Michael Franti and Spearhead play the Tivoli on Friday 10 October 2008.
Michael Franti and Spearhead are back with their brilliant new release All Rebel Rockers. The first track ‘Rude Boys Back in Town’ provides a wonderful snapshot of their recent adventures.
“When I was kid growing up I used to play this game at school with my friends where we would spin the globe and then we’d put our finger on it and say 'what would it be like in Uzbekistan or what would it be like in Alice Springs'...and music has taken me to a lot those places I dreamed about as a kid...so we’re always looking for some place we’ve never been before...we always have that adventurous outlook on it.”
“There was so much happening at the time when I first started in San Francisco. There was a lot of punk rock, underground hip-hop and reggae and all those things had a DIY attitude at the time. Hip-hip was like anyone who had a drum machine and a microphone put out a record.”
Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica with producers Sly and Robbie, All Rebel Rockers is almost a return to Michael Franti’s punk roots.
“It’s very different recording in Jamaica because the studio door is always wide open. There will be a guy smoking a spliff in the corner you’ve never seen before and he’ll go ‘Hey man, on the second verse you need a new keyboard part’ and you’re like ‘Who the f*** are you, you producing my album now?’ and then you listen to it and damn, he’s right. Music there is so communal. Everyone listens to music over a sound system, never an iPod.”
“Sly and Robbie are incredible people. I just got of the phone with Sly this morning and I told him I was doing some remixes and he was like ‘Keep it for the street, make everything for the street’.”
“Cherine Anderson (guest vocalist on three tracks) is a really incredible artist who I met with Sly and Robbie a few years ago. She is really popular in Jamaica...she is very motivated, very talented, beautiful.”
“When you make a music video in Jamaica, again it’s at street level. There are no crews, security, catering...you just take a camera and some people on the street, turn the music on and people just come round dancing, vibin' to it...it’s a lot more free there. When you make a video in America, you have to have a permit to shoot. In Jamaica, it’s really loose.”
Franti has also just completed a second children’s book.
“I’ve written another children’s book called Where in the World is Away. It’s a book about recycling. It’s about two kids who drink a bottle of juice and they are about to throw it away...they think in the lake it will go to the bottom with the fishes that live down there. If they throw it in the forest, there are animals there. If they leave it in the city, its gonna break and cut their feet. In the end they realise there is no such place as away. There’s only someplace else.”
All Rebel Rockers out now through Liberator Music.
Michael Franti and Spearhead play a sold out gig at the Tivoli on Friday 10 October 2008.
