

32:18 JW Francis and some of them never see the light of day some of them i have so many unfinished songs like that's the i feel like that's probably the biggest thing that i do if i do get asked by other songwriters or stuff is just like what do you do with all your unfinished song like don't you have a lot of unfinished projects and it's like yeah i think you need those to to finish stuff like those are not

32:44 JW Francis they're not waste they're they're it's kind of like compost like it's just gonna

32:48 Luke F. Walton make yeah cool yeah

32:48 JW Francis it's gonna make the soil more fertile

32:51 Luke F. Walton yeah

32:51 JW Francis it's not necessarily gonna be a great tomato plant but even if it's crap it'll help the tomato grow you know yeah

32:59 Luke F. Walton i'm gonna i'm gonna keep that in my head that that's a really good way to put it because it's true i i mean there's so i have the same thing saw you know hundreds not thousands of at least song fragments um

33:12 JW Francis mm-hmm

33:13 Luke F. Walton that uh sometimes yeah you find a little thing and you can plug it in but most of the time no most of the time it's just like i explored it it was bad or it was just you know just didn't resonate it wasn't exciting enough to finish um and that's okay you know

33:29 JW Francis yeah it is really okay because yeah it's and it's okay to it's like you don't even have to finish it that's the thing it's like we're like i have all these fragments like i can't finish them i'm like well maybe you're not supposed to maybe they're not that good you

33:45 Luke F. Walton yeah and

33:45 JW Francis know

33:45 Luke F. Walton it's it's but it's tough because there's also the element of like yeah and finish your freaking record like you know there's there's two poles

33:53 JW Francis that's like finish freaking record but it's got stuff that excites you and then like it doesn't always come easily that's for sure but there are some sometimes it does and like and sometimes it comes easily and it's good and it's like boom you know like paul mccartney woke up singing yesterday you

34:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

34:14 JW Francis know sometimes

34:14 Luke F. Walton right.

34:15 JW Francis that happens and it's amazing and you're like yes like So maybe just collect those and when you have 10 of them call it an album.

34:23 Luke F. Walton yeah or or do or do what like we were saying is like take a fragment and i really liked what you said of like develop that as a chorus realize like oh those verses aren't strong what if i change that chorus to be a pre-chorus or a verse and then try to build something in the back and you just have this kind of like

34:38 Luke F. Walton strongest idea pushing pushing pushing and then eventually you might find like there's some poem or something like that the golden chord of the muses and it's like every once in a while you grab hold of that thing and it pulls you to the end of the song you're like oh that was awesome but it wasn't there in the beginning you just kind of like had to get it started and you grasping through the air and then you find the thing and then you're like oh i've done it's beautiful yeah

35:00 JW Francis Yeah, exactly.

35:02 Luke F. Walton yeah And the fragments, I've got this folder on my Dropbox of like haunt melodies.

35:09 Luke F. Walton They're the ones that I sing when I'm cooking that just never go away and they haunt me until I put them in a song and then when I put them in a song they go away.

35:16 JW Francis Oh, wow.

35:17 Luke F. Walton it's super weird man i don't know why um but like i kept i keep capturing them like i have to put them into something even if it's a joke song they have to they have to find a resting place because

35:28 JW Francis I

35:28 Luke F. Walton otherwise they haunt me

35:29 JW Francis mean, if there are ghosts of... human souls there could very well be ghosts of song souls you

35:39 Luke F. Walton oh

35:39 JW Francis know of these who have unfinished business

35:41 Luke F. Walton yeah exactly exactly and some of them are not very good but they're just in there like i gotta i gotta find a home for them they're too too uh two malicious spirits um i i want to hear the um your your touring experience what was it like um you know opening and and going on the road and playing as a you know a solo act in these big theaters and stuff what was that like cool

36:07 JW Francis that was amazing that was the first time because even though i'm solo i've always played with a band before that mile my club tour and for production reasons they asked me to do it alone own because they're like a piece and whatnot and

36:20 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

36:21 JW Francis so i was i was like i don't want to do the sad acoustic thing i don't want to be the guy who makes a loop in front of you because it's so nerve-wracking it's so easy to mess up and it's just there's people who do that and that's great but it's just not my type of music

36:37 Luke F. Walton it's like what they do like

36:38 JW Francis well

36:38 Luke F. Walton they're they like that's

36:39 JW Francis do like that's what they do i'm like this i write songs i'm not gonna loop them in front of you you

36:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:43 JW Francis uh and so it was actually i was on instagram and i saw that there was a guy who was doing a cover of one of my songs to a back that he had made himself in ableton using like totally different presets and everything and i was like oh my gosh this is so cool because he had put the rhythm guitar and everything in there and so he was just playing the lead and then singing and i was like wow this is awesome so i asked him if he could make my whole set if

37:10 Luke F. Walton No

37:10 JW Francis i could

37:11 Luke F. Walton way!

37:12 JW Francis yeah

37:12 Luke F. Walton Cool.

37:12 JW Francis if i could pay if i could pay him to make my whole set he was like Great oh it's

37:16 Luke F. Walton idea.

37:16 JW Francis like this is amazing so we uh that was that set that you saw was just like a 30 minute eight song set but we we've now done about 25 uh backing tracks together so i have a whole hour and a half if i need to uh and that really like opened my eyes to because i was doing i had done you know i toured

37:41 JW Francis at the end of 2021 and then i had a tour at the beginning of 2022 and then i had that tour started in april of 2022 and after that i was like i think i can just keep doing this because getting people to take off time off work and all that kind of stuff is like really hard and not just that but like paying them you know well and you know you're

38:06 Luke F. Walton Successful,

38:07 JW Francis at oh

38:07 Luke F. Walton yeah.

38:08 JW Francis tell oh my gosh all the expenses just get so crazy so quickly and so once I learned that I could do

38:17 JW Francis um a solo thing really totally solo i was like i'm gonna just do this for a while until i can really pay people what they deserve um

38:26 Luke F. Walton Yep.

38:26 JW Francis and so that's what i did i mean i really haven't stopped touring since then uh because

38:35 JW Francis it was just such a good experience and then i was like i think this is my life now and

38:40 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes.

38:41 JW Francis it really has been i get and luckily it's it works well enough to the point where i can do a month on and a month off and then i mean last year i was on tour for 10 months so 2023 yeah 2023 was crazy i did 100 did over 100 shows and it was yeah it was sweet and

39:04 Luke F. Walton That's

39:04 JW Francis like played

39:04 Luke F. Walton so cool.

39:04 JW Francis in costa rica played all over the u.s just canada like did western europe it was it's great and you know it helps everything it helps you know people listen it helps you get fans it helps get whatever it is extremely tiring and hard on the body and the mind and all that but it's just so cool you're living the dream you know

39:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

39:28 JW Francis and it's

39:28 Luke F. Walton yeah.

39:28 JW Francis like and you don't and you don't feel like you're dragging anybody with you which is even when your band is super excited by week four they're not gonna excited and they're like why am i like this guy's my boss like what like you know and you're like no i never wanted to be a boss

39:49 JW Francis um no boss but so that's been a blessing because now i can do a month's tour with a full band and not be incredibly stressed that it's not gonna break even or something because i know that i can go tour on my own and make money and

40:07 JW Francis so it was incredibly liberating doing that tour because i was like oh my gosh i figured it out yeah

40:14 Luke F. Walton You did.

40:15 JW Francis yeah

40:15 Luke F. Walton You did. And it was a great show. And that was it was it was really impressive. Yeah.

40:18 JW Francis the one thing that is funny is that i went to my agent because i because of an agent they got me that show and i was like i want to play 100 shows a year and he was like not with me well off where am i and

40:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:34 JW Francis you know i'm not making you know eighty thousand dollars to share or something you know i'm not making you know money to where he's like yeah let's

40:42 Luke F. Walton Let's

40:42 JW Francis do it a

40:43 Luke F. Walton do it. Let's go.

40:44 JW Francis couple

40:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

40:44 JW Francis hundred so he gets like 10 that gets like 20 bucks a show so he's like maybe not like so we had to work out a deal where i

40:54 Luke F. Walton Mm

40:54 JW Francis could book

40:54 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

40:54 JW Francis myself in anything that's like unofficial diy or anything that's like a bar like less than a 250 cap basically i

41:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:04 JW Francis mean which is great because i know a lot of other agents who are extremely you don't do anything until it goes through me kind of deal that was the other thing i learned with getting an agent is they do not really want you to play the same city you

41:18 JW Francis be more than twice a year which i was like you know i was playing every weekend in new york and suddenly i'm told that i can only play there every six months and i'm like well how am i supposed to live if this is how i make money but

41:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.

41:34 JW Francis so you just got to keep moving

41:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right. That makes sense too. so the the it makes a lot of sense too then why um obviously your ethos too ties in really well with this but you started playing all these really cool diy shows i saw like a recap video of all these different places can you talk a little bit about kind of like the places that you played some of the experiences that you had please

41:56 JW Francis yes this is going to be kind of rambly but i was

42:00 Luke F. Walton i love

42:01 JW Francis it all still it all i was in the uk on that first tour And I was about to cross the road and I almost got ran over because that road is different there.

42:12 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes.

42:13 JW Francis And my thought process for some reason was like, if that had killed me, my four regrets would be that I'd never had children, which that, you know, that's a whole other thing.

42:27 JW Francis Like, is it moral to have children? I don't know. We could have a whole conversation, but I want a kiddo.

42:32 JW Francis i never owned a dog or like a home and fourth i never did my dream tour because i have built up so many friends and connections and all these people and then i felt like as soon as i was like in my like i got swooped up by an agent who told me not to do a lot of stuff and so i was like okay but you know the show's got better and the show's got bigger and it was really cool

43:01 JW Francis but then I was like but I never got to do the tour that I wanted to do which was set up just with the help of fans just in weird places you know and so that was like a real moment because I was like man I can't live with that kind of regret of not doing that and Yeah. I and if everything goes well for me and

43:26 JW Francis down the line it's going to get harder and harder to do a thing like that also just

43:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

43:29 JW Francis you know culture

43:30 Luke F. Walton right.

43:30 JW Francis it gets harder to do you get less excited about playing someone's backyard but um so that's really what it was and i just put out the i just knew that if i just told instagram i wanted to do this that there were people who'd be like i've got a backyard and um

43:50 JW Francis it was so beautiful and random it was like i got a one person was like there's a roller rink in town that does shows and i was like let's go and a lot of emailing and keeping my spreadsheet organized and you know there's a lot of people who are like you should play there and i'm like cool do you know anybody there they're like no and i'm like okay what do you how do you think i should proceed and they're like i don't know man i'm like never mind like you know

44:16 JW Francis you go down a lot of rabbit holes you suss out stuff what is real what's not and then you route a tour and that's what i did and it started on the west coast and it went it kind of went up and down america did like up and down and up and down really

44:32 Luke F. Walton Ha, ha, ha.

44:32 JW Francis like i went over to boise started in oregon over to boise down to las cruces i mean there's

44:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:42 JW Francis places between there over to oklahoma and down to texas over to baton rouge up to michigan over lake michigan down to ohio up and over to maine and then all the way back to oklahoma and then and then the great thing is is like just because that was like kind of the concept of it but now Like on Friday, this is basically another dream tour, except instead of being like,

45:12 JW Francis hey, everybody, I want to play weird places, now I just know weird places to play in different towns. So

45:18 Luke F. Walton Sure.

45:19 JW Francis I'm like, instead of just like getting all this information and trying to figure out what to do with it, I'm like, okay, I want to start here and end up there. Let's play places in between, you know, so. That's what I'm about to do on Friday. I leave for tour and I'm doing Boston to Austin

45:36 Luke F. Walton Cool. I've been noticing you've been doing like live streams to curious how that's been going and do you think it's the same fans or different audiences like the same people that come see you play or do you think it's like a different crowd or more global I'm just just curious how that's been going.

45:51 JW Francis it's definitely more global and I can tell you the funny thing is it's like I've never

45:58 JW Francis I've never really, to be totally honest, like never really taken off as like a live stream artist.

46:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:05 JW Francis on instagram i'll have about like 20 people and i'm like oh nice and

46:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:09 JW Francis i was doing these with a company called earth's alive because they approached me and were like we want you to and they like pay me a little guarantee and i'm like okay on that you know i get like eight people and i know them by name it's like leo my guy he's my he's he's a guy in philadelphia who loves me man on this woman in manchester who loves me it's like it's fans who definitely come out to shows when i'm in their town

46:32 JW Francis um

46:32 Luke F. Walton but Yeah.

46:32 JW Francis they want more and they want it every week and awesome and i'm really blessed to have that but i'm just like i don't really

46:43 JW Francis maybe it's the future um it's hard to tell with live streaming because i always put myself in the position of the fan i'm like i don't ever watch live streams like i'll maybe see someone goes live on instagram click on it check it out i'm not sticking around i just can't i just can't um this is a little bit of a lewd um

47:07 JW Francis comparison but it's like phone sex it's just not gonna work for me it's just not like live music is live music it's magical and you have to be in the room and to do it through a screen and for it to be live

47:30 JW Francis just like it just doesn't work for me i don't know why i just it's just not interesting and like

47:38 JW Francis there are live sessions that are done really well like obviously in pure tiny desk and kxp and there's people who do it really well but that's you know edited and mixed and like so not live even though it's live yeah

47:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly. It's a different kind of studio recording, really,

47:57 JW Francis yeah

47:57 Luke F. Walton in a lot of ways.

47:58 JW Francis exactly it is like a yeah it's like it's kind of like hearkening back to how people made records in the 70s

48:04 Luke F. Walton Exactly. exactly

48:04 JW Francis like but

48:04 Luke F. Walton you

48:04 JW Francis i'm

48:04 Luke F. Walton know sitting in the room and yeah

48:06 JW Francis can't even go in a room but it's not live streaming and it's like yeah so maybe i'm just slow to pick up on it and it'll like it's got to be something different i'm just like i'm it to me it's like you are doing a weird imitation of something else rather than it's a thing you know like

48:33 Luke F. Walton well it's it's kind of like what you were talking about the um very beginning of the conversation about it being familiar but different like that's the sweet spot this thing is like it's a little too different it's like oh it goes into that uncanny valley a little bit maybe is that kind of what you're saying yeah

48:47 JW Francis well i guess it's like but it's almost even worse than that because it's like for me like i know what live music is and it's not that you

48:57 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah yeah i get you

49:00 JW Francis it's i don't know i don't want to get too much into my opinions but it's like the new wonka movie it's like i know what it should be

49:10 Luke F. Walton That's funny. That's really good. I wanted to talk to you about your Valentine songs.

49:18 JW Francis Yeah. Yeah. Talk about creative exercise.

49:20 Luke F. Walton Super rad. Seems super hard.

49:23 JW Francis Oh my gosh. It breaks my brain, but you,

49:27 Luke F. Walton Could you tell the listeners what even this

49:30 JW Francis yeah.

49:30 Luke F. Walton is and where it

49:30 JW Francis So basically I will, this is the fifth year I just wrapped up, but basically I'll just, I just tell people, Hey. If you'd like a song for your valentine or your loved one, or even if you don't have one and you want a song for you, I will write that song if you just tell me the name of the person and the reason that you love them. And first year I did it.

49:54 JW Francis complete not asking for anything and realize that was not smart because i got too many requests and then i've just kind of started asking for donations thinking that it would reduce the amount of requests but i think i'm gonna have to next year just be like i i'm gonna stop saying suggested donation and be like it costs this because that's sometimes suggestion donation to some people means you don't gotta pay

50:18 Luke F. Walton Mm

50:18 JW Francis i'm

50:18 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

50:19 JW Francis like it's fine because i you know i love doing this but kind of like why am i writing 100 and this was 130 songs this time and it will break your brain because i could be totally evil and just use the same instrumental for everybody and change the name but i'm not gonna do that and i'm gonna write 130 individual pieces of music and it is just so crazy but the way I do that

50:49 JW Francis is collecting voice memos throughout the year something has some kind of promise and it's like a little bit more it's like a there's some kind of like yeah i can hear a song out of it i will label it v-day candidate and

51:04 Luke F. Walton Cool.

51:05 JW Francis so so

51:05 Luke F. Walton Okay.

51:06 JW Francis i will end up but by the end of the year i'll have about 50 or so v-day candidates and so i've already got 50 pieces of 50 seeds of music where the requests start coming in so that kind of buffers it a little bit

51:21 Luke F. Walton Are you ever going to release them all?

51:26 JW Francis i think one day i will um never

51:32 Luke F. Walton Like Mac DeMarco style, like 350 of them.

51:35 JW Francis never like that never had some really opinion like on the one hand i like respect him for doing that on the other hand i'm like this is homework like i thought You find yourself googling like what are the ones that should listen to like

51:48 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

51:48 JW Francis you don't want to listen to nine hours music I don't think I would ever do that to somebody or like any of my people who like me what I would

51:57 JW Francis is i do have like a vault in my brain that's going towards the patreon because i'm

52:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

52:03 JW Francis like one

52:03 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah.

52:04 JW Francis day i'm gonna be out of my all my contracts or whatever i'm just gonna have a ton of material to share with people and they could have access to it for a dollar a month there's something like

52:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

52:15 JW Francis that right, year

52:15 Luke F. Walton right.

52:16 JW Francis every valentine's day song they ever wanted to and the years i actually have I actually have like eight songs with John in the title. Not just...

52:26 JW Francis Nice.

52:28 Luke F. Walton That's so cool. oh yeah i'll sign up because i just i'm so impressed and it's what a what a cool what a cool exercise and what a cool thing for fans and what a difficult difficult task to keep coming back to like doing that one year may would have made total sense that to come back for year five it's like man you're a masochist

52:51 JW Francis yeah yeah another funny thing is my mom always is like we'll have a call and i'll be like i'm miserable like i don't know why i did this like like i am like just i i can't go out like i i have to be inside working all day but

53:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

53:09 JW Francis part of that is because january sucks already so why not make it suck worse and but my mom's like i'm gonna remind you before you make that post next year so i'm still gonna do it because i love it but i think i am gonna I've never asked for more than $25. This time I might just be like, all right, 50 bucks.

53:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:32 JW Francis Who wants one?

53:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

53:34 JW Francis Yeah. I feel like I won't get 130 yet.

53:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah, a little supply and demand. I get it.

53:40 JW Francis Yeah.

53:43 Luke F. Walton I want to talk about your new single Orbit. Sounded awesome. We'd love to kind of hear how that that song came about. Like how'd you write it? How'd you produce it? What what how that how that all play out?

53:53 JW Francis That one was, I wrote that in 2022 when I, so basically the way I met my current partner is.

54:03 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

54:05 JW Francis They came to one of my shows. We were friends online. We had talked everything. They're a clown and they offered to give basically the way we met is they offered to give me a ride from LA to Oklahoma because they're in South Carolina. And so they did and on the road trip we fell in love.

54:23 Luke F. Walton Aww.

54:24 JW Francis by the end of it we were like by the time they dropped me off here my grandma's they were we were like let's be together and so it was very quick and it was very like wow like all of a sudden and amazing and then they left to south carolina and i was going to visit them in a few weeks but i was left all of these feelings of head over heelsness and

54:45 Luke F. Walton Yes.

54:45 JW Francis so i felt like this is the most you know i've been writing songs almost my whole life i'm like this is the moment of falling in love that i need to a lightning in a bottle and

54:59 Luke F. Walton Yes,

54:59 JW Francis so that's really where it came came from is just wanting to capture like a very special feeling and

55:08 Luke F. Walton love it.

55:10 JW Francis so it's all you know they made me feel like this that's what the whole song is about it's about how you feel how someone makes you feel

55:17 JW Francis and so yeah I'm really happy that it's finally coming out because I wrote it and recorded it last year and I've really just been on a journey the whole my whole last year was really trying to figure out what to do with my next batch of songs because my record deal was done I had a three album deal and then it was like okay

55:41 JW Francis do i resign do i try to upgrade do i just you know see what's out there and it's it's kind of bleak it's kind of hard to you know i don't want to discourage anybody but i felt like i was like okay like i'm i'm me now and i've got three albums under my belt surely not that like i've gone viral or you know

56:06 JW Francis I don't have a million monthly listeners or anything like that, but I was like, I've got a career going like this should be, I should be able to do this.

56:17 JW Francis it was really hard a lot

56:19 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

56:20 JW Francis of people were like nope and there was a lot of going back to square one and just being like oh right i forgot that it's just constant rejection when you're like have a label being like everything you do is great and like we do and we love everything you do and here's money then it's it's you're like ah when you get outside of that you're like what's like out here

56:44 JW Francis I

56:44 Luke F. Walton I

56:44 JW Francis want to go back.

56:47 Luke F. Walton hear it no it's it it's amazing how much and you know doesn't even have to be money but just having people that are in your corner or like believe in you um That is and it can be family too, but having somebody like in the business that goes no no what you're doing isn't crazy

57:07 JW Francis yeah exactly i think that's the biggest thing and i mean who i ended up i ended up signing with born losers who are amazing um and like to be completely honest i was looking for like a ton of money i

57:22 Luke F. Walton yeah

57:22 JW Francis was i was

57:22 Luke F. Walton yeah why not yeah

57:24 JW Francis i was like i wanna like i don't want to buy it i just want to be able to live

57:28 Luke F. Walton live in a house yeah yeah

57:30 JW Francis like and i i don't want to buy a car but i would love to like start making payments on a car you know i have right like i'm getting older i want i want stuff you know and it's hard to get stuff when you're and

57:46 JW Francis I ultimately didn't go with a big money thing I went with a label that had people who were real and who were really hard working and who seemed genuinely passionate about the music because the most frustrating thing is like you don't get a lot of flat out nose you get a lot of no calls and no replies back and some little interest

58:15 JW Francis but like don't push us too hard because then we'll tell you our roster's full kind of deal it's like you get a lot of like maybe like so it just gets super infuriating you're just like just someone tell me if you want me they did and so i was like cool yes

58:34 Luke F. Walton yes um one last question this is kind of how I like to end the pod with everybody so the show is called love music more the

58:44 JW Francis Yes.

58:44 Luke F. Walton segment is called love music why and this is the why behind why you wake up the next morning and do it again like why why do you love this thing why do you give so much to it you know obviously like having that question of like yeah i want stuff i want money it's like why do you not just like why do you sacrifice that to do this you know like why why what's what what keeps you

59:07 Luke F. Walton doing it what keeps you sacrificing why do you love this so much

59:11 JW Francis I love it so much. Yeah. If you want stuff, you don't want to go into music. I have friends with so much stuff who have different jobs that the money to get more stuff. I do it because language fails because you can't, it's just you can't.

59:36 JW Francis I just feel like I'm not complete without music because I can't explain to you how I feel or like with words or really even like communicate myself properly without the help of music and like beyond that personal reason it's like

60:03 JW Francis The reason I think of myself more as an entertainer than an artist is because I love putting smiles on people's faces. And this is not the easiest way, but this is the way that fulfills me the most to do it. And I get reminded constantly, it shows and through messages and other ways that people.

60:26 JW Francis are listening and they love it and they want more and it's just such a wholesome relationship you have with fans um i mean it should be it should be completely wholesome because you are both interacting in this dialogue of um you know of picking up where language fails

60:52 JW Francis expressing you know hurt for example hurt is one of the biggest things that you can't that is really hard to say with words um and joy as well it's like you can say i'm happy or you can play a really nice sounding chord and that one's going to be better you know so that's what i would say

61:15 Luke F. Walton I like that. I totally agree. especially for the things that are yeah like hurt or mourning you know it's and there's a i'm i i hear you on the lyric thing lyrics are really hard music is able to elevate some of the words that i write to make them sound way more poignant than i could do in poetry because i'm not really a poet but if i repeat the same thing enough times over interesting sounding chords i think you'll get the emotion more than what the lyrics even are so i totally hear you and i agree

61:47 JW Francis yeah yeah

61:48 Luke F. Walton yeah it's a beautiful thing and it's something worth uh worth sacrificing for and then hopefully it pays you back you know like i i believe you will i'm a big fan of what you do i'm a big fan of your music and your ethos and everything that you do and your pants we share the same pants by the way i don't know if you know this but uh i'm not sure who bought them first the

62:06 JW Francis colorful ones yes

62:08 Luke F. Walton colorful ones i saw you live and was like dang it we have the same pants

62:14 JW Francis it's so funny because that you know that i got that instagram ad like right before that tour and i was like those are my tour pants

62:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

62:21 JW Francis and i got so many compliments and then like and then i started to get the i have those pants oh my friend has those pants oh i've seen those pants and

62:31 Luke F. Walton You got

62:31 JW Francis i'm like

62:31 Luke F. Walton him early, man.

62:32 JW Francis okay now i have the i had to retire them after that story yes

62:36 Luke F. Walton I saw you tore him up like you just wore him to death.

62:39 JW Francis i did i did i only wore those pants for the whole time put that aside because i was like now too many people now people send me photos of people they're like yeah just on the street they'll be like hey i saw someone wearing your pants i'm like come on okay my pants now come on now yeah

62:56 Luke F. Walton I've got more than the pants, that's right.

62:58 JW Francis exactly exactly

63:00 Luke F. Walton Well thank you so much for chatting JW, I loved it, it was a great conversation and I'm a big fan of your music and I can't wait to see you again on tour sometime.

63:10 JW Francis thank you man thanks for having me peace