Filter
Being Frank with Filter
Phone Interview by Kelly Ladd-Sanchez
September 18, 2002
Frank Cavanaugh - Bass
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| HardRock.com: When did you first start playing bass? What is your musical background? |
| Frank: Well, I first started playing bass when I was 14. I hung out with these three guys. We all skateboarded together. One of them had a drum set, another guy had a guitar and the other guy wanted to be the lead singer. And they were like "We need a bass player. Play with us, man." So that's how I started playing. I don't have any training or anything like that. Like, I don't know the names of the notes or anything. |
| HardRock.com: But it got you this far. That's pretty cool. |
| Frank: Yeah, totally.
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| HardRock.com: So how did you get involved with Filter? |
| Frank: Rich and I are both from Cleveland. Rich and I had a mutual friend in Cleveland. He had just quit Nine Inch Nails. No, actually, it was before he quit Nine Inch Nails and we were hanging out. Well, it was kind of a funny story. I met him through a buddy of mine. And then like three months later, I met him at a party again. I was like "Are you Richard Patrick from Nine Inch Nails?" He was like "Yeah, yeah." And I was like, "Wow, man, your band sucks." He was like "What? Let's fight." So we had a three-hour debate about which band was better. And then I saw him like a week later, and I apologized to him. He was like, "Wait, you're apologizing?" |
| HardRock.com: Did you have a debate between your band and his band? Or between which bands? |
| Frank: Well, yeah. I was in a hardcore band called Outface. |
| HardRock.com: Oh, okay. That's funny. |
| Frank: Yeah. And he was like, "Well, let's go and jam, bro. And I was like, "right on." |
| HardRock.com: Sweet. Do you still call Cleveland home? |
| Frank: It's funny, because I've been living in Chicago for the past five years now. And I'm moving back to Cleveland on the first of October. |
| HardRock.com: How come? |
| Frank: I'm expecting a baby with my fiancé. |
| HardRock.com: Oh, congratulations. |
| Frank: Right on, thanks. And I grew up in Cleveland and I have family there. It'd be a better place for the kid. |
| HardRock.com: What's the title and artist of an album/CD you can't live without? |
| Frank: Wow. There is this band called Slint. Their album is called Spidarland. Actually, one of the guys from Slint is in Billy Corgan's new band, Zwan. Yeah, it's an incredible record. If you haven't gotten it, you got to. |
| HardRock.com: I haven't even heard of it. Thanks. I'll check it out. |
| Frank: You got to get it. It's so good. |
| HardRock.com: What did you dream of last night? |
| Frank: I don't think I can tell you that... (laughs) I can't remember what I dreamt last night. How about that one? |
| HardRock.com: Now that Geno Lenardo is writing songs for Filter (along with Richard Patrick), has the band changed a whole lot? |
| Frank: On the first record, Rich wrote all the songs. And then on the last record, I co-wrote a song with him. |
| HardRock.com: Oh you did? |
| Frank: Yeah, I co-wrote "Cancer" with him and Geno co-wrote two songs. On this one, I co-wrote two with him. This record was different because we had been on the road for like a year and a half. We were so gelling as a live band. And then we came off the road and then we had the basic idea of six songs done in like three weeks. And then we just flushed it out and we had to write the whole second half of the song. It was the first time we were all actually sitting down, saying, "This part goes here and check out this riff, man. It'll rock there." |
| HardRock.com: That brings us into my next question. In 1999, you and the rest of the Filter gang embarked on the tour supporting Title of Record for so long. What did you learn about both the music business and yourself while you were away? |
| Frank: Wow, that's a good question, man. You know it's so funny, when I was a kid, I remember the first show I ever went to was the Beach Boys and the second show was the Grateful Dead when I was 14. It blew my mind. I was like, "what in the world." Then I started going to Punk shows in Cleveland. It was like going to a show and there was always such a mystery and aura about the band, what happens backstage, all this madness. And then when I got in the business and I started being that person making music...you know it from the inside. You know, like any business, it's filled with people and people make mistakes. They don't always make the right decisions. So, the mystique is gone. It no longer has the magic. It sucks but... |
| HardRock.com: Yeah, but you still give that magic out, so that's pretty cool. |
| Frank: Yeah, I give it. (laughs) I need Helmet to reunite so I can go see them and get some magic from them. |
| HardRock.com: If you could travel back in time like Bill & Ted, where would you stop and why? |
| Frank: It's not a cool thing, but I would like to go see what the Civil War was like in America. We all think about WWII now, Vietnam and Korea. And those were horrible wars where lots of American men had died. It was every other war that we had ever fought put together. There were more people killed in the Civil War. It was like 50,000 people dying in a day in that war. It is just insanity. |
| HardRock.com: Would you have wanted to go to a specific battle or would you have wanted just to experience the time period to get the feeling? |
| Frank: Yeah, just the time period. There were so many Civil War battles. I'm totally into that when we tour. When we stop, I go and see the different battlefields. We were actually just in Norfolk. The USS Wisconsin was there. We got to see it. It was totally cool. |
