Planning For Success

FRANKIE SWAIN IS RIDING HIGH, COME RAIN OR SHINE

Frankie Swain first emerged into the BITA consciousness in July 2018 when she provided the entertainment at a BITAx event in Corrigan’s Restaurant, Mayfair. At this intimate venue, she quietly cleared a space, hooked up a mic and her guitar, and played surrounded on all sides by people who were suddenly thrilled to be there.

A few weeks earlier a friend of the family had told BITA President Paul Whitnell that he know a great singer who needed a break and wondered if he know anyone in the music industry that would want to meet her. He did indeed! Paul has many connections in the industry and thought the best person to decide if she had potential was Dave Browne from Picturehouse, a power-pop indie band from Dublin, so an introduction was made.

Fast forward a few months and Frankie is working on her album, has two songs released and a third on the way, she has headlined at the 100 Club in London, performs gigs at least twice a week and with additional bookings over the Bank Holiday weekends; it’s proving to be a very busy year.

“I went to Dublin at the end of 2018, it was the first time I’d been”; says Frankie “it was a lot of fun and I met some really interesting people. I was there for four days and we (Dave and Yann O’Brien from Picturehouse) were in the studio the whole-time writing music and lyrics; it’s the first time that I’ve done anything like that with someone else and it was amazing.” Frankie has been writing her own songs since she was 11, and she learned the guitar so she could accompany herself, “but working with others is completely different. You have some ideas and you think you’ll know where they’ll go, but the other people have a new way of approaching the material and it takes it to another level. I am very proud of the end result.” The songs produced in Dublin are ‘Hook, Line and Sinker’ which was released earlier this year, ‘Emergency Alarms’, released on the 2nd August, and the upcoming single, ‘Come Rain, Come Shine’.

“Lots of people tell me that ‘Emergency Alarms’ is their favourite which I think is lovely as it’s such a personal song. It’s about mental health and how people should reach out for help if they are struggling. I had friends in Uni that suffered from mental health problems, and it was difficult to watch them struggle. I want to encourage people to talk to each other about these things.”

The Uni that Frankie mentions is Canterbury Christ Church, a small campus where she studied Commercial Music Performance. “I know I’m very lucky; my parents never told me that music isn’t a real career, they never told me to study something more ‘serious’; they encouraged me to pursue something that I was passionate about. It was a teacher that sent me down this road, although probably by accident. I was 16, I’d just finished my GCSEs, and she asked me what I was going to do with my life. This is a terrifying question for a 16-year-old, but when I seriously thought about it, I could only see myself as a musician, so here I am!”

Frankie has a wide range of musical influences and isn’t tied to her contemporaries, her wish list of people she’d love to work with is as diverse as George Ezra and Don McLean; her own music is best described as alt-folk, powered and carried by her distinctive and emotive voice.

It’s a lot to have done in a year, and looking to the future Frankie plans on being just as busy with big plans to implement; “right now I’m working on the album; I want it to have the absolute best material on it possible, but in five years? I’d like to be touring stadiums, continuing to release music, be hugely successful, and continue to have an impact on people.”

It’s not hard to imagine when considering what she has already achieved, but “none of this would be possible without BITA. I wouldn’t have released any songs; they wouldn’t even exist! I can’t begin to say how thankful I am.” We can’t wait to see what her next move is, and to chart her successes into 2020!

Frankie Swain’s single Emergency alarms was released on the 2nd August, available with her previous single, Hook, Line and Sinker, on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube.