Photo by AMMO D'OR
Ken Franklin points to his move from San Francisco to Los Angeles as the crucial turning point in his career. "I had been making music with my friends up there but really needed a change of scenery," the musician who records as indie-pop artist Dutch Party recalls. "I wanted them to come to LA with me but me asking that question led to a fistfight." A few months later, Franklin met a "chatty Kiwi" drummer who invited him to his Pasadena recording studio and encouraged him to launch a new project. "So I started Dutch Party as a sort of one-size-fits-all musical vehicle in the spirit of duality and partnership," he says. The band, he notes, consists of "a rotating cast of players as opposed to a set in stone line-up."Now, as Dutch Party prepares to release its debut album next year via Ransom Music Group, Franklin is revealing its latest creation, the music video for its fuzzy baseline-anchored track "Now and Later."The buzzy new song, Franklin explains, arrived via "this mosquito of a guitar lick." And to him, the hooky cut is "all about the stuff you burn for. Not just the momentary impulses—though often it feels the same—but the deep-seated, almost biological desires."Its highly cinematic video, he adds, was inspired by his recent infatuation with the 1961 film, The Hustler. "I can't tell you how many times I tried watching The Hustler and fell asleep," he says. "When I finally made it through to the end a few months back, I ended up watching it every night for a week—it was so damn good. The hubris, the wantonness, the tragedy of living life on the raggedy edge of the one skill you might have, and the men who exploit you for it. That was what got the ball rolling."
Advertisement