Artist to Watch: Michael Franti

Although the politically active frontman Michael Franti of Michael Franti & Spearhead has been playing in bands for 20 years and with the Spearhead since 1994, he recently began getting mainstream attention with his hit single "Say Hey (I Love You)" off of his highly-anticipated upcoming album The Sound of Sunshine. Franti also received major attention as the opening act on John Mayer's Battle Studies tour earlier this year.

“Say Hey (I Love You)" was Franti’s first top 20 Billboard song and has positioned Franti and his band as a major artist to watch. Not only is he grateful to be experiencing such success, he’s happy to be alive after his appendix ruptured last year, renduring him from touring. See what Franti had to say about his latest album, his political stances on current issues and his positive outlook on life:

Citadel: How would you describe the sound on The Sound of Sunshine to your previous work, and what did you want listeners to take from it?

MF: The Sound of Sunshine I wrote after my appendix ruptured. I was in the hospital, and I was recovering from the surgery. I would go to the window every day and open the curtain. And if the sun was shining, I’d be like, “Yes! It’s going to be a great day.” And then there would be some days that it would be cloudy or rainy, and I would have to find sunshine in my guitar or laughing with my friends. Or reading or whatever it was in my life. I wanted to make a record that would bring sunshine to people when the sun wasn’t out.

Citadel: So what made you return to a major label?

MF: When we finished this record, we sent it out to some labels. EMI was the label that gave us the best deal that we wanted [with] the most creative control. So many record labels want to do 360 deals where they control your touring, your merchandise, your online stuff, and EMI gave us more of a traditional record deal which seemed like the right thing for us.

Citadel: How have you managed to keep that control over your own career and music as opposed to some other artists who give up those rights?

MF: I think every artist has to look at what their own situation is, and for some artists, it might make sense to give up part of your touring and your merchandising. Because maybe they are offering you so much money you can’t refuse it. But for me, we’ve always wanted to stay as independent as we can in our connection to our fans. So we do a lot of our own online stuff, and we tour non-stop. So they idea for us to give any of that is just impossible. It was either a choice to go with a label that would do what we want or just put the record out on our own, which we have done in the past.

Citadel: What are you looking forward to most about touring this summer?

MF: Playing new music and being outdoors. Last summer my tour got cut short because of my surgery, so I’m just excited to be alive today. We have all of these songs that we played on tour this winter that we go on stage and play them. Then we go into our dressing room, and we re-record the songs on our laptop. So the fans had a lot to do with the making of this record. To see what their reaction was.

Citadel: Since you are very politically active, what are some of the current issues right now that you have certain feelings about?

MF: Obviously, the oil spill is a big thing that’s on everybody’s mind. To me, it’s indicative of a lot of problems that we see our nation facing today: climate change, the economy and the wars that we have taking place in the Middle East today are directly related to our energy policies. So it signals a time that hopefully as a nation we’re going to have a shift in consciousness that we really have to start investing today in a sustainable future and a sustainable energy policy for tomorrow. We were just down in Gulf Shores playing a festival on the beach [called] The Hangout. Still the beaches were really beautiful, and I dread the thought of going back there next year and the whole beach being covered in oil.

Citadel: What do you as an artist try to do to infuse your political feelings into your career?

MF: The main thing that I do is get directly involved in issues. I used to write a lot of political songs. When I went to Iraq and played music on the street there in 2004, there would be Iraqi families that would come up and say, “We appreciate the political ideas in music, but play us something we can dance to and sing along to and clap to.” So now, that’s what I do rather than just write political music. I write songs that people can enjoy. But I go and be a part of different political things or go to places. I shot a little documentary with this organization CARE that does relief with developing nations. We are going to be going to Haiti later in the year. We try to take the music to places that we feel it is needed.

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