Frank & Tony: “In a lot of ways house music has become kind of sterilized and become something for white upper class people to enjoy. So with Frank & Tony we try to take our ego out of the mix and make it fun.”

Now what are some collaborations that you have in the works in the future that you are looking forward to?

FH – Well our Frank & Tony album just came out which is really exciting and Anthony has some collaborations.

AC – Yeah I have the Black Light Smoke project called ‘Glory Club’ which is more like indie electronic. It’s our first EP this year on Scissor & Thread and we are working on the second one but there are no set dates. It’s more of a side project. Black Light Smoke is really more focused on the music while working on the album for us. And I got the Frank & Tony thing going on and I’m working on some solo stuff as well. So it’s more like a side thing – when we have time we meet up and we get that going.

Now I know you played on the first vinyl only Sunday School stage at Mysteryland and Electric Zoo. Now vinyl is definitely making a comeback, do you guys also play on CDJs and Traktor or are you now strictly vinyl only?

FH – We do vinyl and USB and 2000s. We basically digitize most of our vinyl just in case the turntables don’t work. Even like this last gig at Panther Room at Output, we barely played any digital except for our new tracks. We’re mostly playing vinyl, just because we have more fun when we are doing it I guess. Now we try not to get in a big debate between vinyl and digital – It’s kind of a boring sort of debate. You either are going to have a good performance or you’re not. We certainly enjoy playing records more than on digital though.

Andrea Oliva was just telling me it really matters on the sound system for vinyl because sometimes some of the systems don’t support vinyl and sometimes just the sound quality of the system sounds horrible.

FH – And then we’ll play our USBs for sure. That has happened before. I would say like 1 out of 4 gigs we can’t play the vinyl because either the turntables aren’t working or the system sounds like shit.

AC – But it is getting better.

FH – I would say the frequency of systems sounding good with vinyl is much much better than a year ago, much better. Mysteryland sounded really good but you’re always going to get more clipping with the vinyl because it is all analog.

Now when and how did you guys first meet and become Frank & Tony and do you feel that Frank & Tony as a duo is becoming more widely known than Francis Harris and Anthony Collins as solo artists?

FH – I think that the Frank & Tony thing is really becoming a lot more of the club arm of what I’m interested in doing. I mean the Francis Harris stuff is going to go more and more down this sort of noise zombie and shoegaze experimental thing and the Frank & Tony stuff is more for the club. I don’t know who knows that. A lot of the time we get booked and they don’t want to put Frank & Tony on the flyer – they want to put Francis Harris and Anthony Collins and other places they want only Frank & Tony. I think it just depends on the city. I think there are some cities where people really know us. I mean in New York everyone knows Frank & Tony now. I mean we go to DC everyone knows Frank & Tony and they like it. We will play a gig somewhere in Mexico or something and nobody will have a clue who Frank & Tony is. I guess it depends on where our records are selling but The Frank & Tony project is certainly a unique experience.

We both DJ a little differently when we play together than when we play separately. I don’t want to say it is magic cause it sounds cheesy but there is a bit of that something that you can’t describe that happens when we are doing it together – it’s really locking compared to individually. And you know that’s from the experience of playing together – when we first started we had our difficulty – we had some really rough gigs. It’s been a long time since we had one of those.

Now what brought along the collaboration with DJ Sprinkles and how would you best describe the sound of it?

FH – Terre and I kind of were in the same circles before I met him through music. Through my graphic studies in Common philosophy and radical literature and art and stuff like that. When I was looking for remixes for this last album I thought it would be an interesting thing for him to do a remix under both Sprinkles and Terre Thaemlitz and we sort of developed a friendship through that process. Now I’m always constantly sending him music. When we were working we could get a big remixer or maybe just collaborate with someone instead so we nixed the idea of the remixer and we had this groove that had this sign that said hey! What do you think about doing a little collaboration? I think that a lot of it is based on the friendship that we developed and the track is kind of a perfect mixture between our style and his style. It’s a really really special classic house track that I think when you listen to it sounds like it’s something that is in the archives. We’re really proud of how it came out and we think it sounds really natural and not forced and we hope other people will feel the same way.

Awesome! What are some gigs coming up that you are looking forward to and where haven’t you played yet that you are hoping to play at in the future?

FH – We are always looking forward to our Output dates, that’s always our favorite dates – Panther Room cause it’s kind of our home.

AC – It gives a chance to really express ourselves -every time the club is nice and curated. Even the main room kind of fits for our sound.

FH – That’s the feeling that we most look forward to and then we have a really special date in Lima. We’ve worked with these promoters in Lima for the past 3 or 4 years now and they have a really big party happening the first week in December. We’re playing with Dixon at 4beats Festival. That’s really something we can’t wait for and every time we play for them it’s really something special but I mean America is always really fun for us.

Frank & Tony’s ‘Go’ is out now via Scissor & Thread. Check it out below.