Chatting with Frankie Cosmos

Frankie Cosmos has dominated the indie-rock scene over the past few years. When you listen to their discography it's obvious why - their short yet powerful songs prove that they are masters of their craft, and it is apparent to fans how much of a family they are.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Greta Kline this week, and I hope that you enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it!

Was it difficult at first to publicly express your innermost feelings and trauma through music / is it still?

Yes, and I often relied on masking things as fiction to make it less embarrassing. I think it’s still hard but I’ve learned that people all interpret songs differently anyway, which makes me feel a little less vulnerable, knowing the meanings can be fluid.

Following that, is it ever difficult to perform some of the songs that are more personal to you than others?

I think what’s difficult emotionally for me at this point, is performing certain songs can mean accessing anger that maybe isn’t useful to me anymore. But I think if the emotion is there when I perform it, then maybe it is still there for a reason, and it’s better to access it than shut it out? Maybe even performing these emotions can exorcise them in a way…I guess my real answer is, it’s probably always better to move through emotions and feel them than not, though yes, it can be difficult!

You attended university for a brief period of time studying English, would you say that impacted your songwriting, and can we expect a book of Greta Kline poetry?

I’ve always written and admired poetry, though I think I write poems differently than I write songs. I wouldn’t expect a book anytime soon, no. But I do sometimes publish poems in my zines, and I did read some poems at a Zoom event at Heavy Manners last year, which was nerve-wracking and fun!

What is your favourite song to perform live from ‘Inner World Peace’ specifically? And also from your entire discography?

Probably One Year Stand, it’s a tough bass part but when I play it right, getting through that song feels rewarding. One of my favourites to perform from the whole discography is probably On The Lips. It’s just one of my favourite songs I’ve written and keeps being fun to play and sing.

What is a gig that you have played over the course of your career as Frankie Cosmos that has held a place in your heart?

I honestly appreciate every show I’ve played. One show that will always hold a place in my heart is the time I met Luke Pyenson (who drummed for FC for the past 8 years). Around 2012 I played a house show (as a 2-piece band) in the Bronx and the only attendees were the other bands (Krill and Evil Sword), the three friends we had brought with us, and the person whose house it was (my friend Kira). I ended up falling in love with Krill and having so much fun watching them play, exchanging CDs, becoming friends over email, and playing more shows together. Luke was the drummer of Krill, and a few years later, became our drummer :)

Seven years ago you released ’Next Thing’, an amazing album by the way which someone I know has expressed they were: “…so obsessed with, it nearly made me ill” - with songs like ‘I’m 20’, do you feel as though those feelings of existential dread get worse as you get older or mellow down?

I feel like they mellow down! I was definitely kind of a wreck emotionally when I was younger- and I still am sometimes- but as I get older I just keep aiming to get more and more practised at life, and find my time more precious. Next Thing particularly was written in a time where I was often really out of touch with myself, I was like a balloon that people were playing volleyball with or something. I just didn’t know how to make decisions about my own life, I didn’t know how to take care of myself. So that is all stuff that you can just learn how to do over time, and hopefully get better at.

Am I right in saying ’Sappho’ is for the gays - and did you ever find out what they were reading?

Haha yes, you could say it’s “for the gays” for obvious reasons, but I would add it’s also for the straights, asexuals, closeted, and anyone else who connects with it…The song was written in a time when I didn’t feel allowed to question/explore my own queerness, so the reference to Sappho is arguably the only overtly queer concept in the song. But for me, it was definitely about questioning and yearning. The “reading” is more of a metaphor for wanting to know about someone else’s inner world, so no I guess I never did find out what they were reading in a literal sense haha.

‘Being Alive’ is an incredibly intimate and important portrayal of mental health and the turbulent feelings it provides - do you pen feelings like these as you’re feeling them, or do you revisit and recount them later?

For ‘Being Alive’ - the physical moment in the song (the scene in the second half of the song) was reaching into the past, describing a memory (set off by the striking of the internal match at the sound of someone’s name), but the song was written in the emotion for sure. I think for me, songwriting is a way to kind of organize the cluttered inside of my brain, and this song is all over the place. The chorus has definitely become a mantra for me, and it always feels good to sing it and remember that life is a gift.

‘Inner World Peace’ is such a great album from start to finish, with no skips, and I genuinely mean that - you’ve said in the past that ‘Wayne’ is the song you felt most connected to, is that still the case? Also… why did you go by ‘Wayne’ in first grade? 

Thank you for saying that! Yeah, Wayne as a song, I just feel it really intensely. The lyrics are partly reminders for me, about how to be in the world, and how to be myself. But also it’s a love song, and a comparative one - it’s recognizing how many parts of myself I wasn’t accessing in a past relationship, and how the person I’m with now allows me to access those memories and to BE a whole person. I went by Wayne because my mom called me Gretski (a made-up nickname for Greta) and then my first-grade teacher started calling me Wayne (because of Wayne Gretzky the hockey player). It never really stuck as a nickname but I always wanted it to. I realized it’s kind of like my first “Frankie” haha.

'F.O.O.F.', 'Abigail', 'Aftershook', and 'Wayne' are personal favourites of mine - what does the song 'F.O.O.F.' mean to you? 

For me, F.O.O.F. was a kind of silly take on quarantine (particularly for someone like me who didn’t have a regular job/was not an essential worker). It was about assigning random meaning to time, days of the week, etc. During March-May of 2020, I did an instagram live solo show every Friday night. Friday night as a concept was completely lacking in meaning but it felt good to have an anchor to reality/community/time like that. The lyrics in F.O.O.F. are not actually about my instagram lives, but I’m just giving that as an example of me trying to find structure during that time. Later on, when we arranged the song and extended it, the drummer Luke Pyenson came up with the final lyrics (“before 1am me / listening to 2019 Frankie”) Which I think takes the song to the next level in terms of reflecting something about time as a whole. How music allows us to jump from 2020 to 2007 to 2019, and how 2019 represents a whole different era in our lives now.

I really resonate with the lyric from 'Abigail': “It’s good sometimes to cut her slack, that version of myself I don’t want back” - do you feel as though you’re at a stage now (especially post-pandemic) where you know your true self more intimately?

Definitely, I think the least I can do is keep trying to be the most true version of myself. And it's important for all of us to not stew in shame about our past selves and the decisions they made, and moreover to extend love and kindness to our past selves!

The instrumentals on this album are stellar too - it has been the soundtrack of spring 2023 for me for sure, what was yourself and the band’s favourite part of recording this album, and what song's instrumental/general vibe do you enjoy the most?

Thank you! I think my favourite moments from the studio that come to mind were:

1. All of us recording the Empty Head instrumental at night by candlelight.

2. Coming up with the cut out/synth-only moment in the middle of Magnetic Personality which revolutionized the arrangement and is maybe the only significant arrangement change I’ve ever come up with while in studio (we normally arrange everything beforehand).

3. Adding all the synths - it’s just always fun watching Lauren and everyone else in the studio trying to describe sound ideas and then achieve them.

4. Similarly, describing the “SCHOOMP” sound ending we wanted for F.O.O.F. and seeing Nate and Katie achieve it.

I actually love all the instrumentals for this record. I feel like all of them are really dense and emotional, and could work for movie trailers or scenes. My favourite might be One Year Stand. We’re all super proud of how that one turned out, and it feels like such an outlier instrumentally for Frankie Cosmos.

Clean Weird Prone was released in April - were you nervous to release a deluxe version of the album with demos since you haven’t done it in the past, or did it just feel right?

I wasn’t really nervous about it! I’ve always really liked releasing demos, and this felt like a fun excuse to do so. I haven’t ever done a deluxe release like this, but there are a lot of demos on my Bandcamp which turned into full-band arrangements on studio albums later on! I think for people who are into that sort of thing, it’s fun and I’m happy to provide it. But I guess I wouldn’t assume that most listeners of Inner World Peace would care that much about the demos.

What’s one of your favourite memories with the band? 

We weren’t able to see each other or practice for a year and a half, and when we did it felt really powerful. None of us could believe how good our muscle memory was for our old songs, and it just felt so special to be together and play again.

What’s something you all love to do together?

Laugh! Every evening arranging the album we would all sit around and watch I Think You Should Leave and laugh our butts off.

Who are your musical inspirations?

People who do whatever they want, create their own worlds. Juan Wauters, Joanna Newsom, Arthur Russell, The Velvet Underground, The Moldy Peaches, Connie Converse.

What did you listen to that inspired Inner World Peace?

Personally while writing it I was listening to a lot of stuff from the early 2000s that I liked as a teen - The Strokes, Of Montreal. I think you can hear the Of Montreal influence in some of the chord progressions on the album.

What is a book that has impacted you?

American Elf by James Kochalka. Without his daily comic strips, I probably never would have ended up developing the relationship to music that I have.

What’s your favourite film / TV show?

I’ve watched The Mindy Project a lot of times, it really makes me laugh.

For the sake of being controversial… cats or dogs?

Aaah I hate to pick a favourite but…dogs. I’m kind of dog-obsessed. I will say, I also like cats. But I just interact with dogs way more regularly (it’s not as often you see cats walking around on the street) and pretty much every dog I meet I fall in love with.

Is Frankie Cosmos coming back to the UK soon? P.S. If you’re ever in Liverpool, there’s room for you at Defend Vinyl…

Thank you! I hope we can come play overseas again soon. We don’t have any plans to at the moment, but I’d like to.