“We did 23 festivals this summer,” says frontman Frasco via phone from his Los Angeles home where he said he was doing some budgeting for an upcoming tour that brings Andy Frasco & the U.N. to House of Blues on Friday, Sept. 29. “We do about 250 shows a year and are just trying to keep having people listen to the tunes and get them out to the shows.”
After the last tour in 2022, Frasco says he realized he needed some new songs. So he took a four-week break to focus on the tunes that would become L’Optimist.
“I wrote a song a day for a few weeks,” he says. “I flew around the country to write in Nashville and Charleston, SC with all my favorite writers. I would stay in each town for a week. If I really loved the song, I would try to record it the next day at a studio in town. It was a great experience. You tend to overthink art. If we end up going with the first gut reaction, it would be better. Once you like it, forget about it and move on.”
Frasco says he wanted to explore the theme of staying optimistic “during these weird fucking times.”
“Life is so weird right now — there are aliens out there and everything,” he says. “People judge you for being yourself on social media. It’s an existential crisis. I thought, ‘Let’s write an album that questions how we can be happy for ourselves. Sometimes, the idea of the American Dream is great. Other times, you’re digging a hole you can’t get out of because you’re trying to keep up with the Joneses.”
With its cooing vocals and bluesy piano riffs, album opener “Oh, What a Life” has a classic ’70s feel to it and then pivots into a bit of hip-hop courtesy of guests Little Stranger.
“I was strung out in fucking Charleston,” says Frasco when asked about the tune, which includes a vocal sample from an old Say No to Drugs campaign. “I was having this moment. I’m getting older, so the hangovers are worse than they used to be. I was thinking about what a crazy life we have. You make everyone happy and then wake up alone. Sometimes, you feel like a circus clown putting on your make-up and turning on the switch every night when you have low dopamine. When you take the microscope further away, you realize it is a beautiful life even though there might be shitty cocaine and alcoholism on some nights.”
The single “You Do You,” a mid-tempo Train-like rocker, is particularly infectious.
“I was watching the news in Tennessee about how they were banning drag shows,” says Frasco when asked about the track. “We’re so quick to talk shit. Instead of talking shit first, why can’t we figure out a way to understand each other. We won’t necessarily agree on everything but why can’t we just hear each other out. “
He even dressed up in drag and walked around the streets of New York.
“It was freeing, but I don’t know how people wear those heels,” he says of the experience. “I almost broke my ankle three fucking times. it was a great experience to understand what people go through. It was a five-hour thing. You’re putting on make-up, and it’s a lot of dedication and work. For people to ban it because it’s not how they feel is bullshit. It’s art too.”
Initially, Frasco, who grew up in L.A., managed local bands when he was in his late teens. He eventually decided he wanted to form his own damn band and learned to play piano. He put ads on Craiglist to find musicians who loved Chuck Berry as much as he much he loved the Rock Hall Inductee.
“It took me four years of cycling through musicians in every city,” he says. “From that, I became a better piano player so better musicians wanted to play with me.”
Frasco also cites punk acts such as NOFX and RX Bandits as well as classic rockers like Bob Dylan, B.B. King and Dr. John as influences.
In the early days, because the band only knew three songs and had to play sets that lasted for at least 90 minutes, the group engaged in “battles” that found musicians squaring off each other.
“I was doing jam music before I knew what it was,” Frasco says. “I didn’t have enough of a repertoire, and I was playing these colleges where everyone was getting hammered. You had to get their fucking attention, so we did lots of solos.”
While the band’s repertoire has expanded, the energy of the live shows remains.
“Now that we have enough songs, we can be creative in how we transition between tunes. We have 200 to 300 songs. I’m off all the drugs and staying healthy and focusing on music. I’m only getting older. It was fun in my 20s, but I’m done trying to stay up until 5 a.m.”
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
This article appears in Aug 9-22, 2023.
