| Pete Francis | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Pete Francis Heimbold |
| Also known as | Pete Francis, RePete |
| Born | January 8, 1975 |
| Genres | Folk rock, Rock |
| Occupations | Musician |
| Instruments | Acoustic guitar, Bass guitar, Electric guitar |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Labels | Hollywood Records[1] Scrapper Records |
| Associated acts | Dispatch, Woodriver bandits, Hermit Thrush |
| Website | Official Pete Francis website |
Pete Francis Heimbold (January 8, 1975) is a solo musical artist formerly of the bands Dispatch, Woodriver Bandits and Hermit Thrush. He plays guitar, bass, and is a singer/song-writer. Francis pursued a successful musical career with the independent band Dispatch for eight years, until their breakup in 2002, and is now continuing to write, play, and record solo. He draws his inspiration from his studies of poetry, art, and music from around the world. The style of his music takes on aspects of folk, pop, soul, and rock.
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New York City based singer-songwriter, Pete Francis, put out his first solo album So They Say in 2001, before the disbanding of Dispatch. The album features popular songs such as "Burning the River" and "Carry You", which were then performed by Dispatch live in concert before their break-up in 2002.
After Dispatch, Francis was signed by major label Hollywood Records. He released the album Untold in 2003, which received critical praise and saw success at radio with songs "One Train" and "Untold". Coming from a history of being fiercely independent, and largely successful in that mold, Francis was unhappy with the promotion of Untold. He purchased the album back from Hollywood Records and has continued releasing albums independently ever since.
In 2004, Francis released Good To Finally Know. The album showed his combination of straight folk songs, such as "Town On Top Of Town", mixed with upbeat organ-heavy jam rock songs, such as "Low Sun". Dispatch got together to play their "Last Dispatch" concert in Boston, at this time, with over 110,000 attendees unexpectedly showing up, shutting down Storrow Drive, a major expressway in the city. The band played the song "Ride a Tear" off of Good To Finally Know and can be found on the Dispatch CD and DVD All Points Bulletin.
Francis took the next few years off the road. He returned in 2008 with the album Iron Sea and the Cavalry, touring the US both as a headliner and with artists such as Rusted Root and The Greyboy All Stars. He found a home in the summer festival circuit performing at 10,000 Lakes Festival, Summerfest, Mountain Jam and many others.
Francis is set to release his new album The Movie We Are In May 18, 2010. Whereas Francis’ previous solo albums were largely self-produced, he uprooted his more traditional approach to album-making and assembled an entirely new crew with Los Angeles based producer Jeff Trott (right hand man to Sheryl Crow as writer and guitarist).
Says Francis, “In the past I’ve worked with acoustic guitar, bass, drums, B3 organ, but I wanted to bring a modern electronic element into my music. When first speaking with Jeff Trott, I quickly realized he had great musical instincts and that he was getting my tunes. And then, he brought ideas to the table that I hadn’t imagined. I saw a new musical landscape could be created with my songs by working with him.”
The musicians that Trott assembled for the recording sessions helped to create this colorful landscape. Having worked with artists such as Beck, Nine Inch nails, Gnarls Barkley, Willie Nelson, Queens of the Stone Age, Dr. Dre, and Scott Weiland, the musicians (Brian LeBarton, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, John O’Brien, Victor Indrizzo and others) provided an extraordinary musical palette of talent and sensibility.
When asked about the project, Trott says, “It really became apparent to me that Pete was a very creative and colorful song-writer. What I liked was that there was this very good sense of Pete’s personality from happy go lucky to dark and brooding. All these aspects were amazing to work with and the lyrics were very colorful. I think that’s one of the things I really enjoy about Pete’s songs… that it’s sometimes hard to really figure out what the meanings are and I think that’s missing in a lot of music - the mystery of what a song is.”
The opening track, “Glue”, generates a feeling of weightlessness by combining organic instrumentation with futuristic sounds. This song solidly represents what’s to follow on the album’s consistent mix of fresh and classic, electronic and acoustic, known and unknown… Each listen unlocks a new guitar lick, synth riff, bass groove, drum program, live drumbeat or horn swell, and even the sounds of the sparsely used Ethiopian instrument cumbus. Midway through the album, the listener gets catapulted into the up-tempo and joyous revelry of “Love Shakes You Down” a sing-a-long with the familiar bell sounds of Motown combined with a string synth creating a modern and retro sound all at once. The slower, more melodic songs of the album like “St. Paul’s Fair” and “Didn’t Know I Built It” lure the listener into dream-states with rich deep vocals, sampled sounds from a town square in Italy, trance-like Wurlitzer pedaling, and vivid lyrics.
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