Buzz Interview with VAGRANT Recording Artist FRANK IERO

By: David D. Washington III

FRANK IERO and the PATIENCE will be performing at Daily’s Place, Saturday, June 24th.

Buzz: How excited are you to be on this tour?

Frank: We are very excited! Jacksonville is going to be the first show we play on the Rise Against and DEFTONES tour. We have played shows leading up to this, but this will be our first show on this tour.

Buzz: A lot of people out there may not know, but you have been in the music business since you were eleven-years-old. Tell us how you got started?

Frank: Yeah.  My dad was a drummer. My grandfather was a drummer.  I think they wanted me to play music since the day I was born. I remember my dad teaching me to play drums when I was three.

I remember the day I got my permit. That weekend, I drove my dad down to Virginia Beach and did sound on his tour. I have been in bands since I was eleven, and I have been touring on my own since I was 17, and I’ll be 35 in October. So yeah! I been on the road a long time.

Buzz: Do you remember any of your early shows?

 Frank: I do! My first show ever, I was 13. I played guitar for recitals and stuff like that, but my first show with a band, I was 13. I played at a high school. It was a Junior dance, and I was not old enough to be there. So, I got to play the show, but then I had to leave. (Laughing)

Buzz: Do you remember what your first big break was?

Frank: That is funny, because I remember that specifically. There was a couple of little steps, like the first time hearing a band that I had been in on a college radio station.

But, the first time I really felt like, “Oh my gosh!”, this is something really big, was when we were playing local shows and we got offered a gig opening for “Jimmy Eats World” in Allentown Pennsylvania because Coheed & Cambria; something had happened. They had to drop out the show, and somehow, someway we ended up getting offered the show.

We played it, and it was the biggest show any of us had ever played to that point. We were a very, very young band at the time. When we went into our first song the crowd just started to pogo, and jump. It was like a sea of people. I remember feeling like, “oh my gosh!” These people are actually moving to the music that we made. It was the greatest feeling I had ever felt.

Buzz: Did the crowd know any of the lyrics to your songs?

Frank: F*#K NO! (Laughing) No one had any idea who we were. No one knew why we were there. But immediately, we got them moving. We won the crowd in the first song-and-a-half. And that feeling! Man!

When you get to do something like that, it is pretty crazy. You can feel how powerful the music is.

All those things that are cliché, like “music is the universal language. It transcends all these barriers.” You say that stuff because you hear it so much. But until you actually see it, in person and feel it; you don’t actually grasp it. That was a moment we grasped it.

Buzz: Can you tell us about your current album “Parachutes” and what this album means for you?

Frank: Well for me, the last record I had done was “Stomachaches” in to 2014, and each song I drew upon feeling of illness. So, each song for me, the word “song” became synonymous with feeling ill or a stomach ache.

This time around, I started to think about life in general and how we all got to a certain point. How life is a lot like being pushed out of a plane.

Immediately, as soon as we are born, a countdown starts, and we are falling at this alarming rate. We all eventually hit the ground, you know. Then it is over.

There are certain things we find along the way that allow us to hover a little bit and kind of enjoy that fall. And so, these songs are about people that became parachutes for me, and allowed me to kinda “drift” a little bit, extending and enjoy that fall.

Buzz: What does the future have in store for you?

Frank: Definitely more touring. We have an EP coming out in the fall entitled “Keep the Coffins Coming,” which is a EP we did with Steve Albini, that I am really proud of. After next year, I am looking to take a little bit of time off the road and figure out what is next.

Buzz: If you were not a musician, what would you be doing?

Frank: I thought about that a lot. I think every artist has this dream where they have a job that they do not have to create from scratch. I think that seems like such an amazing vacation. But I know that if I could not create from scratch, I would probably be miserable.

Ultimately, the other thing that I always wanted to do was to write a book. I think I would want to be a writer. Maybe that’s what next year holds.

Buzz: Do you have any advice for any new musicians trying to make it in the business?

Frank: I think, first and foremost, do it from the heart and don’t be full of s%#t. If you have any expectation of getting anything out of this, you are going to be very disappointed.

The highs are incredibly high, and there is nothing else like it. But, only do it if you feel like you have to. Do it only if you feel as if you would do it regardless of any kinda reward.

For more information on Frank Iero

Tour Dates