Chris Francis of Ten
Interview April 2007

Keeping Tally With Ten's Chris Francis

Synonyms such as "igniting," "insightful," "intelligent" yet also "ironic" would be a few choice words that would describe the music of Chris Francis. After reading this interview you will find that they would also accurately describe the persona of this relatively new guitarist now in the ranks of the highly regarded melodic rockers Ten.

Kick starting his career by winning the British Guitarist magazine's "Guitarist of the Year 2000", this English born axe-master entered the studio in April of 2001 to lay down tracks for his impressive eclectic solo debut. The self-titled freshman effort was finally released in December of 2001. Yet, before even having an opportunity to promote his solo endeavor, Francis was invited to fill the shoes of Ten's veteran guitarist Vinny Burns, a daunting task to say the least.

Though Chris performed on Gary Hughes very ambitious two-part rock opera Once and Future King in 2003, his official Ten recording debut was delayed until 2004, courtesy of the impressive Return To Evermore. Since then he has been very busy appearing on two subsequent Ten releases which included the controversial Essential Collection which featured the re-recording of Ten classics and the latest Ten chapter The Twilight Chronicles.

Despite his hectic schedule, Chris completed his second solo project Studs n' Sisters that was recently reviewed by Hardrock Haven. Along with his new release, his group obligations and guitar lessons with his students, Chris was kind enough to discuss his career to date and most importantly his latest solo endeavour.

HRH: The first thing I would like to say is thank you very much for taking the time to complete this interview with Hardrock Haven considering your busy dual-life as a solo artist and group member of melodic rockers Ten. Let's start from your early days. Was there a musical foundation within your family?

Chris: Thanks Mike, it is my pleasure. I don't come from a musical family and throughout my early teenage years I was more inclined toward the visual arts. But I started out on my bed with a tennis racket and my school tie around my head holding a plectrum made from folded paper. I mastered this and, with the arrival of puberty, set my sights on greater glory.

HRH: Judging by your solo efforts you wear multiple hats when it comes to musical instruments, but obviously you more than excel on the guitar. Was this your first instrument of choice and if so why?

Chris: Thank you, but I'm really not a multi instrumentalist. I can certainly compose parts for other instruments but I only play guitar. I programmed all of the keyboard lines for the new album and some on the first. When I was getting into music I dabbled with the drums first of all because I had a couple of friends who were taking up the guitar and we were going to form a band, but I just couldn't deny my attraction to the electric guitar. It is by far the most iconic, versatile and demanding modern instrument in the world. It seems you could live to be a thousand years old and never stop improving; never run out of things to learn.

HRH: In November of 2000 you won Guitarist Magazine's "Guitarist of the Year 2000". Tell us how that came about?

Chris: Guitarist Magazine, which is a U.K publication, had been running the 'Guitarist of the Year' contest since about 1992 I think. It was a great opportunity for unknown players to gain some recognition and a chance at building a career. I entered for the first time in 1999 and got to the finals. You send in a demo of an original composition and they narrow it down to five or six finalists who then have to play their tune in front of an audience and panel of judges. This was held at a national music expo. Anyway, I entered again in 2000 and won.

HRH: Within 13 months you released your debut self titled solo effort that was very eclectic with underlying blues and jazz attributes. Who are some of your fellow artists that may have influenced you?

Chris: My favourite guitarists are Eddie Van Halen, Nuno Bettencourt, Blues Saraceno, Warren DeMartini, Andy Timmons, Steve Morse, Steve Vai, Steve Stevens and Brian May. Influential albums are Van Halen 1984, Extreme Pornograffitti, Blues Saraceno Hairpick, Aerosmith Pump and Jellyfish Spilt Milk. I'm really moved by inventive guitar playing and melodic composition

HRH: Attempting to avoid asking what your favourite track on your debut solo album is, the closing track "To High Heaven" soars. Where did the inspiration for that track come from?

Chris: I just got interested one day in 'anthem' guitar. I was thinking along the lines of Brian May and Steve Vai, particularly the stuff he did for the Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey movie. I always thought Nuno Bettencourt's solo in 'Song for love' was very 'anthemic' too so I, just out of interest as a project, tried to capture that posture. Later when I was preparing to record my first album I envisioned it being on there, and I knew it would have to be the first or last track!

HRH: With no time to promote your solo effort the following month you were invited to join Ten. Could you share that process with us?

Chris: I became aware that the band was looking for a new guitarist so I sent their management a copy of my (at the time) new CD. I was then invited to audition and while I was driving back down from Manchester the following day I got a call offering me the job (though, don't answer the phone while you're driving, kids.). This was extremely exciting and with the Japan tour only a few weeks away I had some serious song-learning to do.

HRH: While to most hungry young musicians your calling to Ten must have seemed like an easy decision. However, musically your solo debut was given no time for promotion and had a greater musical spectrum than the more defined Ten sound? Did you have any concerns about this adjustment?

Chris: No, none at all. I never set out to be musically diverse and, compared to a lot of artists, I'm not really. I just write whatever comes. I've always had a great love for hard rock music so I was delighted to be playing for Ten. As for promoting my new album, I thought that playing for Ten would increase my profile and that would really help with that.

HRH: With a history with Dare, Asia and now Ten, Vinny Burns is looked upon with high regard within the melodic rock community. Vinny's approach to the guitar is more muscle than meticulous. Did you make a concerted effort to adjust your playing within Ten?

Chris: I think it has naturally happened but there was certainly no concerted effort. Playing within the context of the Ten material I have definitely developed a looser and more visceral style. I think this is evident in certain tracks on Studs n' Sisters. It doesn't do to get too meticulous and at least I didn't get into bloody jazz! When all's said and done rock music has got to, well, rock.

HRH: After a Japanese tour in early 2002, your website indicates that Ten toured with Asia in the UK. What was that experience like?

Chris: Excellent, Guthrie Govan was playing for Asia (he was 1993s guitarist of the year). It was good to hang out with him a little and it was the first time since I'd joined the band that we'd got to play London so I had a home crowd.

HRH: Your Web site mentions Ten performing at The Gods 2002 the melodic rock yearly event of the year. How was your welcome? It also mentions being recorded for DVD. Are there any plans to actually release this to the public?

Chris: It was a storming show and one of which I have great memories. I felt very welcome. It was recorded for DVD and nearly came out a couple of times but business/finance/politics/bullshit prevented it. A particular shame because a lot of fans had already pre-ordered and paid for it. I don't know if they ended up getting their money back from the label, but I hope they did. I don't believe it will ever come out, which is a pity; I've seen the footage.

HRH: While you performed on Gary Hughes very ambitious two part rock opera Once and Future King your official Ten recording debut did not occur until 2004 courtesy of Return To Evermore. And to open with the highly ambitious and progressive "Apparition" was our official recording introduction to the new Ten guitarist. Your thoughts?

Chris: When I recorded that song I didn't know it would be the opening track so I didn't consider it to be any kind of an entrance for me. It's certainly an epic track with a cool solo, but as far as songs go on that album I was far more into 'Lost Soul' and 'Even the Ghosts Cry'. Interestingly enough 'Apparition' and 'Lost Soul' had been recorded two years earlier in the 'Arthur' sessions.

HRH: Even more ambitious was the risky endeavor of re-recording and remixing past Ten classics to celebrate the 10th Anniversary courtesy of the 2006 project The Essential Collection. How did you approach Vinny's parts?

Chris: The only way it made sense to me as a musician was to treat the material as new songs, as if I were the first guitarist to interpret them. This is not meant to be immodest or offensive but what the hell would have been the point of me recreating the exact same parts? Those versions already existed. The whole project was perhaps not the best idea.

HRH: The Essential Collection saw you becoming involved in the engineering approach and the latest Ten release The Twilight Chronicles appears to show a somewhat return to the Ten roots. Your appearance here appears to be more indelibly stamped. Would it be safe to say that you were more comfortable in your surroundings than ever before?

Chris: I was not involved in the engineering approach of The Essential Collection beyond miking my own electric and acoustic guitars. It is how those mic's are then mixed that creates a guitar sound on an album. I was there for some of the mixing of the Twilight Chronicles and helped create some of the drum sounds. As for the last part of your question, I just think I'm getting better at everything I do.

HRH: The Twilight Chronicles also saw you even more involved in the production process. Considering the writing talents within the band any indication that Gary Hughes will use the additional band members in the writing process in the near future?

Chris: Unlikely, I'd say.

HRH: Which brings us to your latest solo effort Studs n' Sisters which is a stellar solo effort with a terrific tongue in cheek movie theme. Why and where did the inspiration come from?

Chris: Thank you very much. In contrast to my first album, I wanted Studs n' Sisters to be a concept work. I've always had a real appreciation for album artwork and design and the further insight into the artist's idiosyncrasies that it affords, and as a result the whole package is full of references to movies and pop culture (bit nerdy perhaps, but it was a laugh). Instrumentals are notoriously difficult to name so when logging ideas I would just give them working titles to identify them by. So the system I used was that each one was a 'bitch'. 'Light It Up' was originally called 'Disco Bitch', 'Used-To-Be' was 'Ballad Bitch', 'You can Dance Better Than That' was 'Shuffle Bitch' and so on. The heavy metal spoof was filed as 'Death Bitch' and that title just stuck because I thought it was funny (particularly because it doesn't actually mean anything). When I'm recording/producing I'm just constantly reacting to what I hear in my head, so while I was listening back to the rhythm guitar parts for 'Death Bitch' I could hear that it needed some dialogue like clips from a movie over this certain section. This lead to the idea that the song was from the soundtrack of a fictional film of the same title, which I imagined would be an eighties slasher movie type of thing. My cousin Jon is a big film buff and he's very much into his creative writing so I asked him to write some scenes that we could record, add atmospherics and sound fx to, and then insert excerpts into the track and make it sound authentic. So he wrote this great stuff and we hired some actors and created the scenes. I then kind of caught the bug of this concept and decided that each track would have a movie theme attached to it (though most of them without excerpts). My brother Sam works in television and he's really into writing and showed me a sketch he'd been working on. I loved it and thought it was hilarious so we worked it into the concept and that became 'Pickle and Baby Bear'. By the way, most of the songs were not supposed to be from the soundtracks of these fictional movies; just abstract representations of the films, so it's all a little strange. Anyway, my friend, Rich Barnard, had given me a dictionary of hipster slang for Christmas and I started using this as a source of song/film titles, thinking the project could take on a 1920's/1930's vibe but within a heavy metal context. Anyway, so here's the weird part: I'd read the entry for "studs and sisters" in the book and felt that it expressed the duality of my style; the timbre of power chords and punchy drums married to emotive melody and harmony. Turns out, it's not in the 30's slang book, so who knows where it came from - must have been hitting the sauce! Originally it was just a song title, but I decided to make it also the album title because I like the sound of things like 'Sex and Religion' and 'Guns n' Roses'. There was a lot of great dialogue stuff that didn't make it onto the final versions too so perhaps that'll come out at a later time.

HRH: All of the songs were self penned with the exception of the Madonna hit "Material Girl". Interpreting cover tunes is a dodgy affair however you pulled this one off. But why cover this particular song?

Chris: Hey, I'm a child of the eighties.

HRH: The mid tempo ballad "Used to Be" shows a more emotional side of Chris Francis. Is there a personal inspiration to this particular composition?

Chris: Not one I'm consciously aware of. I'm an emotional bottler so if it chooses to come out in my music at least I have a full set of glassware intact! Catharsis I guess is the word.

HRH: What is your guitar of choice?

Chris: Most of the electric parts were recorded using my U.S. custom shop Yamaha Pacificas, strung with gauge 10-46, through a 'Germanium Boy' pedal built by Alex Saraceno straight into a Peavey 5150. The acoustic parts were all played on my Lakewood.

HRH: Will your latest solo endeavor receive any promotional activity?

Chris: I'm sending out copies for review but this is the year I shall play the songs live around the U.K.

HRH: Drummer Frank Basile appears on both your solo album and the latest Ten album. Any indication that he will be becoming a permanent member of Ten?

Chris: No, Frank is a session drummer who is very easy to work with but performing live will never be on the cards. I wouldn't be surprised if he was hired for future Ten albums though.

HRH: While finances may limit this option any chance of Chris Francis or Ten appearing live in the USA?

Chris: Personally I'd love to if there were an event or tour opportunity. Almost all of the musicians and song writers who have influenced me are American so it would mean a lot to play in the States. Never say never, but I'd be very surprised if Ten were to ever make it over the pond.

HRH: Thank you for taking the time to interview with HRH. Any cutting edge news that you would like to share with the readers?

Chris: My pleasure, mate. News is that I'm just keeping on keeping on - rehearsing for the live stuff, choosing material for the next album, which'll be a little different again, and I still have guitar students so it's all busy. Cheers!

www.chrisfrancis.net