Johnny Franck popped in to chat about his band’s latest record Kinda Hard. We dove into the album which opens with a track that certainly lives up to it’s title ‘Kinda Hard’. Johnny said of the opening track.
‘Well you know it’s kinda hard, dude!’ laughs
‘I wanted an ass beater, man, so we teamed up with Drew Fulk and came up with this and we just had a lot of fun murdering the mix and making it sound as bad as we possibly could.’
He worked with a lot of collaborators including Cody from Wage War, Noah from Bad Omens and one that was a surprise and not a very metal musician and that was Sasha Sloan. He mentioned her as one of the people that was able to pull a lot of inspiration out of him.
‘I would say Sasha Sloan was, one I’ve been such a huge fan of hers for a long time so being in the room with her was really incredible. She was able to help me with ‘Back Then’ and I feel like that song has a cool different vibe to it and I feel like Sasha much to her own credit really pulled that vibe out of Bilmuri.’
We talk about the use of saxophone in their music which is performed by Gabi Rose. He says the sax solo on the song ‘Twice’ was done on the first take.
‘That solo that she did that was her first take. She was just completely doing it on the fly. I looked at her afterwards and we tried to beat it, but I was like, “I don’t we’re beating that. I think that’s the one” So that just goes to show how talented she is.’
I asked him what song he’s most proud of writing for this album and that song is ‘Waves’. A song he said can sound like a break-up song but it’s really about grief of losing a close friend.
‘I lost a friend to ALS last year so it for me to have a song that’s a tribute to a friend that I dearly loved…I had the concept of ‘Heartbreak Hits In Waves’ where you get the news and it doesn’t necessarily hit you but a week later it hits you and then a month later and it hits you and you’re at the funeral and it hits you…I still listen to that song and really feel strongly about it and really feel like a good tribute to my friend and something that was very much me leading the charge on.’
Bilmuri is going on tour and making a stop in Madison on May 2nd at The Sylvee.
[YouTube: Razor Wisconsin] [Instagram: Gabi Rose] [Sasha Sloan] [Concert Calendar]
