{"id":7415,"date":"2015-09-10T16:01:10","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T16:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/interview-frnkiero-andthe-cellebration\/"},"modified":"2018-03-14T19:30:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T19:30:09","slug":"interview-frnkiero-andthe-cellebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/interview-frnkiero-andthe-cellebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Frnkiero andthe Cellebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Frank Iero<\/b> may be best known to most music fans as guitarist in theatrical emo punk heroes My Chemical Romance, but for the last year or so he\u2019s been steadily building a following as a singer and frontman in his own right with new band Frnkiero andthe Cellebration<\/b>. Frank brought the band to Leeds Festival for the first time late last month, and we sat down to chat with him about adjusting to life as a frontman, the associated anxieties that brings as well as the creative freedoms of writing a solo record and much more.<\/p>\n

AH: It\u2019s been a while since you\u2019ve been here at Leeds Festival, are you happy to be back?<\/b>
Frank: The last time I was here was 2011 I think. I was having this conversation earlier that I remember as a young kid hearing about the Reading and Leeds Festivals and reading about them in magazines and all the bands that played them. And I never knew what that was or what it would be like until I got to play here and it was pretty awesome.<\/i><\/p>\n

AH: Does being here for the first time with your solo project make it feel more pressured then previous visits?<\/b>
Frank: Not really. I think it\u2019s just a different kind of anxiety. Any time you play shows like this, even if it\u2019s with a band that you\u2019ve played with a million times or a band that\u2019s played the festival before, you still don\u2019t know what to expect. I feel lucky to be getting the chance to play here again. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: You\u2019ve been performing as your new project FrnkIero andthe Cellebration<\/b> for a decent amount of time now, have you adjusted to being the main man and the focal point of the band yet?<\/b>
Frank: No! (laughs) It\u2019s fucking weird man. It really is. I\u2019ve always been in bands and now I\u2019m able to do it with close friends and family, so that takes some of the, I don\u2019t know the suck off of it. But it\u2019s still weird. I never, with all due respect, wanted to be talking to people about shit. That was never my idea, like oh I can\u2019t wait to do all these fucking interviews, I can\u2019t wait to talk to a million different people. That\u2019s like an anxiety thing I never wanted. But I\u2019m getting more used to it I guess, and I\u2019m realising I can learn to do it on my own terms. <\/i><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

AH: Was there a moment of realisation around the first few shows where you felt like “oh man this really is all on me now”<\/i>?<\/b>
Frank: Oh yeah absolutely. That whole first tour there was a lot of that and it was like \u2018oh man do I really want to do this\u2019. I had long conversations with my wife about it. Like I didn\u2019t ever really want to do this and now I\u2019m doing it is it something that I really want to do. She said well give it time and at least you\u2019ll have tried. So I gave it a bit more time and it was a learning curve is what it was. I\u2019m having way more fun with it now. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: Did the process of writing and recording every single instrument yourself make creating this record seem like a lot more of a labour of love then previous records you\u2019d been involved with?<\/b>
Frank: Well that\u2019s the thing in making this record I had no intention of anyone ever hearing it. It was just for me, it was solely for me. That was it. So as far as a labour of love, absolutely. It was selfish, it was a selfish labour. Now I\u2019m thinking about the next record and what that means. Knowing people are actually going to hear the songs it changes things. It\u2019s weird. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: Was working on an album where you were in complete creative control a liberating or daunting experience?<\/b>
Frank: Not thinking of it as a record helped with that, but also those moments where you\u2019re trying to make something and you\u2019re the only one that\u2019s there. So there\u2019s no playing off of each other, there\u2019s no impressing anybody. It\u2019s just what you like. It made the self-editing a little bit weird, needing to do that. But I imagine it\u2019s going to be a lot weirder the next time around. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: The record goes in a lot of different directions musically, did that make trying to fit it all into a live show awkward?<\/b>
Frank: I thought it was going to be awkward but it\u2019s not. Which was surprising. What\u2019s really funny has been in the last year taking a record that I heard in my head and then recording it, and then trying to work out how to do it live. Now these songs have evolved a bit and changed in the best way possible I feel. Now I know what I want out of a live show that\u2019s going to be a good lesson to have learned going into the next record. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: Did writing the record provide a release of being able to let go of certain issues or feelings you\u2019d been carrying around, once you\u2019d written songs about them?<\/b>
Frank: I feel like some of those issues and some of those stories have an ending and some of them don\u2019t. Some are more like that was the beginning of it. I\u2019ve never heard it put that way before, that\u2019s a really good way to put it. There are certain things that have now been dealt with. But then again am I the first person to hold a grudge? I don\u2019t know. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: How opened minded have fans and critics of your previous bands been when approaching this project?<\/b>
Frank: I don\u2019t know if they have much choice. Here\u2019s the thing, there\u2019s always going to be people that don\u2019t, but it\u2019s more laziness. Where they go \u201coh I don\u2019t need to listen to that because it\u2019ll sound like this, this and this\u201d. That\u2019s just how some people are. As far as critics and people like that go, I feel like they were interested to hear it and wanted to know what was going to come out of it. I think a lot of people have been pleasantly surprised. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: Were there any particular songs on the album that were challenging to either complete or play live?<\/b>
Frank: The quintessential answer would be they all mean a lot, and it\u2019s true they\u2019re all like your kids and all of that. But there are definitely some where I\u2019m like I wrote that song, I recorded it and it was a fucking horrible process and I never want to play it again kind of thing. And it sucks. I\u2019ll say that to people and I\u2019ll say a song like \u2018Guilt Tripping\u2019 and they\u2019ll inevitably say that\u2019s my favourite I wanted to hear that. At this point right now we have to play everything we know because we need the time and the material. And it is nice to play the songs, but down the line there are definitely songs that I would like to phase out of playing. And not for anything other than my own selfish thing. Maybe sometimes you record songs and it\u2019s the best that you can do, and you don\u2019t need to recreate that every night.<\/i><\/p>\n

AH: How much of a learning curve was the experience of writing and recording so many different instruments?<\/b>
Frank: Here\u2019s a thing. When I listen to my favourite records, some of my favourite parts of them are the human elements, the mistakes and stuff like that. I was very happy to have these moments in time included on the record and use some of the shortcomings and the weaknesses and exploit them for it. I didn\u2019t want everything to be perfect because the songs weren\u2019t perfect and that time in my life wasn\u2019t perfect. So to have a well-polished studio musician record would have been fake. As far as it being a learning curve it\u2019s nice to learn that about yourself. That you can pull things off and that you don\u2019t need to be a virtuoso on everything to get a feeling across. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: At any point did you listen back to the stuff you\u2019d written and surprise yourself by how dark it was?<\/b>
Frank: I get that a lot, where people say the stuff that I\u2019ve made is stupid dark and I never think of it that way. I can sit down and write a happy song and inevitably someone will say that\u2019s the most depressing thing they\u2019ve ever heard. But I think we all just find the silver lining in different things. <\/i><\/p>\n

AH: Lastly where did the name for the project come from and what exactly is it that you\u2019re celebrating?<\/b>
Frank: The name came from me wanting something that wasn\u2019t genre specific and wanting something that would maybe detract from the fact that I wasn\u2019t a sociable person and couldn\u2019t be a crazy frontman. So I thought if I named the band it would be a tongue in cheek kind of thing. I\u2019ve been thinking more and more that maybe the next record the band doesn\u2019t need to be called that. That the band changes every record. Not the people but the name. I think that would be fun. <\/i><\/p>\n

‘Stomachaches’<\/i> by Frnkiero andthe Cellebration<\/b> is out now on Hassle Records<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Frnkiero andthe Cellebration<\/b> links: Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

View more of Already Heard<\/b>’s coverage from Leeds Festival<\/b> 2015 here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Words by Dane Wright (@MrDaneWright<\/a>). Photo by Jade Till<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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