FRANK FROM BLUE VELVET DEBUT ALBUM

RELEASE DATE: 26th October 2022

Frank from Blue Velvet started as a two piece in 2019 when dark country singer Andrew J Davies met Ogs, formerly the drummer for Peter & The Test Tube Babies. They played some pubs in their hometown of Hastings and soon recruited Andrew Francis on guitar and backing singers Bev and Karen.

Soon after the cow-punk shirt label Yo-Silver asked if they would play a party to launch their collaboration shirt with Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles record label. Then the pandemic broke. The party was cancelled and instead they performed their own country version of Dead Kennedy’s Police Truck filmed down a nearby alley. The video helped their name travel beyond their own locality.  Interest in the band started to grow, with each gig attracting new faces.

The lockdown was a very creative time for the band, and soon as studios reopened, they recorded the ‘The Sin’ sessions. The singer’s daughter Ruby Lyons filled the bass player position and soon became a permanent member of the touring group. Together with John Horning on banjo, and third choir member Steph Funnell the live spectacle now fills venues across the English south coast.

The debut EP “Sin Without Redemption” was released through local label Property Of The Lost October 2021 and plans were immediately hatched to record a full album.

The ambition was grand, with choirs, pedal steel, brass, clarinets, violins all being added to the heady mix of alt-country, chain gang gospel, post punk and heavy roots. The band threw everything at their endeavor. For a band who started with the sole intention of playing a few parties, it was never the plan to record an album but now it was happening Frank From Blue Velvet were going to make damn sure it was something to be proud of.

In January 2022, the infamous Bopflix You Tube channel came to Hastings and recorded three songs.  “Church Of Prosperity” was released the following month and gained the band new international support, not to mention some hate from the “religious right.”  Some people just don’t have a funny bone.

Let’s face it.  The world is always pretty messed up somewhere, but the pandemic’s forbidding shadow, and war coming to Eastern Europe formed an eerily suitable back drop for the albums first fruits, “The Apocalypse Nears.”  The opening words “The news is dark today,” underpinned by short band radio crackle, takes you on a paranoid journey through the mind a cult leader.  Or is it a prophecy that it is becoming all too clear?

Lyrically the subject matter is always dark with a taste of the macabre, dealing with the frailty of the human condition and the devils and angels sitting on everyone’s shoulders. 

making comparisons with Appalachian snake preachers and certain current political leaders, the next single “Snakepreacher” (release date 24th August) will show Frank From Blue Velvet going back to their original music manifesto. It’s hearty, it’s stomping, it’s rabble rousing and is a fine forecast of what is to come…

The eleven track album “Frank From Blue Velvet” is released through Property Of The Lost on 26th October 2022.