the most interesting man in indie rock
I had the chance to sit down with the gregarious JW Francis a few days before his new album Magic River dropped. Mostly for copyright purposes, I don’t want to strip the Dos Equis guy of his ‘most interesting man in the world’ title, but I feel good about crowning JW as indiewave’s Most Interesting Man in Indie Rock.
The title essentially hands itself out. He’s a world touring rock and roller who was born in Oklahoma, spent his formative years in Paris, worked under Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz, released an album about hiking the Appalachian Trail, has another coming about solo canoeing the Mississippi River, released an audio book, and is hosting a live game show coming out this Fall.
He gives most of the credit to his mom:
“It was always her dream to live in France, but she had four kids first… so she took out a bunch of loans and still made it happen. I did all of my high school in Paris.
That kind of set me on a course of also just following my dreams, whatever it costs”
For his musical prowess as well:
“Music was a big part of my life from day 1. My mom actually made a playlist for birthing me. I came out to ‘Cannonball’ by The Breeders, which is a great song. And my dad was always making me mix CDs. He tried to write for Pitchfork in like 1999. They were both big music heads.
So, when I was 12, I asked for a guitar. I actually started by teaching other people, before I even knew how to play. I would just learn one lesson ahead of them and then pass it down. It was a way for me to make pocket money”
It’s all culminated in JW Francis becoming one of the most distinctive sound makers in modern indie. His music can be hard to fit into one genre, but I described it to him as electric-era Bob Dylan smoking a bunch of sativa and making a surf pop album. He didn’t fully co-sign that but he seemed to get a kick out of it. He then listed Dylan and The Beatles as his biggest influences… so we kinda said the same thing… but he offered up his own description as well:
“I usually just throw buzzwords at people until they’re like ‘okay, you can stop.’ So I’ll be like jangle, upbeat, fun, beautiful, lovely, rock and roll, indie.
Or when I’m crossing the border on tour, they’re always like, ‘Oh, you’re in a band, what kind of music is it?’ I’ll always just give a strong, ‘ROCK AND ROLLLLL’, and they’re usually like ‘niiice’”
He says most other people just go with “joyful.” 2024’s SUNSHINE was based on his experiences hiking 1,500 miles of the Appalachian Trail, which sounds grueling to most, but that album exuding vibrance was natural to him:
“The Appalachian Trail is like college. 4,000 people try that hike a year so you’re meeting like 40 people a day. It’s very community driven. A lot of that album was written before and after, so it’s just all based around the experience of living outside for four months”
However, the new album Magic River was formed in a much different way. He canoed the Mississippi River from the source in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. 86 days alone on the water will bring out a different side of someone:
“This time I had a boat and I could bring stuff with me, so I had a guitar. I was actually writing these songs on the river.
I was also writing fables, because I was just in this fairy tale headspace. It was just a wild and very lonely experience. Like you’re just completely alone.
So, I think this does sound like a departure. It does sound, for lack of a better word, mature. I’m just really stoked for people to hear that different side of me”
Not only does the new album hint at a slightly darker side of JW, but he completely switched up his recording style as well:
“I wrote it and then went to New York and recorded it with the same producer I’ve always worked with but we wanted it to feel different. We wanted it to feel like a river. Organic and filled with imperfections and just flowing.
So instead of recording every instrument track by track we had a live band and just pressed record. There’s some dubbing but most of what you hear is just people looking at each other and playing music like how they used to do it in the 70s”
There’s a common joke going around online about how dudes can have fun just sitting around naming random athletes. For a good chunk of the interview, we did that with indie musicians. I won’t bore people by rolling out the list, but I count 37 different artists mentioned.
You can tell he’s a genuine fan of the scene, but he’s also a connector. He told me one of his main motivations for moving to LA was to write and produce for others because he has too many songs to put out under his own name. He specifically discussed upcoming collaborations with Winter McQuinn and John Moods, and already has music out with Husbands, Margaux, Paul Cherry and Mustard Service. To him, collaboration is important, but it’s got to be authentic:
“We gotta like go out to eat and chat before we pick up any instruments. With Mustard we did a whole tour before we made anything. Same with Paul Cherry. Me and Paul are good homies so that came naturally. Then it’s just like, hey, you have an idea, I’ve got some ideas, here’s some ideas, let’s bounce them around, and whatever excites both of us.
But the beautiful part of the internet is it’s like completely random; you don’t know what’s gonna take off. Especially on TikTok, people will use my music for types of media that I don’t even understand but it’ll have 1000s of likes. I love that, it’s like we’re also collaborating on something”
For example, his song “John, Take Me With You” was used in a fan made Garfield animation video that has millions of views on YouTube.
His goal with everything isn’t likes or virality though, it’s consistency:
“There’s a lot of people I look up to who are not super popular. Like there’s a lot of artists who just make really good records and are still around and have an awesome career.
When I work with managers or professional people, they’re always like ‘What’s your goal?’
My goal is just to keep doing what I’m doing forever. Just have a sustainable career. Not necessarily go viral or take over the world. My goal is just to do this”
People tend to gravitate towards what’s interesting, so I’d bet he has a pretty good shot to make his version of this work.
The next chapter in the book of JW Francis, Magic River, released Friday, June 26th. Go give it a spin:
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