"Last March I was on a train going from York to London, the bloke sitting opposite was obviously dying for a chat, he was going through his repertoire of ice-breakers at a tremendous rate, polite smiles, knowing nods, eyes to heaven at the selection of sandwiches. After about an hour of attempting to look pre-occupied, which is a hard thing to do minus Walkman, book or newspaper, I cracked.
We launched into the usual barrage of openers, a couple of minutes on the weather followed by a quick swipe at the ticket price eased us nicely into the "what do you do for a living?" stage of the relationship.
He turned out to be an insurance salesman, I decided to tell the truth for once and admitted to being a drummer in a band, it became clear that he hadn't heard of us and inevitably the "what sort of music" question reared it's ugly head. Not wanting to get into deep water I opted for the tried and tested "I suppose you could call it indie"."Oh, right, like Travis", he replied. I think I went into shock, were these moaning Travelling Willbury sound-a- likes now defining indie-music?
Three weeks later when ourselves and Rob Kirwan (the producer) sat down to discuss the album we were about to start we were all in agreement, this had to end, the world once populated by Gods was now inhabited by a bunch of plodding, insipid, self-absorbed musos, we had to reclaim the genre, the kids deserved better.
And so here we are, another summer over, the greatest summer of our lives. Plant a tree, write a book, father a child and make a great album, philosophy for the twenty first century.
Just hit play and let the dark days slip away. Our only demand is that you listen and love us."
- Ashley Keating, The Frank and Walters.
The Frank and Walters were formed in 1990 in their home city of Cork in Ireland. Inspired by bands such as The Smiths, New Order, The Bunnymen, and spurred on by the surge in popularity of so-called "Indie Music", the band decided to launch their own band, bringing a definitive Corkness to Irish music and being highly regarded by popular and fresh talent of the time.
The Band - comprising Ashley Keating and brothers Paul Linehan and Niall Linehan - released three EPs on the brand new Setanta label. Each of these was hailed as "single of the week" by either Melody Maker or NME. The subsequent album "Trains Boats and Planes" went into the top 10.
On tour the band were supported by Radiohead and Suede. In fact one of their roadies on this tour was Noel Gallagher who later praised the band as having given him the impetus to form Oasis, for which the band are truly sorry.
"The Franks" are known for their peculiarly Corkonian slant to their songs, without losing any appeal to non-Corkonians. They are also reknowned for their skill at providing a good hook-line.
The Franks and Walters albums as follows;
Some Info courtesy of http://www.thefrankandwalters.co.uk