Greg Franco, Ferdinand and Rough Church

"Language is a virus," to quote Laurie Anderson, "and communication is everything to me." I started out as a fledgling poet, I guess, says Greg Franco, singer and songwriter to bands like The Idiots, The Blasphemous Yellow, Ferdinand, and Rough Church.

"I loved the brittle irony and punk ethic of Jello Biafra, Greg continues the bawdiness of bands like The Stranglers, the haunting lyrics of Ian Curtis, the corrupting cuteness of The Dickies, XTC, and Devo, and the flat irony of bands like Gang of Four. I also really loved guys like Jim Morrison, and from my childhood, I worshipped Elton John, Bernie Taupin for the thick imagery and beauty in the words that matched their music.   Also, I really liked gals such as Patti Smith, Kate Bush, and Joni Mitchell."

I came in the door, (meaning, I knocked on the door of my schoolmates I pulled out of the freshman year Marching Band), armed with lyrics and not much else really.   I was an independent and lazy musician, with a lot of hot air. So much so, I could propel any instrument I played, whether it was the assigned French horn, or Sousaphone, it didn't really matter. I was such an avid listener of music, including, lots of Classical stuff like Tchaychousky, and Perkofieff. I had a knack for imitation and an intuitive sense of where the instrument seemed to belong in the orchestra..   I could read the music, I was taught that, but my left-handed, right brained self, just did it the way I thought it sounded best.

I used that same attitude   to pawn myself off as the lead singer of a band called simply The Idiots.   My mate Jim and I were messing around with cheap recording gear and a borrowed Sears's guitar, with a matching amp.



I was banging on Pots and Pans with wooden spoons, and we actually wrote these kind of punky-jagged on-the-spot songs about loose women, alcohol, revenge, spite, suicide, and more drinking and fucking. "Most of which I really knew nothing about at all," says Greg candidly.

I actually had other lyrics about run of the mill love stuff, but the Idiots were on a mission, of sorts, I guess. It is worthy to note that only one cassette tape that exists but was never duplicated. Another rehearsal was set up with a bunch of new musicians that we recruited from the Burbank High School marching band.

"We decided to move to double vocals (two singers) and wrote our coming out track called 'No Slaves' which was a step in the direction of political outrage songs. We heard, 'The Clash' was doing, but we thought we were going to do better," says Greg laughingly.

The next day, after that recording, the band quit. "The next thing we did was decide that music was a less pure form of communication anyway, so we started a very short lived comedy team." A third cassette recorded, this time of comedy genius, and Jim joined the Army.



"It was not until my step-brother Dennis returned from a youth exchange program in Mexico, and later Spain, that I picked up the music thing again," says Greg.

Dennis was a real guitar player; his step-father trained him on flamenco guitar. And he worshipped Jimi Hendrix. I got back on the pots and pans for a while making many home cassettes. This time recording songs about more complicated issues of hypocrisy, jealously, and the occasional 'sick of it all' kind of thing that suburban kids do so well, and they actually started to sound like songs.

"We were living a nicer life by then. We lived together in a four bedroom house in the West Valley area of Los Angeles. Our parents had gotten married. We had a huge pool, so we swam a lot in the long summers, and cranked out lots of cassettes."

Dennis and I finally decided around 1983, to put a band together at the behest of a mutual Friend named Mike Fey, who was in a band called "Debt of Nature." We were like sixteen and seventeen.   Mike liked our cassettes, we kinda sounded like Dylan meets the Dead Kennedys.   We recruited out friend and Marching band drummer, Kendall Oei who actually owned a cheap set of drums.



"We were put on a bill, at an East-downtown Mexican restaurant with some scary art-damage bands, so we had to get a bass player fast.   We went in without a single rehearsal. The bass player Ed Steckel told us he could do it, but, in front of all of our friends and family, we just really sucked.   Luckily, it was punk rock, Ed quit right after the show, and not long after Dennis and I, college bound and involved in school and all, got jobs at a local Pizza shop, met another Ed, Ed Rubin this time, who actually owned a bass, and rig. Thus became the final and best version of "The Blasphemous Yellow" "We practiced now like a real band, amps, drums, everything, and made more cassettes.

In 1985 they basically worshipped College Rock and hometown heroes, The Minutemen, Black Flag, Dream Syndicate, and The Bangs. Dennis and I attended UCLA, and we were invited to play in that scene at places like The Music Machine, and The Anti Club where we met a dude named Perry Ferrell and opened for his band called Psi-Com. We played with British art damage bands like Whitehouse, punk-a-billy" bands like Tex and The Horseheads, Uranium Hoax, an offshoot of Savage Republic, and 100 Flowers, Radwaste and later, The Need, aka Divine Weeks.

"We were very lucky, I guess we seemed to be persistent enough to get the gigs, and promote ourselves, get our fans out to shows, etc. but we only made a three-song demo with songs like 'Dashboard Virgin Mary' and 'Vein' also 'What More Can Be Realized'. We took a lot of time off, due to school and stuff, but by 1987, we played the most amount of shows, even with bands like Giant Sand and Mary's Danish.



But we hadn't really the money to put out our own vinyl, and this all before the CD or the internet.   At that time though, product was important but so was your reputation and live show.   We seemed to please a lot of folks with our bent-punk-folksy-noise"  

We had tons of worked out stuff; we were getting tighter and tighter. I still was mainly a screamer, but a decent one," says Greg. According to Greg, Dennis had a kind of mental breakdown and headed to Oregon for a while. Ed, Kendall, and I recruited a guy from Connecticut, through the Recycler. He was a chain-smokin, Ibanez /Carvin Amp totin', Zappa-head named Jim Crombie.

We also added a shy, but very talented fan of the band for second guitar named Colin Jenkinson. We became a totally different group, still using the old name.

We were heavily into King Crimson, Sparks, and Husker Du by then. So some of the songs were like puzzles. We had confounded some of our audience as well. We did only one show with the new line up in January 1988 trying to promote our new songs like "Making Mud Saints". Then everyone except Jim and I, quit.

So Jim and I tried to at least record some of the later B.Y. songs. We recruited Colin back and a genius kid drummer named Byron Reynolds (later of Possum Dixon). But that recording session was pure disaster with the engineer taking hours to get drum sounds, and doing lots of coke out of our view.



We tried another line-up with Dennis returning.   Although after one show, under the name Chalkfarm, Tyrone Rio on drums, the band broke up again when Jim refused to ever be seen onstage again with Dennis because he was drunk and too loud.

"At that point, I began to focus again on writing and the working world. The nearly three-year break was good, but I had to wipe the slate clean and try again," says Greg.   "I had just started a long term relationship for the first time in my life, post Education, meaning I finished at UCLA in summer 1988, so I put music on the back burner to concentrate on work in the medical business profession.

"I was a serious tie and dress shirt man for a short period of time, until I got backstabbed in some weird professional politics," says Greg, I think we all have been there.

"So I kinda dropped off the face of the earth for a while, my girlfriend supported us while I took some unemployment money, I took voice lessons, and she bought me a acoustic guitar, my one and only acoustic that I have written every song on." says Greg.

I hooked up with a friend and did an enlightening recording project called Blackberry Rockets, very professional. I learned a lot from Mark Mastopiertro.   He and I worked very hard on another kinda ill-fated cassette, but the music was really maturing and one song simply called "Butterscotch" became the first actual released vinyl single for my next band Ferdinand. That was in 1992 or so and we were really getting into stuff like indie rock, blur, Stereolab, Superchunk, The Breeders, Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips, Wire, The Fall, Pavement, Sebadoah, Neu, P.J. Harvey, and a lot more free jazz. "It was really truly and exciting time to start up a band."


Mark wanted to pursue another female singer instead of me, so I started to really play the guitar. I started to use weird tunings and a capo. I would later find out with the tunings that it really did start to define a sound."

In 1993, I wanted to start my own band, with myself singing and writing. I decided to pursue Laura Smith, an old college friend and fellow D.J., who was just as novice as me with her bass collecting dust.

We quickly started playing covers and stuff, and some of my simple songs. "It was fun. She was living in Simi Valley at the time so I'd drive from Studio City out to Simi and we'd have a blast, even if sometimes we just gabbed quite a bit.

Later, through a friend, I met this crazy bow-tie wearing, red pants white shirt-clad, not to mention painted black fingernails drummer named Dean.  "He was a nice guy, met at a party. He mentioned that he had a drum kit and we could rehearse in the back shed at his boss's house, where he was staying in La Crescenta.

Well we did that for a while. Dean's space was small and we had to stand next to shovels and picks. Laura and I were charmed by his selection of Waylon Jennings 8-track tapes. He was big into Johnny Cash, James Brown, and Johnny Thunders.

"We rehearsed out there for a while until his boss came in drunk one night with a perverse look in his eye, and threw a fit about the noise." It was time to move on, but it was a great beginning," says Greg.

Then an old friend, Patria Jacobs, suggested we try paying a few bucks and renting out a space at a music complex in Atwater Village called "Hully Gulley".   We did that for almost a year until we eventually found a lock-out space. But we made so many friends, like Lifter, Burning Sofa #10, Possum Dixon, and Flourecine. Also rubbed elbows with Beck, Lutefisk, and Abe Lincoln Story.

The "Silver Lake Scene" was really starting to happen, but we started playing for the under twenty one crowd at the local coffeehouses like Eagles' coffeehouse where we played out first show as "Ferdinand" in April 1994. We started as a three-piece, Laura, Me and Dean, but it quickly went to a four -piece, adding second guitar player Chris Chandler, says Greg.



We got hooked up with bands like "Rubyfish" "10 cents" "V.L.A. "Six-Volt Sunbeam" "Johnny Malta"   "The Negro Problem" in our own scene, and later as the drummers changed like the weather after Dean left, in the years 1995-2000, we toured a bit to the North West playing or being on the same circuit as bands like Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cuitie.   We adored our friends bands like Double Naught Spy Car, Possum Dixon etc. We were able to see bands like Pavement, Guided by Voices, Blonde Redhead, Low, Cornershop, etc. all at small clubs where we played too.

Later we were asked to open for everyone from Mike Watt, David Thomas and his two pale boys, The Clean, Slobberbone, The Figs, and The Clean at places like The Troubadour and The Knitting Factory. Rilo Kiley and Beachwood Sparks opened for us too!.

Greg :"In 2000, after releasing our first album "Demoted to Greeter" with Chris Chandler leaving to do sound for "The Flaming Lips" and Modest Mouse, eventually moving to Portland, we replaced him with Laura's new husband David Guererro.

David had a band already called "Third Grade Teacher" so it was an even exchange when Laura took over bass duties in his band, and David took over guitar in "Ferdinand" The band went to SXSW in 2000 in Austin, and received amazing reviews for "Greeter." "That album was my dream realized."   It took forever to make it , says Greg, but it was a work I will always cherish.

Unfortunatly, the second album never was finished even though we did a video for a great song called "Frame." Strained schedules and personal stuff took over, says Greg, I liked the title "The Memorial Interchange" because it was a time of major shift. My dad passed away, and eventually so did Laura's ,   I almost got married, then didn't etc. Ferdinand faded from existence in early 2003.   "But Laura and I still might stage a completion of that album with live tracks, and maybe some kind of reunion. You never know". Says Greg.

" I wanted to pursue a recoding project with The Clean and get away to New Zealand which tuned out to be a kind of Greg Franco solo project, which has a story and adventure all on its own. The result is the finished and soon to be released, in NZ first, title "Southpawwest."

Later he formed a solid version another completely different band, of this time back at three piece called "Rough Church." Rough Church kept the last Ferdinand drummer who also is Greg's cousin, Jon, and hooked up with a bass playing Ferdinand fan named Jef Hogan.



To make a long story short, I ended up buying a small house we all could live in, and play and record a lot in. We still go to Richard Bosworth, I finished "Southpawwest" with him, mixing and adding tracks. "Rough Church" records demos at home, but does The final recordings with R. Bosworth, who has too many credits to count for all the years he was the main session mixer at Record one.

"Rich" is the youngest 50-yr old you'd ever meet and he hangs with a crowd that includes Rich the Bass player of Neil Young, Joe Walsh, Waddy Wachtel, and   Phil Jones, "He did The Knack albums, Roy Orbison, Santana, Brian Wilson, Warren Zevon,   Don Henley, Toto, Dolly Parton, you name it.   The private studio we have access to it is a kind clubhouse for famous L.A. musicians from a certain era, and its really great vibe for R.C. to be around, even if we are on such a different tip," says Greg.

"So if all goes well, this year should produce a record in New Zealand,   a un-released Ferdinand album, a Pancakes record (side project; instrumental with Melanie Sanchez and Mark Mastopietro), and Rough Church full-length album. says Greg,

I still have a full-time gig at Universal Pictures, and despite a spider bite that caused a serious problem with my legs, I have tried to stay productive. "I'm on the mend now, but it has focused me on the music too. I'm playing shows again, and I will go back to NZ to tour by fall 2006.

"I couldn't be happier, I'm not a household name yet, but I only hope people will get a chance to listen. "Life is full of surprises" I feel like I'm just starting to produce the music that will define my career........"   says Greg, smiling on a January Friday, now it's time for lunch.....