Local Musician Spotlight // Bassist, Derek Frank

Bassist, Derek Frank, is new to Park City and just dropped an album on September 18th. Here’s why you should listen:

It’s not his first solo album, but it is his first release in 11 years! It's called “Eleven Years Later” and the idea is not a new one, but Derek usually spends most of his year traveling and touring with other artists. He said, “When all my live shows got cancelled back in March due to the pandemic, it became apparent that writing and recording another solo album would be the best use of my time. As for genre and style, I can best describe it as ‘eclectic instrumental groove music’. It has elements of Funk, Jazz, Blues, Southern Rock, and seventies soundtrack music. Production-wise, it’s very organic and vintage-sounding… It has an overall seventies vibe to it, which is exactly what I had in mind when I was writing the songs.”

Derek is a professional bass player, who, until recently was based in LA playing in bands with Gwen Stefani, Shania Twain, and The Dirty Diamond. But, when the Covid19 pandemic cancelled all gigs and live performances, Derek found himself at home, in one place, for the longest chunk of time in years. 

When I asked him what it was like to record an album during a pandemic, he said, “once I had all the material written, I sent it to my band and we scheduled a few rehearsals. After not playing music with other humans in a few months, it felt SO GOOD to play again! The smiles in that rehearsal studio never seemed to disappear… Then when we got into the studio to record, it was just a huge sense of relief.  All the guys in my band, including myself, are used to playing on the road constantly.… My guitarist plays in Shania Twain’s band with me, my keyboardist plays with Katy Perry, and my drummer plays with Smashmouth and also Colbie Caillat. So we’re all used to being super busy playing live music. You can imagine how it felt to finally get together and play music after going months without it!”

Here’s his website: https://www.derekfrank.com/music

Here’s the official album collection: https://www.hellomerch.com/collections/derek-frank

Here’s the Bandcamp streaming link: https://derekfrank.bandcamp.com/

Here’s the Spotify link.

And finally, the Apple Music link.

But, there are lots of ways to stream including Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, iTunes, Google play, and Deezer. Find them all here: https://www.derekfrank.com/music

During the Covid19 pandemic it is especially important that we find ways to best support musicians and artists in our community. Derek mentioned that, “since there aren’t any large-scale concerts happening at the moment, the best thing that people can do is buy, not stream, music and/or merchandise from artists whose music they enjoy. Especially from sites like Bandcamp.com, which tend to take lower percentages off the top than services such as iTunes or Amazon. One thing that I saw that I thought was really great is a thing that Mountain Town Music is doing in Park City called the “Door 2 Door Tour 2020”. They provide an opportunity for people to book local artists/bands for private or neighborhood concerts in their backyard or on their street. I just saw that the other day on mountaintownmusic.org, and thought that was really cool.”

Welcome, Derek to PC! We can’t wait to enjoy your music.