Indie Recording Artist Franki Love Releases Her Second Album, “Now Is The Time”

Franki Love, "Now Is The Time"

Independent recording artist, Franki Love, puts you in a happy place with the musical equivalent of a crackling fireplace, a warm and fuzzy blanket or a delicious box of chocolates. Love’s groovy, soulful tunes just make you feel good, and her newest album, Now Is The Time, builds on her earlier self-titled debut with some meticulous production value and a slightly edgier sensuality.

I have known Franki Love for some time and have followed her music career in recent years. With an A-list producer on her latest album, and songwriting and instrumentals by Love, herself, I knew that Franki Love would have to be the subject of my inaugural Allison’s Word “New Artist Buzz” Q&A series.

Allison Kugel: What’s the name of your upcoming second album, and how would you describe its musical genre?

Franki Love: My second album is called Now Is The Time and the genre is really a mixture of pop, R&B and soul.

Allison Kugel: Being that you write your own music, you play the piano and you blend musical genres, how do you categorize yourself as an artist?

Franki Love: I feel like with this new album it’s going to be more mainstream. My first album from 2008 (titled, Franki Love) was a little more of me as the indie artist. This one I’m pushing to go into mainstream because I would love to be heard by more people.

Allison Kugel: Tell me about the first single off the album, and what inspired the lyrics for this first single?

Franki Love: It’s an interesting story. The first single is also called “Now Is The Time.” I wrote this song four years ago with a couple of my songwriting friends. At the time, we knew that Shakira was looking for songs, so we said, “Let’s write a song for her and let’s write something that’s different from what she usually does.” We decided we would write a song about the world and empowering people to change their lives; something inspirational. The song turned out to be incredible. Shakira didn’t pick it up, but we had this song for many years. I kept listening to it in my car and on my computer, and thinking that it is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard! I said, “What are we doing with this song?!” It was four years later and no one had done anything with it. When I was in the process of doing this album, I felt that if a really famous singer isn’t going to sing it and nothing is going on with it, then I would like to put it on my album.

Allison Kugel: It’s sort of like when you go shopping for a gift for a friend and you buy them something that you really want, and you’re kind of hoping that you can keep it instead.

Franki Love: (Laughs). Basically, that is what it’s like. But sometimes when you write songs for other [artists] you can’t even picture yourself singing it. But yeah, this is definitely that situation. I’m excited that I got to keep it.

Allison Kugel: How long did you spend in the studio recording Now Is The Time?

Franki Love: The process of writing the songs was over the past four years. Actually getting into the studio and recording it was an extremely intense five months.

Allison Kugel: That’s a long time, no?

Franki Love: It’s a long time but we didn’t spend every single day [in the studio]. I did two songs in March, and then I did a lot of pre-production for the other songs with another producer in April, and then we did more recording in May and June.

Allison Kugel: There was a specific producer you wanted to work with on this album, and you used the website Kickstarter.com to raise money for your budget for this album. Tell me about that.

Franki Love: One of my friends connected me with a producer named Warren Huart who did The Fray and who is now doing the new Aerosmith album. Warren and I met, we really hit it off and I like his style. But I had to raise the money because it was a very expensive process to record the album.

Allison Kugel: When will the new album be released and where can people purchase it?

Franki Love: The album will be coming out August 10, 2011. You can buy a physical copy of the album through my website, www.FrankiLove.com or through Amazon. Digitally, the album will be on iTunes, and most major digital venues. iTunes is the major venue for purchase.

Allison Kugel: Many independent artists these days are only releasing their music digitally. What is the advantage for you in releasing hard copies of your album?

Franki Love: The advantage of getting a hard copy is, first of all, everyone who backed me up on KickStarter.com, a lot of them pledged for hard copy CDs. The other advantage is, I’m doing a lot of shows and I do sell quite a bit of CDs at my shows. I find that when people see you perform live, they enjoy being able to get that actual CD of your music in their hands to take home with them.

Allison Kugel: I saw some gorgeous new pictures of you posted online. Every single one of them looked like an album cover! How do you choose which images will make the final cut for your album art?

Franki Love: It’s been crazy to choose the cover. I work with my manager to sort through them. We picked out the top five. My manager said to me, “This is your album and your expression. You’re an indie artist so you have the freedom to choose the image you want.” That’s what’s so fun about being an indie artist. I printed them all out, put them on my table and over a three day period I began to narrow down all of the covers I didn’t like. I ended up with the one I liked that would speak the truth of this album and represent it.

Allison Kugel: Your name is Franki Love, and knowing you, I know that you are a very new age and spiritual person.

Franki Love: My message as an artist, singer, and musician is I want to be a messenger of love and to share my music with others to inspire them. When I am being as vulnerable as possible, I feel like those are my true colors. When I sit at the piano and write a song, and when I work with photographers and they take photos of me, they feel that’s my style and they tend to bring that out of me.

Allison Kugel: I know that you’ve always played the piano, and you’re a real musician at heart. So many artists, now, are not recording with live instruments in the studio. It’s a lot of manufactured beats and sounds created with digital technology these days. Did you play instruments in the studio, and were there live musicians recording with you for this album?

Franki Love: I played all of the piano parts and that was a lot of fun. We also had some of the best musicians play on these songs, musicians who have played on Colbie Caillat’s record and Sheryl Crowe, and other big records like that. So a lot of it is live. I had a whole full band.

Allison Kugel: Will you be going on tour to promote Now Is The Time?

Franki Love: I’m going to be doing a lot of show dates to promote the album, lots of college dates. I will also be celebrating the release of the album in New York and in LA. We’re having a record release party on August 12th in LA at Room 5, and then it’s on to New York where we’ll have a record release party on August 30th at The Livingroom. I’m also going to be doing something really cool with StageIt.com. It will essentially be a skype-like show where people will buy tickets for $6.00 to tune in to me doing a live show from my home. People will be able to talk to me through the computer, watch me perform and they can download my album at the end of the show. I’ll be doing my StageIt.com show on August 7th at 3PM PST.

Anything else coming up for you in the near future?

Franki Love: I’m always looking for talented producers and co-writers to collaborate with. I’m also hoping to start collaborating with other artists.

Franki Love’s second album, “Now Is The Time” will be released August 10, 2011on itunes.com

Visit www.frankilove.com and Follow Franki Love at facebook.com/frankilovemusic, twitter.com/frankilovemusic and at her YouTube Channel.