BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition September 2019

N
ashlyn Lloyd confidently struts into
49th Parallel Coffee House on Main
Street in Vancouver wearing black
pants, ballet flats and a blue business-casual
blouse that accentuates
her long, brunette mermaid locks.
The lead keyboardist and songwriter for
the Vancouver-based dream rock band,
Frankiie, Lloyd has just come from her full
time job at the art grant organization, Creative
BC. It’s a job she’s just as passionate
about as her music but it’s the juxtaposition
of her professional working life with her
budding music career that has the young
musician’s head spinning as she prepares
herself for the release of her band’s fantastic
debut LP, Forget Your Head.
“I have an existential crisis on the daily,”
says Lloyd. “When you’re growing up and
becoming an adult, there’s this systematic
world you must fit into, but as an artist there’s
also this passionate world calling you and
sometimes I wonder — could I do 100 per
cent passion or would I just end up starving?”
Frankiie is far from starving, at least success-wise.
Since their first show at Vancouver’s
Biltmore Cabaret six years ago, they
have edged into the big leagues with international
tours under their belt, a contract with
Tiny Kingdom management and now a new
album set for release this month on Paper
Bag Records. The album, which fuses their
signature reverb drenched post-punk with
Artist to Watch
FRANKIIE
VANCOUVER DREAM
ROCKERS KEEP A FRESH
PERSPECTIVE ON SUCCESS
By KATHRYN HELMORE
their folk background,
marks a new chapter
for the band.
“Fran (Carbonneau,
co-vocalist/co-songwriter
and guitarist)
FRANKIIE
Thursday, Sept. 19
The Clubhouse (Van)
Tix: $12, eventbrite.ca
used to play with a 75-dollar electric guitar
that somebody won at a bar mitzvah and
gave to her but now she’s got a good guitar
and actually invested in guitar pedals,” says
Lloyd. “I’ve upgraded from a basic keyboard I
stole from my little brother to a Prophet Six.
Oh and Zoe (Fuhr, drummer) finally brought a
drum kit.”
Frankiie’s got the contract, the gigs, the album
and the new swag, but to swing over the
details and cue the all too familiar success
montage would be reductive. Working with
Creative BC, Lloyd offers a different perspective
on success.
“Over the past few years I’ve been separating
my ability in music from my business
success,” she says. “The longer you play
music, the more you realize there’s a certain
amount of luck going on. I’ve stopped seeing
success and failure as business achievements
and more so as my creative output and
how closely can I express myself to what I
feel is most honest about me.”
In other words, Frankiie is focusing on the
sound and integrity of the record’s songwriting,
not its material, whether that is platinum,
gold or simply vinyl
AMANDA LEIGH SMITH
SEPTEMBER 2019 BEATROUTE 15