In just two days – on June 27th – Frankie Cosmos will release their newest full-length album, Different Talking, via Sub Pop. The album marks the sixth album from the NYC-based indie rock quartet. It’s a collage of fragments and memories, of familiar places revisited and emotions reinterpreted. The result is a glowing, quietly resonant album: a thoughtful and grounded indie rock record about growing older and the flow of time, yet one that feels distinctly present and timely.
The current Frankie Cosmos lineup includes Alex Bailey, Katie Von Schleicher, Hugo Stanley, and frontperson Greta Kline, with whom we had the chance to talk about the new album.
I’d like to start with a personal memory – a few years ago, I believe it was 2019 – I saw you play in Berlin at Musik & Frieden. Aside from the mosh pit during Being Alive, what stuck with me was how intense the whole evening felt. You’d just come off a long drive from Copenhagen, you were feeling quite unwell, and still went through with the show. Now you’re finally returning to Europe this fall. How do you look back on that tour?
GRETA KLINE: Oh yeah, I do vaguely remember that show. I lost my voice at some point on that tour, and I think there was smoking inside some of the venues, which was making me sick, and I was just generally depressed and freaked out about my life. I never canceled a tour or a show, until March 2020 when we canceled our tours because of covid. I used to tour while feeling bad a lot more, and it didn’t occur to me that I could cancel. In 2019 I was gearing up to plan on an extended break from touring. I had never not known when my next tour was going to be. Then covid kind of made that break happen for me, and it was much longer than I expected. I’m so much better mentally now, and I actually enjoy touring now.
Since you mention covid – during the pandemic, your song Fool went viral on TikTok (and eventually racked up over 160 million streams on Spotify…). Have you noticed a shift in your live audience – perhaps more people from a younger generation? Or do you feel it was more of an online phenomenon?
GRETA KLINE: There’s definitely a shift where it feels like that song is our big hit, among certain audiences. They all start singing along, it’s pretty wild. Even at opening gigs, people who seemingly haven’t really heard of us still know that song. It’s really cool, and unexpected.
This fall, you’re heading out on a shorter EU tour with Babehoven – and quite a few friends have already told me that it’s an amazing pairing. How did that collaboration come about?
GRETA KLINE: I first heard of Babehoven because they signed to Double Double Whammy, the first label I ever worked with (for Zentropy, in 2014). We have some mutual friends and like each other’s music, but we’ve never met, only chatted online! So I’m really excited to get to play these shows together, and I think it’s going to be their first time touring in the EU and UK.
Before that, though, you’ve got a long US tour coming up – around 30 dates. Honestly, I’ve only been to maybe a dozen clubs in the US, so I don’t know most of the venues – except for The Crocodile in Seattle, where I actually saw Alex G and Japanese Breakfast for the first time! Will you be playing any cities or venues you haven’t performed at before?
GRETA KLINE: Yes, there are a few cities in California on this tour that I’ve never played before. And definitely a lot of new venues for me, it’s maybe half and half (venues I’ve played before and ones that are new to me)! I played at the old Crocodile in Seattle too, but I think it’s a new location now and different!
Are there any noticeable differences between shows in Europe and those in the States?
GRETA KLINE: I think the biggest difference I’ve always noticed is the hospitality. A lot of European promoters create a much nicer experience for the band. In America, the venue would never bring you like, a homemade pie from their grandmother. But in Europe, it’s not unheard of!
You’ll be touring with your new album Different Talking, which features a total of 17 tracks. Could you talk a bit about how it came together? This was the first time you recorded without an external producer, right?
GRETA KLINE: Yes! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and we were able to make it happen because my new bandmate Katie is a recording engineer/producer. So we were basically building a studio around her gear. The main idea for me was to build our own timeline, and not have to work within the confines of a professional studio or a hired engineer/producer. So we took time to mess around a lot more than we would if we were paying by the day somewhere.
The album was made in Upstate New York, where you and the band lived and worked together for about a month and a half. That sounds like a pretty idyllic setup – but was it ever stressful in any way, or did things flow smoothly throughout?
GRETA KLINE: There were a couple stressful moments, but everything worked out. On the way up there we had a fender bender, so that caused some stress. And the first tape we recorded on was shedding, so we had to get a new one, but there were a couple days where it wasn’t clear if the problem was the tape or the machine. There were some tensions about how we would proceed if the tape machine was the issue, and everyone had a different level of commitment to working to tape. Luckily it wasn’t the machine, so we didn’t have to change course.
You’re currently based in New York City – how do you see the current music scene there? Do you think anything has changed since the pandemic?
GRETA KLINE: There are many concurrent music and art scenes in NYC. I’m not as involved as I was when I was younger, but there are still DIY shows that I play and attend, and people working hard to maintain DIY arts spaces. I don’t know if any of the changes I can observe are directly connected to the pandemic. The DIY scene has been constantly shifting for my whole life: every time rents get raised, or people who put their heart and soul into the scene move away, or formerly DIY all-ages spaces start to need to rely on alcohol sales to stay alive. New places pop up and find a way.
Would you be open to recommending any new artists from New York?
GRETA KLINE: Not necessarily new artists, but NYC artists for sure! Talulah Paisley, Old Maybe, Gabby’s World, Juan Wauters, Olive Bernard!
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