Jack Francis: "It's going to be evident that as a country, we haven't invested in younger talent"

Singer-songwriter Jack Francis chats with us ahead of his debut headline UK tour to chat his second album Early Retirement, debut tour and the importance of grassroots venues.

by Felix Bartlett

Hailing from the shores of Southampton, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jack Francis released his new record Early Retirement this March to roaring success. The album explores a broad range of influences, touching on aspects of great British, Irish, and American songwriting. Since then, Jack has been busy on the road with a summer full of festivals, including the one and only Glastonbury! We now join Jack ahead of his debut headline tour to discuss the making and response to his second album, his upcoming tour, and the importance of supporting grassroots venues across the UK.

Let’s drive straight in. What’s been the plan and preparation that’s gone into this upcoming tour for your album ‘Early Retirement’

JACK: “Well, as an independent musician, I’m the tour manager, the organiser, the artist, the band leader—kind of everything, really. So there’s a lot to think about. I’ve had to prep all the merchandise, arrange all the accommodation, sort out travel for everyone, and make sure everyone’s taken care of.

I’ve also had to get T-shirts and postcards, order more records and CDs, and organize all that stuff. Thankfully, the label, Archtop Records, has been great. But yeah, it’s just a lot of prep before you even step foot on stage.

I’m already significantly down financially, and you feel like there’s a lot riding on it because you’re independent. I’m looking forward to the shows—they’re going to be great—but you kind of have to deal with that last-minute pressure. All the prep has gone into this for nearly six months, so it’s surreal that we’re just a couple of days away from the actual gigs starting.”

It almost hits you so quickly, hard and fast, and then all that prep time just flies by. As you said, being independent brings all these extra challenges you have to face and think about, which I guess, you know, everyone who’s been there can relate to, right?

In terms of rehearsals and shows over the summer how has that prepared you for this headline tour?

JACK: ”Yeah, I’ve done a few festivals over the summer. Some have been solo—Glastonbury I did on my own—but we’ve done a few as a full band, like The Alternate Escape and a couple of others. Rehearsals are usually hard and fast since I’m trying to pull together musicians from different places. None of us live in the same town, and I’m not in the same town as the rest of them, so you have to take advantage of whatever little time you get.

Most of the festivals we’ve done have been off the back of one rehearsal that’s about four hours long, and that’s all you get in terms of rehearsal time. It’s similar with the tour. We’ve got slightly longer this time, but we haven’t even rehearsed yet, and we’ve got a new member—our new guitarist—joining us for this tour. So, it’s squeaky bum time at the moment. The next couple of days will be about nailing it down.

But everyone in the band is great, and we haven’t had problems with this before, so I’m sure it’ll be absolutely fine. It’s a good bunch of musicians, and they’re pros.”

For those who haven’t heard your debut album ‘Early Retirement,’ can we delve into the album and discuss how it explores the music industry and your experience in the industry itself?

JACK: “Yeah, well, it’s called Early Retirement, and that’s sort of a joke, the joke being that I haven’t made enough money to retire in any way or retire somewhere nice. It’s a concept album, really, about the ups and downs of being a musician. Now, in 2024, the whole landscape of everything has changed over the last few years, and it continues to change at a really, really rapid rate. So as an artist, it’s kind of hard to get your head around sometimes.

I had all these songs that I was writing individually without there being some catalyst to give them an overarching theme. But then I wrote a song called “Failure,” which is on the record.

And that basically made me realize, because it was so blunt, the lyrics—and I kind of thought it was half a joke and half not. That kind of tied everything together for me, that song, and it made me then come up with the concept and the idea for the artwork and the album title. Everything came after that, and they say to write what you know. Writing what you know, for me, is that I know what this is; I know doing this, being a musician. I’ve been traveling and playing gigs for a long time and writing songs for a long time.

So I wanted to get that down and sort of solidify it as a piece of work for me to pinpoint where my life was at that exact time. That is exactly what this record is. You know, I’m not going to go and write another album about how hard this is, how I’m a failure, and how being a musician is really tough. I’m not going to go and do that. But this was like—I needed to do it. I needed to get it off my chest, basically, at the time.

On the album, I found Mercy to be a particularly powerful and strong track. Can you share a little bit about how that came about? I know you worked with Ferris & Sylvester (Archtop Records) on this track and the album. How was that process?

JACK: “I write all the songs on acoustic guitar, and I have ideas, but they’re not really brought to life until we get into the studio. Archie and myself have worked on these last two records, and especially this latest one, which was very collaborative in terms of the music. The production was all him. I brought the songs to the table and the words and ideas, but this track, ‘Mercy,’ came out of that process. I had all these ideas, some of which we used and some which we didn’t. Archie just elevated the song to sound like I didn’t have it in my head. It sounds so much better than I had in my head, even, you know? So I couldn’t speak highly enough of him for that.

The whole record was really collaborative. Most of it, after we got the drums and bass done, was me and Archie in a room together. I was playing most of the instruments, and we would just layer up track by track. We’d pick a song, do the acoustic guitar, then the electric guitar, and then the piano or keys. After that, we would do the percussion, and then the vocals at the end.

That was kind of where we did everything on this record, and it was a great experience. It was a lot of fun as well because we were just big kids playing. That’s all it is; that’s what it was. But yeah, I think ‘Mercy,’ particularly the way the track turned out and the instrumentation, was really impressive. I think it was Archie’s idea to suggest, like, I had this idea for a bassline that didn’t quite work. Archie said to Myles, who played bass, “Just why don’t you try to do this? Try to do it like a walking bassline instead.” And that changed the whole track. When I got to the chord, it actually gave something so much more than we would have done if Archie had not suggested it.

So it’s things like that that happen in every song, where just one little thing can click and bring the whole track together.”

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What’s been wonderful for those who don’t know you’ve also supported Izzy and Archie on the road and doing shows together covering tracks from the likes of The Beatles and many more from their own personal discography as well.

On the topic of live shows what can people expect from a Jack Francis show?

JACK: “What I’ve done a lot over the last few years is being a support act. So, people are getting around 20 to 40 minutes of solo acoustic material, which is going to be very different from the shows I have coming up next week. These will be full-band performances, and they will sound much more like how the tracks are intended to. I believe a good song should work whether it’s played solo on an acoustic guitar or with a full band, but this time, the live versions will be exactly how I envisioned them when I wrote them.

There will definitely be some surprises. I’m planning to throw in a few different things. I’ve never done headline shows or full band shows before, so these will be full sets. That’s something a lot of people wouldn’t have seen from me yet, and it’s a challenge to keep people engaged. I’ve been to gigs where, about 40 minutes in, you can tell the band is bored—and honestly, so am I.
The best shows I’ve ever seen have a dynamic quality—they take you on a journey with ups, downs, twists, and turns. You walk away feeling like you’ve experienced something meaningful. It’s not just one consistent note for an hour and a half. That’s the feeling I want to create in my shows—the same feeling I had when I went to gigs growing up, when everything felt more dynamic, and people paid a lot more attention rather than just holding their phones up. I don’t expect that kind of frenzy at my show, but I want to deliver that kind of experience.”

What track are you most looking forward to people hearing on this tour?

JACK: “I’m looking forward to playing a song called “Forever Alone” on On the Road, but that’s one that I’ve not played too much solo. I think there are a few songs like that in general where I haven’t played them too much on my own because I don’t feel like they quite translate the way I want them to when I play them on acoustic guitar. I think they’re still hopefully decent songs, but they don’t have the same dynamic that they do with a full band.

There are songs like “21st Century Man,” which is on the latest record, that I’ll be playing live for the first time. I’ve only played it a couple of times, but not very often. So I’m looking forward to playing that on this tour as well. Stuff like that doesn’t necessarily get much of an outing unless I’m playing with a full band.”

Any shows you’re most looking forward to on this tour?

JACK: “Manchester, and I’m very much looking forward to that. That show wasn’t initially on the run of dates that were put forward, and I kind of pulled people from pillar to post to try and get a show in Manchester because, to me, it’s not a UK tour unless you do it in Manchester. It’s an amazing city, and I want to play there.

Then, on Tuesday, the 1st of October, we move on to Birmingham at the Hare and Hounds, which is a legendary venue that I’ve never played before. So that’s going to be new and exciting, and I’m looking forward to that. On Wednesday, the 2nd, we’re in London at The Slaughtered Lamb, which is basically home territory for me in London in terms of gigs. That’s where I’ve played more gigs than anywhere else, so I think that will be a special night.

Next Friday, we are in Brighton, which I think is also imminently going to sell out. It’s going to be at the Folklore Rooms, which is a great venue. I haven’t actually been there, but I’ve heard great things. It’s going to be a very sweaty, tight-knit sort of sold-out show on a Friday night, so I’m excited for that.

Then we finish in Southampton next Saturday, the 5th, at Papillon, which is a venue that I’ve not played in Southampton, my hometown. It’s only been open for about a year, but it’s the biggest show on at all. So it’s going to be a big send-off for the tour—a big final night in a hometown show.

I don’t have one show I’m particularly looking forward to more than the others. I think when they’re your headline shows, you kind of think about them all the same. But when I’m on a support slot, you definitely point out specific places. You have to think differently when they’re all your shows. So I’m looking forward to all of them, to be fair. Yeah, they’re all special.”

That’s what’s great about doing a tour is you’ll never get that same experience in each venue. Everyone has its own, you know, mouldy wall, smell and characteristics that you try to forget, but you never do and I think that’s what is brilliant about about about these venues and especially grassroot venues in particular.

JACK: “Yep these are all grassroots venues and, I’m very happy to be playing in them you know, some of them I’ve been to before and some I haven’t. So I’m looking, I’m excited.”

That leads nicely into our final quick-fire questions, starting with What do you wish was done differently in the music scene?

JACK: “Well, a couple of things. Since we mentioned grassroots music and grassroots venues, I think more funding for them is really important. In the next 15 years, it’s going to be evident that as a country, we haven’t invested in younger talent and given them a real chance to shine through these venues. This is already happening. We’ve had Coldplay headline Glastonbury for a fifth time, and there’s a small group of bands, particularly bands—not just singer-songwriters—that are dying out. It’s because it’s so hard financially to make it work, and these venues are the lifeblood for bands.

It used to be that you’d be in a local band, sell out your local venue for the hype of the town, and your community would back you. That’s how things started for a lot of people. Now, if you don’t have a venue in your town, where do you start? Not everyone can jump onto a national scale straight away, and they often lack the backing to do that. So, funding for grassroots venues is really, really important.

The other thing I’d like to see change is the over-reliance on social media. I think having a presence is important, but we’re not content creators. I’m sorry; I refuse to believe that musicians and songwriters are. We’re not meant to create content for these companies. Interestingly, I saw a post yesterday by James Blake, who obviously does very well and is quite outspoken about this. He has around 700,000 followers, yet when he posts a story, only about 3,000 people see it. If those numbers indicate that your own followers aren’t seeing what you’re posting, I’m not even sure the model is working. I think the time has passed for it to be such a significant factor.”

Next question is who are you listening to right now that you think people should be checking out?

JACK: “There are a couple of support acts on the tour I have coming up. Ella Clayton, who will be performing on the dates in London and Brighton, is absolutely amazing. I saw her supporting Hatty Whitehead, who I’ll get to in a minute because she’s another standout artist. I supported Hatty a couple of months ago in London and was blown away by Ella; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of her before. She’s just starting out, with one record out, but she’s very much on the rise and is absolutely brilliant.

Then there’s Hatty Whitehead, who is about to release her debut album next month and will be supporting us in Southampton next week. She is one of the best live singers I have ever heard in my life. She’s well worth checking out. I think these two artists are definitely ones to listen to at the moment and I’m really enjoying their music.”

Rounding things off if you could collaborate with a musician, who would it be and why?

JACK: “Michael Kiwanuka, yeah, I love Michael. I think he’s amazing and I’ve seen him live a few times. He’s always doing what isn’t expected of him and following his instincts in terms of his artistry, which I think is a big deal these days. I don’t think many people get the opportunity to do that. So, I believe he’s a special talent.”

What can people expect next from Jack Francis?

JACK: “We’re touring with the band The Wonder Stuff in December as well. We’ll be playing some bigger venues, opening for them at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Manchester O2 Ritz, and places like that. So, I will be touring again before the end of the year, and next year will bring more music and more shows. I’m currently planning a few things for next year in terms of recording. That’s the plan: to have more music out next year and do some more live dates, hopefully in spring, as well as some festivals in the summer. But yeah, that’s the plan.”