cease to be important about record stores - is that it is a physical gathering place. Of course there are forums online where you can discuss and all that sort of thing, but there is nothing quite like social interaction, it’s really important. Jon: I think that’s really true and I find that more and more that everything is done by algorithms in modern life, even your Facebook feed or Instagram feed is controlled by algorithms. There is however a really personal interaction you can get from real people in a real community hub and that’s what record shops are for me, that is one of their key roles.
really kick off - I am sure you know more about it than I do. There was definitely a point in time where I first started putting out records and touring, Million Dead days, vinyl was out of the question as you’d lose money on it. No one really bought it. Some bands did it, more of it in electronic music scenes, but certainly as a hardcore band in Million Dead we never did vinyl at the time. Now, if Million Dead were about today we’d press vinyl without a second thought. We have in fact issued “Harmony No Harmony” on vinyl last year and I am hoping we can put out “A Song to Ruin” at some point also… you heard it here first… Jon: Exclusive!
Frank: Yeah, breaking you out of that self-imposed online ghetto that you end up in, only interacting with people who agree with you and listening to music that sounds like all the other music you like. I had a cousin who ran a record store in Old Street called Small Fish for a few years, I’d go out there a lot. I started going there because I was into Godspeed You! Black Emperor which I got into through the hardcore scene, but then because I was there he put me into loads of weird stuff like Kloot, a lot of the City Centre Offices records, bleepy electro stuff and I wouldn’t have known anything about any of that if I hadn’t had that record store, it expanded my horizons. Jon: Talk us through the importance of having a physical release as an artist? Frank: It’s been interesting watching the vinyl revival
Frank: Day to day I listen to music digitally as I tour for a living, the idea of trying to carry a rucksack of vinyl… well, I’ve already broken my back once. So I think it is good to have both of these things going on at the same time, but for me personally, every single release I own digitally I have a physical copy of it at home. I love the size of vinyl, the artwork is fantastic, it’s just so much better than the CD you know? I think it is another thing that has been slightly lost. I was on a long car journey on the weekend with my girlfriend who uses Spotify and it was my first real engagement with it. It annoyed the crap out of me, not least because the thing about Spotify is that it’s fine if you’re not a music nerd, generally listening to “a bit of something”, if you care about music and are nerdy about music… a specific song by a specific artist… it was a giant pain in the arse. Its scope was so terribly mainstream. There is so much music I