Inspired #283 - The France
Manchester indie-poppers The France recently returned with their new single California - we caught up with the band to find out what inspires them.
Who are your top three musical inspirations?
We’ve grown up listening to all sorts but we really like to take inspiration from Fleetwood Mac for their diverse sounds, Coldplay for their anthem-style choruses and The 1975 for their modern pop songwriting.
What city do you find the most inspiring?
Manchester has to be our most inspiring city. The history of its music, the culture & the people. We did live in london for a year but it never really felt like home.
Who is the most inspiring person to you?
It might sound cheesy or a bit of cliche but I think we inspire each other a lot. We’re always trying to better what we’ve done previously & pushing each other to try new stuff / listen to different music and we just bounce off each other. The dynamic of our group is spot on.
That France is quite an usual name, what’s the inspiration behind it?
From Rochdale And Never Can Escape - an ode to our hometown
What were the inspirations for your recent single ‘California’?
This was written during lockdown & actually nearly got binned as a song as it started out as a riff and nothing else. It kept popping in to Liam’s head and then one night the lyrics just started flowing. It’s all reminiscent of our travels in 2017 to the USA where we spent 10 weeks travelling across America. California was a special place for us. We met a brilliant young Australian girl there who we kept in touch with only to recently find out she’d unexpectedly died. She was a beautiful person & will always remind us of California.
Finally, how do you hope to inspire people?
Every time I hear a song and I think “wow that’s class, what a riff or what a melody” it makes me so jealous that I didn’t write it. That has been embedded in me since a young age and what always made me want to start a band. If we can do that for other people & make them want to pick up a guitar or write a song then it’s job done!
Cheers for having us on.