The Frames have signed a pretigious new record deal with Anti (part of the Epitaph label, and home to Tom Waits, Daniel Lanois and The Offspring), which will see their next album getting a worldwide release, although the album will remain on The Frames’ own Plateau label for Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Groningen, for so long associated with the tragedy of Mic Christopher’s accident, will at last have some far happier memories for The Frames, as it was in the Northern Dutch city that they signed the deal.
“We all got to sit down and really read the contract and I really wanted to sign it in Groningen, because it was like a weird respect thing for Mic,” notes Frames frontman Glen Hansard. “I think Mic has always had my back. He’s always been there in the background for me, so for me it was really important to sign the deal there.”
Considering the band’s chequered history with record labels, did Glen have any qualms about signing with a big record company again?
“No,” he laughs. “It’s third time lucky…. I feel really good about this one. Even if things don’t work out at all with this label, the contract is such that we own all our records and we’ve got complete control over what we do. I know every band says this but these people seem to be genuinely really good and if our stable-mates are anything to go by, we’re going to be alright.
“When you’ve been in a band for 13 years, when you’ve been signed twice and you’ve basically been involved with about seven different record labels, and you meet all these people, I think your bullshit-ometer becomes very strong.”
So how did the deal come about?
“It’s been almost five years since we’ve been involved with any label and these people came out of nowhere,” Glen explains. “This guy saw me playing a Van Morrison song in Texas and it just came out of that. When we communicated with them, we were very honest. We said, ‘We been through this a bunch of times. It’s a load of shit and we don’t know if we want to get involved again.’ And they didn’t push us at all. There was no sense that they were hungry for us and we were hungry for them. It was much more casual.”
Frames fans keen to get their mitts on the first fruits of this record deal will be pleased to hear that the album is almost finished and is pencilled in for a summer release.
“The album is at a point now where there are way too many songs,” Glen admits. “What I’m trying to do now is break that down to a solid ten. If it ends up being 12 or 13 songs, fine, but I’m trying to break it down to ten.
“I’m also trying to work on those little ideas that got overlooked. From experience, I’ve found that those little ideas that get overlooked can often be the strongest tunes on the record. I’m just weeding through everything we’ve done and trying to bring back to life some of the ones that were neglected most. It’s basically like polishing up the little bits that didn’t come out, because they often sparkle the most.
“‘Santa Maria’ was one of those bits on For The Birds. We had knocked it off as a song that we wouldn’t use. Right at the end, I felt that this tune that we had done months previously could be really good for the album, and it ended up for me being one of the flagship songs on the record.”
As well as finishing off the recording of the album in Chicago’s Electrical Audio studio, The Frames have a rather hectic touring schedule already in place.
“It’s nice to look at your itinerary for the year and see that it’s already busy,” smiles bassist Joe Doyle. “It’s very exciting. We’re going on tour with Damien Rice in America he’s doing great over there so that’s going to be a great opportunity for us to play in front of new audiences. We’re also going to China and back to Australia and we’re trying to hook ourselves up with a decent European tour. So it’s all go, but that’s the way we like it.”