Frankly Speaking

The Frank And Walters must be one of Ireland’s best-loved and most enduring bands. From their early days on the Cork scene, the trio followed the rock ’n’ roll rainbow to London in the ‘90s, living in the Wimbledon YMCA with ne’er enough cash for a Mars bar, eventually striking gold with the release of their debut album Trains Boats And Planes and a stint on Top Of The Pops with the hit ‘After All’.

Sitting in his car at a point-to-point horse race near Bandon, Paul Linehan reflects via-the power of telephony on a recent re-encounter with those heady days when he donned the notorious orange polo neck and flared combats for a stint on the Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ Identity Parade.
“The actual trousers they gave me were worse than the ones I had on Top Of The Pops! And I thought they were bad,” he laughs. “The team there actually had to make the trousers for us, sure I suppose you can’t buy things that bad anymore. It was great fun meeting the guys who were posing as me (laughs). I don’t think they were a bit like me – it was easy for me to look good to be honest! I thought the panel would destroy me but they were quite kind (The worst he got was ‘Franks but no franks’). One of the researchers was saying that they ask a lot of bands but they get very insulted, because you’re a bit of a has-been to be asked and you’d get a slagging. She said you wouldn’t believe the number of bands that say, ‘Don’t ever ring me again!’ I couldn’t believe that anyone would take themselves that seriously!”
As acts of publicity go, it’s got to be one of the better ones (even if it does mean reliving your most public fashion faux pas). Besides, they’ve got a fantastic new album to promote: Greenwich Mean Time is out this week on iTunes, and – for all the collectors out there – on vinyl too.
“There’s a bit of a theme running through the album,” he proffers, “because I’m 44 years of age now and I’ve become a bit obsessed with time. I’m getting older and so, closer to death, and I suppose I’m trying to make sense of it all. Over the last few years I’ve realised that living in the past can lead to depression, and looking too much to the future can lead to anxiety, so the only place that you can be really happy is in the present. I’m always trying to work out the formula for living a perfect life, a happy life, and as I write songs I keep on working on the formula and that’s what I came up with – that the best way to be happy is to be in the now.”
Sage advice indeed from a man who has never stopped making or loving music: “I’m always writing, jamming, there’s always something going on. I love it though, I feel blessed for it, without a doubt. The Franks had a funny rise, it seemed like we couldn’t put a foot wrong, and every single we released got great critical acclaim. As time went on, we got more and more popular. It was unbelievable: we used to think that we were in The Truman Show, that they were doing some kind of a study on, ‘How far can we take a shit band?’ and then let us know at the end. That’s honestly what we thought was going on! We’re still waiting for them to pull the plug,” he laughs.
But ‘they’ never did. So now, 20 years after the release of their debut LP, with a string of gigs on the horizon and a critically acclaimed new album on the digital shelves, what is the Frankonian recipe for a long and fruitful career?
“It’s just luck, really,” says Paul. “My only thing is to try and be as honest as you can. Whether that means you come across as being uncool or insecure, so be it. All you have to offer is stories from your life as you see it, not other people’s. That’s the key for us.”

Greenwich Mean Time is out on March 9.