Shaun Frank joined us for an interview in the Big Joe® Lounge for Miami Music Week 2018 to do a staring contest with Dayanna Ramirez, to talk about his guilty pleasures and to share his deep thoughts on finding balance between touring while staying creative
The Canadian DJ and producer, singer and song-writer is known for his collaborations with KSHMR, Oliver Heldens, Delaney Jane and DVBBS. These days he’s been very busy churning out collaborations with the likes of Krewella, Dragonette, Digital Farm Animals and Icona pop.
Honesty is one of Shaun Frank’s main mantras- he values keeping an honest and open relationship with his fans and thus he uses his real name instead of an alias for his music productions. With so much creative works in the pipeline, we had to ask Shaun how he manages to balance creativity with his taxing touring schedule:
“One of the hardest things about the pace of today’s music industry is that an artist like myself is on tour 365 days a year, so people are always asking; how’s the tour going? And it’s like the tour hasn’t stopped in three years. So trying to find that creative space in between traveling is very hard. Sometimes I just crave like a month off, so that I can just re-center and refocus. I’m starting to do that because it’s really hard- between the jetlag and the touring and the traveling and the drinking and the partying, the craziness and then you’re at home and it’s all quiet and then it’s like ok, you gotta make music. Sometimes it’s actually less inspiring to it that way, it’s better to go home and re-center and live your life and that’s where the real songs come from, so I’m gonna start taking a month off and a month on here and there.”
Having to constantly be creative isn’t the only challenge that artists like Shaun Frank have to face. With so many celebrities being hospitalized for exhaustion these days, and with recent news of Avicii’s passing (which happened after this interview), Shaun Franks message about finding balance couldn’t be more relevant today:
“It’s a really important in this day-in-age to stand out in both your music as well as your personality, and I think a lot of us creative types tend to be introverted and tend to want to stick to themselves and stay home. Like I told you, a lot of times I’d rather be at home in my studio alone, but the industry wants us to be out. I mean, I’m having a great time talking to you today but I’ve been talking all week, I’m with people all week. It’s actually less inspiring, so finding a balance between creating a brand and actually just focusing on music; I’ve watched some artists get so far into their brand- that I can’t remember a single song that they’ve put out, because it’s not about the music anymore and I would love it if we want back to when the music was more important.”
For the full interview, click on the player below↓
