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Taken from Worcester Magazine (Jun 30, 2022)
It will be a 'Brighter Day' when Michael Franti comes to Indian Ranch
by Richard Duckett
Michael Franti & Spearhead. Photo courtesy Michael Finn |
To listen to "Brighter Day" by Michael Franti & Spearhead from their 12th studio album, "Follow Your Heart," is to be immediately uplifted.
The exhortations of "Don't give up when your heart is weary ... " and the assertion "I'm still hopin'/With my heart open ayy ay/For a brighter day" are sung to wonderfully catchy and optimistic tune and chorus that does indeed make you feel the day is going to be brighter. "Brighter Day" is an anthemic call to endure life's hardships, to find resolve and strength in those around you and stick around for brighter days ahead, with the official video featuring people from all walks of life.
However, "It was a song I wrote in a very dark place," Franti said during a recent telephone interview. It was at the height of the pandemic. His father had died after a two-month battle with COVID, and his middle child was in need of a kidney transplant.
How do you get through something like that?
"You embrace people. So I put these messages in my songs, how we can get through hard times by leaning on each other and not fighting each other," Franti said.
Franti is a globally recognized musician, humanitarian, activist and award-winning filmmaker revered for his high-energy live shows, inspiring music, devotion to health and wellness, worldwide philanthropic efforts and the power of optimism.
Michael Franti & Spearhead will make their first visit to the Indian Ranch Amphitheater in Webster for a show at 1 p.m. July 2. The concert is part of the "Follow Your Heart World Tour," featuring over 60 dates in North America before heading to Europe in early 2023.
"Follow Your Heart" was released June 3, and has already had two hit AAA singles with "Good Day For A Good Day" and "Brighter Day."
The title song implores, "Follow your heart/Like a stream to the ocean."
"It's been an incredible response for us," Franti said when asked how the tour and new album were doing.
"We've never been a group that had big chart-topping megahits," Franti said, but the album and the singles have been debuting well in the charts, with one placing the group just below Harry Styles. "I'm coming for you Harry," Franti joked.
Franti grew up in Oakland and owns Soulshine Bali, a 32-room top-rated boutique hotel located in Ubud, Bali.
But Worcester and Webster are far from unfamiliar vistas for him. Franti said he has family in the Worcester area and a brother, Charlie, who lives in Worcester.
"I've been there many times," he said. But in all those times he's never played here, and Indian Ranch will be his first show in the area. Lots of family and friend are going to be on hand. "I'm going to have a ball," Franti said.
It's now all quite far removed from the time he spent on Bali during the pandemic.
Franti and his family had been in Bali in 2020 when the pandemic started, and decided to stay there for the duration. He noted he had always said that if the music goes away the family will always have the hotel to fall back on." But with the pandemic, "nobody traveled," so the hotel had empty rooms.
Michael Franti says he spent a lot of time writing at his hotel in Bali during the pandemic. Credit: Vandi Angga |
Undaunted, "We said we're just gonna do everything we can to to stay connected to our audience. We did shows online. We worked with artists in our community. We made our hotel into a beautiful work of art," Franti said.
But there were, as Franti acknowledged, dark days. And then there were also the bright days.
Through what Franti called a "miracle," a stranger approached the family and said, "I want to give your child my kidney," he recalled. "Lo and behold you find yourself on the other side of grief. It's amazing."
Franti wrote a lot of songs during the pandemic. "I'm someone who really worked to overcome depression and anxiety. I've done lots of therapy, hours on yoga mats, and music has been the one thing to heal me. It moves my body. It changes the chemistry in my brain," he said.
"When I write it's always to get to a place of transformation."
In June 2020, his Stay At Home Concert World Tour, a creation prompted by his first summer in 33 years in which he wasn't on the road due to the pandemic, performed for over 50,000 fans worldwide with seven uniquely themed virtual livestreams.
Then last year for a few shows he was able to get back to live, in-person performances again, and he saw the transformation in people able to enjoy music and breathe again.
"I saw 10,000 people all breathing the same air ... at the same time hugging their friends. I was moved to tears," he said.
He realized "we need each other, people still need to be able to connect with the eyes of a stranger and hug their grandmother. Music is the way. The dividing walls can go away. We embrace each other ... because we're human."
Sometimes at shows in the past he would look out at a crowd "and wonder about their life experience. I look out now, I know what your life experience has been. We've all gone through this existential experience. Now we can come together with music and begin to heal ... To see people in the crowd celebrating like that, it's been really amazing."
Franti, who wrote poetry in high school and also bought a guitar, became associated with protest songs when he led The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy in the early 1990s. The band was called "political, sometimes angry."
In 1994 he formed a new group, Spearhead, which would ultimately adapt a new approach.
"What I found over the years when I wrote protest songs, the specific thing would only be there as long as the the news cycle," he said.
"It doesn't change my values," he said of writing optimistic songs. "Do we want to bring an end to gun violence? Same thing with the environment ... You embrace people."
Franti's music blends hip-hop with a variety of other styles including funk, reggae, jazz, folk and rock.
He has earned three Billboard No. 1's with "triumphantly hopeful hits" "Sound of Sunshine," "Say Hey (I Love You)" and "I Got You," as well as six Top 30 Hot AC singles, 10 Top 25 AAA Singles and three Billboard Top 5 Rock Albums. "I Got You," the lead single from his 2020 album, "Work Hard And Be Nice," marked Franti's first No. 1 in nearly 10 years.
In January 2019, Franti released his self-directed award-winning documentary, "Stay Human," showcasing the stories of people he met in his travels around the world. Influenced by the film, Franti's Stay Human podcast presented by Gibson on the American Songwriter Podcast Network features creatives from all walks of life, with new episodes available each week.
Franti and his wife, Sara, are the founders of the wish granting nonprofit Do It For The Love Foundation, which aims to inspire hope and healing through the power of music by supporting clinical and community-based music therapy, evidence-based research, and providing live music experiences. Tickets to the July 2 show will include a $1 donation to the foundation.
"Say Hey (I Love You)" has been called Franti's most indelible hit with an infectious melody and a song that's "instantly recognizable" with the lyrics, "It seems like everywhere I go, the more I see the less I know, but I know one thing, I love you."
Asked what comes first, the words/message or the music, Franti said that he once had a chance to practice yoga for a week with singer-songwriter Sting of Police. They also got around to discussing songwriting. Sting said, "'I always write the hook of the song first,'" Franti recalled.
"I always start with the chorus of the song. That is the combination of meaningful and catchy," Franti said.
Franti cited other favorite songwriters such as Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash and John Lennon who combine "great story telling but also a groove. That's always my goal, to tell a story that you can dance to."
As for future projects, Franti may be involved in what could be a fabulous and endearing film, writing the score. "It's just a different way of writing music," he said. But that's all he can really say about it for now.
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