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#6 Interview with 'Frantic' Frank De Blase of the Frantic Flattops. Frank has fronted the Flattops since the beginning, and thanks to extensive promotion (and the fact that they're just plain good), the Flattops have gained a large audience outside of the area. Catch them soon, because believe me, they can be hard to catch.

1. Has there been one artist / band / record / person who opened you up to the possibility of writing and performing?
It’s really not fair to say one, but if I had to, I’d have to say the Ramones. It’s either one or it’s a million. I’m gonna say probably the Ramones.
2. What was the first album that you bought?
Maybe the Clash’s Sandanista!. Maybe. I used to buy 45’s, old Elvis records and stuff. You could still get them new in the 70’s, like re-issues, for a buck.
3. What music has influenced you?
Rock and Roll. Probably indirectly, a lot of the Rock and Roll I grew up around. A lot of 70’s Rock and Roll- it was on the radio as I was growing up. Mainstream then was a little bit cooler than mainstream now. There wasn’t so much of an effort to make a million dollars. If it was good, it was good. I was a big KISS fan as a kid- not just for the music, but for the whole spectacle and the fact that it pissed my parents off. I was a big Cheap Trick fan; I liked the show, and the songs were catchy, but I didn’t really know that I was being dragged into pop song writing, it just sounded good.
4. How and when did you first end up becoming a part of the local music scene?
1986. I had a band in highschool, actually I had a band as far back as 84. I had a band called the Pharaohs- the Pink Slips in highschool, then the Pharaohs. Then we became the Frantic Flattops as just a duo in 86 or 87. We’ve been the Flattops ever since, in one form or another.
5. Why did you choose rockabilly?
I was really big into the Stray Cats, liked Robert Gordon. Bow Wow Wow was a really big influence. People don’t really look at them as being a rockabilly band; I think they were. The drums were a little different, more jungle sounding. That was a rockabilly band, and all that band did was make new wave. Shows you kinda how it was part of regular music in that new wave punk rock stuff. The Stray Cats turned me on to it first, and no matter what I listened to, whether it was ska or rock, I always went back to rockabilly just as a fan, as a listener. Then I found I could play it kinda too. I was playing in a band before I could really play, just kinda dove into it.
6. How did the Flattops manage to solidly extend themselves beyond the region and into various parts of the country?
Just a matter of desire; I wanted to. There’s any million of things you can do. I started making phone calls, net working the band. That was before the internet, now the internet’s a breeze. Calling bands up, calling clubs, calling cities, going to cities, and passing out tapes. Woodshedding.
7. Have you toured much our of the country?
We’ve been to Europe three times. We did Germany, England, Finland, Norway, Sweden, England. We hope to go again in October.
8. Are there benefits to playing a hometown crowd versus an out of town crowd?
I think that we had to go out of town and be an out of town sensation before we were respected around here. We always had fans and friends that came when we did gigs. But then it was like, ‘Man these guys are playing shows in Texas, they’re playing in California, they’re doing this. It’s cool to like them.’ It’s still hard to do the rock and stay in your hometown, but I’ve got all of my friends here. These are people I’ve grown up with and I know, people who have seen me in my underwear. People aren’t like, ‘there’s this big mysterious dude on stage’, they go, ‘nah, it’s just Frank.’ Who I am on stage is who I am on the street. I’m not this persona, not like Prince.
9. What are your top three performance experiences?
That’s another unfair question. I’ve got a lot. Everyday is a fun one, just being able to do one more day. We got to perform with Link Wray a few years back, he’s a big hero of mine. Um, a couple tours with Reverend Horton Heat were fun. Playing England for the first time. The list goes on, but there’s three anyway.
10. What are your worst three performance experiences?
Any tour in the Midwest in the winter. It’s all probably weather related. Playing there in December is brutal, in Kansas or in Iowa. There’s a good scene, but any of our bad experiences had generally been weather related.
11. How did the band get the opportunity to work with Ronnie Dawson?
The guy that owned the record label we were on at the time knew him, and I liked him, had some of his records. The guy at the label had his phone number, I got it, and called him up. I said, ‘hey dude, want to come up and play with us?’; he called me back and said, ‘You think we can do some shows? Send me some promo stuff’. He came up the next month, and we did dates around Rochester, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Chicago. We did some dates on the westcoast too. We’ve been really good friends with him.
12. Would you like to work with anyone else?
I’m open to anything really. Anybody cool to make us work differently and better. There’s no one I’m holding out for. I would’ve liked to have toured with the Ramones, but that’s not going to happen now.
13. Rock ‘n’ Roll Murder incorporates a harder edge into some of the tracks, which has been met with some criticism. What has been your response to that?
We’ve never tried to do anything, we’ve just done what’s come natural. When we were doing that record, that’s where we were at the time. If anything else, we tried less to be confined to ‘wow this doesn’t sound like us’, because in reality, it still sounds like us. It doesn’t sound like our old material, but it’s not like ‘oh my god, se sound like AC/DC now’ or something. All of our influences started to be more free; we wouldn’t squeeze ideas out of our heads just because they weren’t conventional. Three’s a ration with every record: for every person who likes it, there’s two people who don’t like it. We weren’t trying to piss anybody off, we weren’t trying to please anyone, we were just trying to make a good record. People that don’t like it can’t say it’s not a good record, they can just say they don’t like it. It’s still a good record.
14. Is there any philosophy that you or the band as a whole carries when it comes to your music?
Live fast, die old.
Not live fast, die young?
See, I’m too old for that now.
15. Is there anything you regret doing over the time that you’ve been involved with bands?
No, not really, because everything we’ve done, good or bad, smart or dumb, has made us what we are today. I’m pretty happy with where we are now. You can always wish for more, but I guess you’ve gotta be grateful for what you’ve got. I don’t have any regrets.
16. Some critics have dubbed the current music trends here as "retro"; do you feel that bands such as the Flattops, Chesterfield Kings, and basically anyone on GaragePop are retro as said, or are they simply drawing inspiration from bands of the past?
I think that Rock and Roll is regenerative, for one thing; second of all, everything’s already been done. When you’ve got an idea, when you’re working on a musical thing, there’s someone who’s already done it - better - than you. That’s the way it is. I think people are just drawing on the inspiration. At this point, I think that good music shouldn’t be as timeless. Fashion, pop trends, dictate ‘if you’re doing this kind of music, you need to have this kind of hair do and this kind of look’. But then again, a lot of music does have a lifestyle that goes with it. I wasn’t born in the 50’s, but I don’t think I look like some poindexter from the 50’s either. I think I dress how the music influences me, just like the long haired guys in long haired rock. I don’t even think about it as much; there’s no one harassing me. The bottom line is, if you like it, nothing else matters. If you’re tapping your foot, shaking your hips, good. If you want to analyze it and have a conversation, fine. But if you’re shakin’ your ass, shut up.
17. If you could witness or play in any one Rock and Roll show from history, what would it be, and why?
Past or present? I’d like to play on the moon, be the first Rock and Roll band on the moon. Really. We’d have like a select few of our friends and fans come up, rock out with out.
They could buy rides like that guy did in Russia?
I hope prices will be down by the time we’re able to do this. You could take us now, only 35 thousand dollars! Seating limited!
18. You seem to enjoy educating and edifying readers of City with pieces on music and local drinking establishments; how did the opportunity to do so come about?
I turned in a tour journal about a year ago. They liked it and said, ‘hey, you can write; would you like to write some stuff?’, and I said ‘sure’. To me, it’s another way of expressing myself. I get to write about what I like and hammer what I don’t like. It’s really cool when you think about it.
19. What’s your favorite song by a local band?
Just about anything by the Quitters. I can’t pick a song, every song they write is just... They are a catchy-ass band. A lot of the bands are my friends and I really do like them. It’s unfair, but Dave and Dan are two songwriting fools, man. If they were total dickheads it’d still be good music, but they are great guys.
20. Do you have any advice for someone who wants to be in a band someday?
Stop before it’s too late. No, if you want it, do it like your life depends on it, if your life really does depend on it. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Whatever works. That’s not much advice. Just play loud.