Michael Franti has lost track of how many times he has appeared on a Bluesfest stage (he thinks it’s 11). Seven caught up with Michael last week while he pondered his trip to Bluesfest.
You’ve been with Spearhead for almost 30 years – have you aged well together?
Carl (Young) who is my best friend, he is my bass player, we’ve been together for 30 years now – about three years ago I moved to Bali, and he just moved there. So it’s kind of like yeah, we’re still rockin’ we’re still really good friends. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years, but not from anything in our personal relationship, more just dealing with the highs and lows of the music industry.
The thing is, we love it more than ever and I think that over the last three years of the pandemic, that we just got a new appreciation for the fact that we have the best job in the world – we get to play music every day for people who need it. And so we’re more excited than ever.
You put out albums in 2020 and 2022. Have you got new music for Bluesfest?
We haven’t been to Bluesfest for a few years so we’re gonna be playing something from those two records, but we also have a new record that we’ve been working on – that’s almost done – so we’ll be playing some of those songs as well the classic songs that everybody loves.
For many years you’ve consumed a largely plant-based diet – has your body and your energy levels changed?
I am 98 per cent plant-based, and then I have some fish. I am somebody who believes that if there’s less meat consumed it’d be better for the planet – but I’m somebody who just likes to eat plants. And it suits my body better. It suits my stomach and my digestion better.
I’ve been this way for over 25 years – I have loads of energy on stage, but mainly, I think it’s kept my body from ageing.
What inspires you?
Well, my family inspires me and big BIG love – that’s about how all of us have close love, we have our intimate love or romantic love and our love of our family. And then our love spreads out to our neighbourhood, to our friends, and further out into our community – to our planet and to our world.
And you know, at different points in our life, we feel this strong connection to different spheres of that and right now is the time when I feel this… just this big love, I feel this inspiration, because so many people in the world right now are hurting. And whether it’s just from people comparing themselves to other people on social media and they get depressed and get down – they feel ‘less than’, or whether it’s from the wars and earthquakes, natural disasters that we see taking place, or environmental issues.
There’s just so many things out there and unfortunately, the politics of today are to divide people – trying to pit human against human. And it’s painful, it’s incredibly painful, and I want to be a force for healing. And I want my music to be a force for optimism in people’s hearts and minds.
What do you love about Bluesfest?
One of my favourite things is going and walking from stage to stage and just happening upon a cool band that you’ve never seen before, especially in the early earlier hours of the day.
It’s great to see headlining acts that you know, but even more it’s really cool to go and see somebody on one of the smaller stages and just go ‘Wow!’ at some incredibly young talent I’ve never heard of before.
You can check out Michael Franti’s playing schedule and others at www.bluesfest.com.au
