Interview: Gabriel Franco Reflects On The Journey To ‘Never, Neverland’ And Finding Success With Unto Others
Gabriel Franco just wants to play music. The goal sounds simple enough. You grab some friends and play shows. Maybe make an album or two. But the journey hasn’t been easy for Franco. He kept running into setbacks. Franco’s previous band, Spellcaster, fell apart after seven years. Out of frustration, he formed Idle Hands with former Spellcaster members Sebastian Silva and Colin Vranizan. Just as things started looking, the band was hit with another obstacle: they had to change their name to avoid legal issues. Thus, Unto Others was born. Unlike Franco’s past bands, this time something stuck. The band became a cult success off the backs of their debut EP Don’t Waste Your Time and their debut album, Mana.
The band earned more acclaim with their 2021 effort Strength. Just as things seemed to be on track for the band, another hurdle appeared. As they were preparing their third album, Unto Others was dropped from Roadrunner Records. Franco was determined to move forward refusing to let the band meet its demise. They eventually signed with Century Media and released their newest album, Never, Neverland. With things on track, Franco is already looking ahead to the next album and the next chapter of Unto Others.
Franco chats with GENRE IS DEAD! about the making of Never, Neverland, what he hopes to achieve with the band, and why he dreams of living a simple life.
GENRE IS DEAD!: The new album, Never, Neverland, is out, but the road to it was difficult. The album was delayed due to several hurdles, the biggest one being the band was dropped from Roadrunner Records. You’ve since signed with Century Media and the album is finally out and is getting a great response. What’s it like finally having it out in the wild?
Gabe Franco: Well, as I’ve found with most of the successes I’ve had in my life, usually by the time you achieve them, you don’t care anymore. I know that’s sad and fucked up, but that’s truly how I feel. For me, the album’s been out for almost a year. The fact that everyone else is hearing it is really cool, but it doesn’t really make much significance on my life. My day-to-day doesn’t change. I’m glad it’s moving along, but I’m already thinking about the next album. That’s generally how I work. That being said, I put a lot of work into it so, of course, it’s really nice to have people give their comments and say they like it.
GID: Do you find when you’re working on something, you’re also thinking about the next thing in the back of your mind?
GF: Well, yeah. I feel like I have to continue working towards the next thing all the time because that’s what I get joy out of. I don’t really get joy out of adoration or people saying they like the stuff or anything like that. Because if I believe all the positive things that are said about the band and myself, then I have to believe the negative ones too. So, while people might say they love the record, I think, that’s good for you. If I take your word as gold, I have to take everything else as gold. I have to be a bit more protected about myself these days because when we started out, I’d read these reviews and think, I don’t care. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about what this person said 10 hours later. I’m just not doing that anymore.
GID: That makes sense, especially in our world now where people are chronically online, and give their opinions for everything and anything you didn’t ask for.
GF: Yeah, and I know it sounds cliche to say this because I feel like everybody says this, but I could probably draw a line chart of my happiness level versus amount of the time I spend on my phone. The more time I spend on my phone, that happiness goes completely down. The more I can forget about the fact that I’m even in a band, the happier I suddenly become because I can actually do the things that make me a musician, like playing music, playing acoustic guitar, coming up with cool ideas, and being creative. You just can’t do that while you’re looking at your phone. It’s impossible.
GID: It’s crazy that we know how bad doom scrolling is, yet it’s so easy to slip into. You have to be intentional about putting down your phone.
GF: Totally. I feel like our society as a whole is just starting to figure that out. We started a couple of years ago, but it’s starting to take hold now, even with young people and the way we think about using our phones. I realized it was truly addictive when I would be tired and come home thinking, I just need to lay down for two seconds and look at my phone. All of a sudden, I felt better. That is ridiculous. I should have to just close my eyes. Looking at my phone shouldn’t recharge me.
GID: 100% agree. Getting back to Never Neverland, you wanted to release it last year, but it was delayed. So, when did you start originally working on the album?
GF: I already had a couple of songs written for it before Strength came out in 2021. So, I’ve been working on it for three years from inception to release but that’s pretty typical. Never, Neverland just came out and I already have four or five legitimate songs written for the next record. I’m writing all the time whether the songs are good or not. That’s just kind of how I work.
GID: You want to keep flexing that creative muscle, even if it’s something no one is ever going to hear.
GF: For sure. It’s kind of a use it or lose it situation. There is overuse, for sure. You can work it out too much and then you need to take a break. But if you settle into some kind of malaise, that creative muscle will atrophy and your future albums will suffer from laziness and the inability to put in the proper amount of time, like hours and hours of concerted creative work.
GID: And that hard work pays off, which you can hear on the new album. For this record, you worked with Tom Dalgety. You’ve mentioned how working with him allowed you to be more hands-off with album production. How did it feel to relinquish some of that control? Did you find it difficult to let go a bit?
GF: Working with Tom was fine. Letting go was easy because Tom knew what he was doing. I was like we have a fifth member now, let’s see what we can make. I’ve already done two records where I was the mastermind and I was controlling every single aspect of it. And you know what? I’m getting kind of bored of that. So, let’s see what else we can come up with. I like Studio Magic and Tom created quite a bit of it.
GID: Digging into the album, there are so many great songs here, like “Flatline” and “Hoops,” but the one I keep coming back to is “Mama Likes the Door Closed,” because I’m a huge horror fan, especially 80s schlocky B-movie horror. And when I heard the song, it felt like an episode of Tales from the Darkside. And you guys perfectly captured that cheesy horror vibe in the music video. So, where did the idea for the song come from?
GF: You just listed my three favorite songs off the record. “Hoops” is my favorite by far. You’re also the first person I’ve talked to who said they got [“Momma Likes the Door Closed”] before they watched the video. So, kudos. That song was so weird because the music was done forever ago. I had a really hard time coming up with lyrics. They were originally going to be about my teenage years, like let’s go out, gonna have some fun tonight. That was going to be the chorus, but it was so vague and obtuse. I couldn’t figure it out, but I had to write lyrics for this song because it was so cool. Then they just came out of nowhere. The story wrote itself in like five seconds. That’s generally how most of my lyrics that have made an impact come about. It’s literally one spark of inspiration you follow ’til the end while you have it. 20 minutes later, you have a full song written. It’s a nice feeling when that happens. It’s rare, but it happens.
GID: Another great song is the new single “Suicide Today,” which deals with a heavy topic, yet there’s a glimmer of hope; that everything is going to be okay. What influenced you to write this song?
GF: Musically, I was studying the Ramones. I wanted to try and write a song around those song structures. The lyrics wrote themselves because I’ve known a lot of people who committed suicide back in high school. And I’ve always found extremes to be really interesting topics. I think most people do. That’s why there’s a lot of war and drugs and suicide and violence and even love in [our?] songs. As far as inspiration, I don’t know, it was somewhere down there. Once I got the line, “you can do it tomorrow,” I loved it. I’m a huge fan of double and triple entendres. People can take it however they want. On a pissed off day, you can take it literally. On a compassionate day, you can take it compassionately.
GID: I picked up on that when I was listening to the song. It’s this line that can either be read as optimistic or you can take it literally. As you said, take it how you mean it.
GF: That’s my philosophy on life. Growing up, I was always a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. I’m able to see two sides to most problems. I’ve found that when you sit on the fence, it pisses people off. People don’t like that. I’ve always thought that was insane. I’ve never wanted to take a side because why would I? I don’t hate anybody. I hope they don’t hate me.
I always love the people who say I’m proud of my city of where I was born. Why? That’s fucking stupid. You had no control over that. You’re completely biased and making a decision based on pride. I’m not a big religious guy, but the Bible says pride is the foundation of all sin. That can be taken in many ways. I’ve always thought about how a lot of negative things can come from pride. Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent here. But I’ve never wanted to take a side with this band. I’m just trying to show people both sides. Take it how you want it. I don’t want to try and convince you of what you should believe.
GID: Let the music speak for itself. Another song that stands out is “Time Goes On” because it has a clip of Navi from Ocarina of Time at the beginning. I thought that was really cool. Do you often search for sound bites to incorporate into your music?
GF: No, I was just listening to the intro of that song on a demo, and I heard that in my head. I thought I’d throw that in there. I’m not even a big Ocarina of Time guy. I grew up playing the Game Boy versions. I didn’t even own an N64. It just came into my head. That’s kind of how the sample stuff works. It’s probably the dumbest answer ever. But I figure if it sounds good in my head and I can’t stop thinking about it, then I’ll throw it in. I had to fight to keep that in there. The label wanted it out. They didn’t want to get sued by Nintendo but there’s a few Zelda samples floating around songs on the internet.
GID: I’m glad it was kept in because I thought it was a cool way to use that sample. You don’t even have to know the game to recognize it.
GF: I’ve always loved commanding things like that, especially in music and marketing and on album covers. One of my favorite examples is Aerosmith’s album, Just Push Play. I always loved that. Just fucking listen to it. I mean, that’s what we want, right?
