FRANCESQA have recently wrapped up their first proper headline tour of the UK and with a re-release of their ‘We Lived’ EP out now, it’s about time PT caught up with them…
Hi there, please state your name and role in Francesqa.
Hi my name’s Tom and I play guitar in Francesqa.
By now you’ve wrapped up the final dates of your headline tour with The Dangerous Summer. How was the experience overall?
The tour was incredible, I don’t really think there were any low points or bad shows for us; we enjoyed every night. It was our first real experience of headlining a whole tour and we definitely loved it, the crowds were just mind blowing.
Almost all of the dates were sell-outs or near sell-outs. Are you surprised by how well it sold?
It was definitely surprising. We’ve only done a handful of headline shows before so we didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. It was especially strange to go over to Ireland and play to packed venues when we’ve only ever been there once before. So humbling.
How much did body and mind taken a pounding on this outing?
We’ve been lucky this time to tour in relative comfort; we’ve had hotels every night and a great crew to help us out. Even so, playing shows every night for 15 days straight takes it out of you, so we’ll definitely have a little bit of time off to recover! But not for long as we’ve got to get back in the studio and continue writing.
If you had to pick one standout show from the whole run, which would it be and why?
That’s a very difficult question because I could probably list them all for different reasons! For me it would have to be Oxford O2 Academy. For us that’s as close as it comes to a hometown show, it was sold out and the atmosphere in the room was electric. Glasgow King Tuts was great as well, if you sell it out you get a bottle of Scottish Whiskey!
What was your average daily Nandos intake on this tour?
Is it bad that I didn’t have Nandos at all?! I’m not really a fan to be honest, I don’t see the appeal. I know that The Dangerous Summer guys ate a whole lot of Nandos though! I think our guys had a little!
How were The Dangerous Summer as touring partners?
They’ve been great, we’ve been fans of their music for a long time, so watching them play every night was a treat. They’re great guys too, we’ve become good friends over the past few weeks. They definitely party a LOT harder than us, I don’t drink myself but even the others couldn’t keep up!
It seems like things have been a constant climb for you guys in the last twelve months – from being picked by Tom Delonge to open Slam Dunk Festival to being voted Best British Newcomer in both Kerrang! and Rock Sound in December. Do you feel like things are finally going your way? Was there any particular turning point over the last twelve months where you thought ‘OK, this is all starting to work out’?
It’s been a lot of hard work definitely and yes, a constant climb. For me personally I’d say this headline tour has showed me just how far things have come, you can only gauge it so far from doing supports slots, so to do a headline tour and realise that we’ve got so many fans is amazing. Obviously we’ve got a long way to go. Our attitude towards the band and our music is very forward thinking; we’re always looking ahead to the next thing – be it a new song or the next show – we want things to improve every day. It’s been an amazing journey so we hope it continues!
You’re currently working towards your debut album. How far along the writing/recording process are you with that?
We’ve written about seven or eight songs so far and we intend to spend the next few months writing and recording demos to make sure we get the best spread of songs for the album. We’re still finalising dates for the album, I think we’re going to be in the studio in late June/early July to record it.
How would you say it’s sounding in comparison to the songs on ‘We Lived’? Do you think it’ll surprise some people?
So far it’s sounding quite different, some of the elements of ‘We Lived’ are still there, but the songs sound a lot more mature to me. It’ll definitely surprise people, but we don’t want to write a predictable and mediocre first album. We’re putting in a lot of hard work to make it the best it can be, so we’ll see what happens when people hear it!
Do you have a producer lined up you? Any song titles you can share or a title for the album itself?
Yes, Pete Miles and Jordan Fish who both worked on ‘We Lived’ will be producing the album.
You’re also re-releasing ‘We Lived’ this March. What has made you decide to do that?
We wanted to give ‘We Lived’ a proper release in HMV and other stores, and also to give our fans some new songs and other content to hear and see! The DVD was an idea we had, just because fans never get a chance to access us in our natural light. Some people have preconceptions about bands and we just wanted to share how crazy the last 12 months have been for us.
There’s a DVD included with the re-release that contains a documentary entitled ‘Two Days’. What’s the story behind that?
The DVD is in two parts. The ‘Two Days’ documents our first two headline shows back in November last year; they were the first we’d ever done so it was a special occasion for us and we thought we’d capture it all on film. Also included is a documentary on the recording of our new single ‘All I Had’.
Thanks for your time. Anything you’d like to add?
Go and check out the re-release of ‘We Lived’ in an HMV near you and check out our new tour in May!