The World of Frankie Dobson

Are you in need of a real rockstar on your upcoming gig list in the Toon? Meet Frankie Dobson.

Every now and then, I get a little disheartened when I see who is ruling over the charts today. Don’t get me wrong, I love pop/rap/r&b/whatever is charting right now… but there just seems to be a lack of real gut-punching rockstars. You know, the people with attitude and honesty in their lyrics and who generally didn’t give one about how they come across, or who’s streaming what.

But, every now and then, my faith in the longevity of the rockstar is restored, and that is exactly what happened when I met with Frankie Dobson.

“I don’t want to beat around the bush, I don’t want to dress up as something I’m not... because I can’t really afford to.”

It’s refreshing to see an artist that values the aspect of personality, and not one manufactured by the big signing labels. It’s been a desire of mine to seek out more artists like this, which is why I was interested to find out how Frankie began his quest of rockstardom.

“I grew up around music. My grandad was in a small local band, but it really all started for me when I was in secondary school.”

What happened in secondary school, you may wonder?

“I realised I could get out of lessons to learn how to play guitar, and I thought that was pretty cool.”

Dobson is not alone in his dismissal of education; he tells me how his nonchalance about learning maths and English may have been made prevalent by some of his biggest musical influences.

“Most of the bands that I listened to carry that message of ‘we don’t need education!’ and as someone who was never really a studious kid, it made me realise that I am good at this, and if I get better, I could really make something of it.”

Although Frankie now plays solo, he did serve his time in a band, The Thieves, and told me about the band that he first started out in.

‘When I was 14, I started playing in a cover band. Mainly covering the sixties greats, like the Beatles, the Who, the Stones, those sorts of people. And we also did more stuff like the Specials and the Jam… then eventually started writing our own stuff.’

After just watching Frankie play his first song, I could tell how skilled he was at guitar, and how skipping lessons paid off in the end. He was baffled, however, when I asked him the ultimate question: who do you believe the best guitarist of all time is?

He initially let out a sigh of perplexity, then eventually gave me his answer.

‘Well, my go-to is always Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. I have a list of guitarists that take the cake for multiple reasons. Jack White from the White Stripes as well, and Chuck Berry. Mostly because of watching Back to the Future when I was young.’

It’s clear to see how broad Dobson’s music taste is, and that is something that certainly comes out in his own music.

Although there is nothing out on streaming platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music, (at the time of writing, anyway), if you went to go see Frankie live, which I implore you to do, you would see various genres being mixed into a pot of steamy goodness, all together giving Frankie a unique, yet nostalgic sound that could appeal to just about anyone with ears.

Upon listening to him initially, it made me want to know who exactly Dobson pinpoints as the biggest influences of the sound he has crafted.

‘My influences just vary from time to time. But I suppose the core of my musical influence is made up of Miles Kane, because I got into him, like, fairly young, and he was the closest to my age compared to others when I was initially getting into the good stuff. Like other artists such as Paul Weller and Liam Gallagher were and are sort of getting on a bit, but they were both up there as well.’

We spoke a bit about Liam Gallagher, and not only the influence he’s had on music but also the rockstar persona that all young people secretly want, whether they admit it or not.

‘It’s just the way he goes about things, and when you’re a teenager and you’re quite insecure about a lot of things, you can look at Liam Gallagher and think that’s how I want to be. I used to also dress a lot like Paul Weller when I was younger, and still sort of do now.’

Just from his social media pages, you can see the influence of mod-esque fashion, and he was dressed no different on stage at Bobiks that night too, complete with leather jacket and straight-leg trousers.

On stage, Frankie was completely himself. Even more so as a solo artist, as he is such a great frontman, he doesn’t really need to be part of the identity of a band, he is solely his true self up on the stage with the support of his own band who let him shine, whilst also showing off their own skills as well. They all blend perfectly, and you can see their chemistry on stage clearly.

When I asked Frankie about his old song ‘Get Down Low’, which he wrote in his former band, The Thieves, he informed me that it was soon to be taken off Spotify and that he was on to new and better things in his solo career.

‘I’m hoping that my single ‘Candy’ will be out by the end of the year. I’m currently getting the artwork and music video sorted for it. So, I’ll say the end of the year, but there are a million things to go into it.’

Listening to ‘Candy’ as Frankie performed it that night, I can see why that’s how he wants to introduce himself to the world. It is a punchy, melodically strong song that will probably get stuck in your head for weeks. I, myself, am particularly hoping he can get it on Spotify before the end of the year so I can finally listen to it properly with full production. I can promise you, readers, it will be great, so keep an eye out for the release of ‘Candy’.

‘Apart from the release of that, I just have loads of gigs. Now that I have this opportunity to go solo, I just want to gig as much as I can. When you are in a band you can often be very bound to other people’s schedules, and they can sometimes become excuses to not play as many gigs as possible. So now I will just gig everywhere and anywhere, at the end of the day, I don’t really care. I just want to get out there and do it.’

I asked Frankie for some of the reasons he went solo to get a better idea of where he is at.

‘It was a combination of things. I think at some point when you spend a lot of time with people inside your work environment, and outside of it, you can just kind of get sick of each other, and you start seeing through each other a bit more. And it gets to the point where you must question if you’re even really friends anymore.’

Many artists who do distance themselves from bands comment on how they were often held back from finding their own individuality in music because of their bandmates, and it was certainly no different for Dobson.

‘By the time we did our last gig, I just got to the point where I was like, I’ve done this for so long, I know how it works, I just said that I’m not going to stop making music, because this is all I’ve wanted to do since forever, and I’m not going to let anyone stop me from doing that. I’m doing it my way, and I’m going for it.’

Frankie told me that his mentality is if you’re going to do something, be the best at it. And we all know being the best takes time and dedication. None of the greats got to their legendary status without sacrifice, and Dobson is no different.

‘I spent most of my teen years gigging at the other end of the country, whilst my mates were all together having fun at the pub. There are so many ritualistic things that you do with your friends when you’re young that I missed out on, but I would never change it for the world, because it was, and is, amazing. Like, my mates now will make plans and I would be like, yeah, I’d love to come, but I’m actually gigging in like Hornsea, with an audience of five people.’

Speaking of the greats, I asked Frankie who he would love to work with, be it production-wise, vocally, or songwriting, if he could choose anyone in the industry.

‘One-hundred per cent Miles Kane.’

I see a common denominator in Frankie's choice of artist, and rightly so.

‘Production-wise, he is insane.'

All in all, Frankie Dobson is one to watch. After our interview, I got to see him front row that night, and he certainly was all he said he was and more. He undoubtedly had chemistry with the audience, keeping us all captivated by his natural frontman ability.

If there’s one place Dobson belongs, it’s up on the stage. Not in a band, not covering songs, completely solo. Singing his own songs, with his own band. If anyone is going to reinstate my belief that rock stars still exist, it’s going to be him.

Ladies and gentlemen, he is one to watch.