Off the Record: Get to know Franco Gravante of Classless Act

The Get to Know Classless Act interviews were done in 2023 via Tuonela Magazine, with transcripts now found here

Check out the other interviews with Griffin Tucker (guitars), Chuck McKissock (drums), Dane Pieper (guitars), and Derek Day (vocals)!

Hello again, I am Bear Wiseman and I am back again, once more, to help you get to know Franco Gravante, the bassist from Classless Act.

Hi everyone, how’s it going?

As I understand you’re not actually American; you’re the foreigner of the band, originally from Argentina. So how long have you been living in the US now?

Well, I came here when I was 20. So like 6 years ago already. Damn, time flies actually, yeah, 6 years ago.

What brought you to the US? I understood that you were doing some touring, of course, when you initially joined Classless Act, but what brought you for the first time to the US?

Well, it was in this Argentinian band and we had this self-booked tour in Los Angeles. Then I came here and I found out that there was nothing booked, our singer was kind of crazy and had tricked us here, into getting here to the country. So, we came here with tourist visas and stuff and we just started playing wherever we could, wherever they’d let us play. Then we made a few connections, we came back a year after that as well. But that band didn’t last, we broke up. Just some internal conflicts, as you can imagine, but right before we broke up, I met these guys, they were looking for a bass player. So music is the reason why I came here, why I’m doing what I’m doing.

That kind of leads directly into my next question of, when I did my first interview with Derek, he said that Classless Act stole you from another band, or that you discovered Classless Act on tour with another act.

I was up for grabs.

Fair enough. So how old were you when you discovered a love of music and playing and performing?

I started playing guitar and all that stuff at 10, but my parents used to have this “Greatest Hits” Queen record and I remember listening to that. My brother showed it to me and I remember listening to it when I was 8 or 9, something like that, you know, the first years of going to school and stuff. So yeah, I will say about 7-8 years old, for sure. My brother had this cassette player, so I would discover bands like AC/DC, The Police, and all that stuff.

I read from your bio that… was it an AC/DC show that really left an impact on you when you were young?

Oh yeah, I saw the legendary AC/DC “Live at River Plate” in Argentina. It was my first show actually, I think it was like, I don’t know, 12? I don’t remember. But watching all the people jumping at the same time and singing the songs, it was a whole concert culture that made it for me. And that show was amazing. They killed it.

As I understand, you consider yourself maybe a bit more of a guitarist than a bass player, necessarily. So how did you end up as the bass player in Classless Act?

Well, funnily enough, I’ve never played guitar in a band, because, you know, they’re always looking for a bass player, so, “yeah, I can play bass.” But I do enjoy it. I love it. I love playing bass. Guitar sometimes is more fun, but bass can be really fun too. It’s really enjoyable. But my first instrument and I would say my first love was the guitar.

With that in mind, bass isn’t necessarily considered the most stimulating of the rock band instruments, so is there anything that you do to keep the bass lines fun, rather than just you know, plucking a couple notes to keep the rhythm?

I mean, as long as it’s serves the song, as long as the song sounds good, that’s our job. I mean, you can have fun with it, you can be creative, you can add some distortion on the effects, you can come up with cool bass lines, you can base the whole song into a baseline as well. But it depends on the situation, depends on the song, depends on what you actually want to do and what benefits the band, so I’m happy just by doing that. If we sound good, I’m good.

Who are some of your all-time favorite bass players then?

Definitely the guy that made me want to play bass for sure is John Deacon. Like Queen’s my favorite band, so his bass lines were amazing. Then I don’t know, like Sting, all those bands. I don’t have like a particular set of bass players that I love. I’m very random when it comes to that. But definitely John Deacon was the first and most influenced me to learn how to play bass. To this day, I hear some of the bass lines and I’m like, “Damn, that’s amazing.”

What about bass lines from songs then? Do you have any songs that stand out for really amazing, memorable bass lines?

Well, probably “Hysteria” by Muse, that’s a classic at this point. “The Millionaire Waltz” by Queen. I don’t know, probably some Queens of the Stone Age there somewhere. There’s a couple, for sure.

Well, with that in mind, I know most of you guys play a few instruments. So is there any instrument that you can’t play that you’d really love to play, or that you’d love to implement into a Classless Act song?

I am terrible at all the wind instruments, like saxophone, flute, and all that stuff. I would really love to play saxophone. I tried. I didn’t succeed, and I traded it for a guitar [laughter].

I hear that happens, fairly commonly even. [laughter]

It’s hard, it’s hard, but it sounds so good, you know?

As I understand as well, you’re big into food and cooking, which makes a lot of sense coming from South America, where the food culture is supposed to be fantastic. So how do you like American food? [laughter]

Oof. [laughter] No, I like it, I like it. I can always appreciate a good burger or stuff like that. I’m just very used to the Argentinian type of barbecue, with charcoal and slightly different cuts of meat. I just can’t do gas grills, man, it just kills me every time inside. [laughter]

There’s one cut that we find here, I think that’s called picanha. It‘s quite popular; I think I learned about this from a Brazilian fellow. It’s not very commonly used in other places, but quite popular in South America?

Yeah, it’s really good. And you know, the thing with South America with the meat, you know, compared to, for example, the US, is that it’s so much cheaper. You can actually buy it and don’t feel guilty about it. [laughs]

Another thing I read in your bio was that A Clockwork Orange had a big effect on you. So what was the experience of encountering that for the first time [like] and what kind of feeling did it instill in you?

Well, I think I read the book first. No, no, I saw the movie first. I was probably like 15-16, that age when you’re discovering those edgy movies, maybe seeing The Wall or The Shining or that stuff. It was quite impactful, but like, man, I’d never seen anything like that before, right? So I was kind of shocked. But at the same time I went past the first scenes, when it’s kind of ultraviolet and all that stuff. It’s a good movie, it’s a great movie. I haven’t seen it in a while, actually. I tried to show it to one of the band members on tour and I didn’t succeed at that. [laughter] Yeah, I literally was stopping the movie every 2 minutes to explain. [laughter]

Have there been any other movies or shows or songs even that left a huge, memorable impact on you or that kind of changed who you are?

Hmm, that’s a good question. I don’t know, just movies, certain movies remind me… and certain songs as well, remind me of a time when I was… ‘Cause when I like something, I tend to watch it or listen to it a lot, nonstop, bothering everyone. I don’t care, I just like it, I want to listen to it likes ten times in a row. So after doing that, whenever you hear that song or watch the movie, years after, it just reminds me of place where I was. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad, but I think mostly bands changed my life a little bit, again, like Queen and all that stuff. I haven’t watched a movie in a while, I feel, like a movie that I’ll be like, “oh, that was a great movie.” I watched Tyson’s movie last night, but that didn’t do it for me. [laughs]

As I’ve been slowly learning through these interviews, Classless Act seemed like it was a whole other band and then your final form, so to speak, slowly came in and replaced all the original members. So when you joined, I think Dane was already in the band. Was anyone already in there or were you the second to join in?

From this formation? Yeah, I was the second one. I think Dane joined them like maybe 2 weeks before I joined.

So how did they discover you then?

It was normal, like every band goes through a phase of process, you know, especially when they’re just starting, until they find out who they really are. We’re still trying to find out that, like discovering through every album, which I think is great and I think it’s a natural thing that should happen in every band. Not every album can be exactly the same thing, in my opinion. It could, but I wouldn’t like that. Always in the same vein of rock music, stuff like that, but I would always like to do something different each time that we have a chance, that possibility.

Talking about the songs then on “Welcome to the Show,” I understand that actually it was a very collaborative process for you guys, but I think I’ve been told that it was largely you and Derek who did a lot of the main songwriting for at least the songs that are on this album. So I think “All that We Are” was definitely one that was heavily accredited to you, so tell me a little bit about some of the songs and how they came to life?

Well, I mean, I think we said this before, that we had this whole album written and then the pandemic hit. And then we were like, let’s rewrite it then. We can do better than this. I wasn’t really writing at that time, until that happened, because I really didn’t know how too much. I remember talking with my manager, he was trying to explain royalties and stuff like that. And I did a question and he’s like, “it doesn’t matter because bass players don’t write songs anyway.” And that fucking stuck with me. [laughs] I was like, “You’ll see!” No, I love him to death. But, you know, that really was something that helped me to get into the world of songwriting. Writing with some other people also did open my eyes a lot and I always admired Derek. Watching him work is also very inspiring. Sometimes you just go back home and start fooling around with some ideas and I have a little home studio setup, with just speakers and a keyboard. I’ve been kind of mixing for like 10 years now, so I can do a song a couple hours, kind of finished, with bass and drums and all that stuff. So that was a process, it was the demo part of it. And then I take it to the guys who we’ve worked with, that’s pretty much how it goes. It’s very simple. Nothing complicated, but it’s fun. I love it. It’s probably the thing that I love the most, is writing songs.

Did you do any of the lyric writing on the album?

Some of them, like “Haunting Love” and “Thoughts from a Dying Man.” Those are pretty much all my lyrics, and then I helped in a few of them. But it’s kind of tough for me, because I have stopped reading in a while. Especially, I’ve never read anything in English. I think that’s a plus if we’re writing lyrics in English. So it’s not my first language. It’s not an excuse, but it’s not as easy for me as it would be maybe coming up with a song or something, or a melody. But I try, I try it. I just have to keep doing it and getting better at it.

I know that “Thoughts from a Dying Man” is… in the fan club, a lot of people talk about that song being just so haunting and beautiful and all of that. So what inspired that song? What kind of gave you the spark for that idea?

Oh, that song was a mix of moments, like, once I had this panic attack back in Argentina and I thought I was dying. I had a feeling that no one will remember me. I don’t know, something stupid like that. [laughs] It wasn’t stupid, but it was years ago. I don’t know why I was thinking that, honestly. But, you know, it definitely stayed in my head, that feeling. And then one morning, a couple years ago – that’s the first one I wrote for the band, by the way – but a couple years ago, I just woke up and I had all day for myself. There was no one in the house. And I said, I want to write a song about this, but I didn’t have any lyrics yet or anything. So I just sat [at] the piano and started writing it. The original name was “Deathbed,” actually, but it kind of was tough, so we had to change it.

And it’s such a good album closer, with that final mellow darkness. It works really well.

I’m honestly grateful [to] the label to let us put a song like that on the album, because I don’t know many labels that will let you do that, I think. It’s kind of a weird song. [laughs]

I love it. I love the album because it’s got a fairly consistent sound, but it’s also very diverse at the same time, and I think that probably comes from all of you guys being such talented songwriters and working so well together, that it’s just got a lot of flavor to it.

Yeah, it did suffer a bunch of changes in production and all that stuff. We like the way it is, but live we play it more like how the OG demo was, that we might release one day.

You were just on this huge tour and right before that you were on another tour and before that you were the house band in a bar or restaurant, so what was that like to go from the house band to the club tour to The Stadium Tour?

To me it’s always the same. To me, it’s just the same to play in the stadium or in a shrimp bar or wherever we were playing. [laughter] We’re grateful for that, by the way. It really helped. I mean, we played 4-hour shows in [that] house band gig and they really helped us play more with ourselves, as bandmates, you know, 4 hours nonstop, every 2 weeks, it was great. It really solidified the group and the musicianship of every member. But to the other question, to me it’s the same, to play in that bar or The Stadium Tour, or another tour, or whatever. It’s always the same feeling, it’s always great. Doesn’t matter where you are. Sometimes you have more space to move, I give you that! [laughs] But besides that, that’s it.

You don’t mind staying in cheap motels and eating food from the gas stations, versus the fancier stadium stuff?

I mean, a little bit [laughter], but it’s fine, it’s just part of the process.

Hey, Muffin.

He’s climbing on the chair. Damn, he’s not supposed to do that. He’s just had surgery. He feels good, apparently.

Is he recovering smoothly? He’s doing okay?

Yeah, his ass got bitten. It’s kind of gross, but it got infected. He’s dealing with some shit, but he’s doing good. A bunch of people have been helping me and supporting me for that moment. You know, donations and stuff like that. I’m really grateful for that. But he’s doing fine.

That’s a relief. For anyone who doesn’t know, Muffin is the cat from the “Give It to Me” music video.

Yeah, he was like 1 year old when I put him in that video. He didn’t love it. [laughter]

Well, he did a great job.

He was a professional.

Considering we’re doing these interviews to try and help you guys get a little more exposure over in Europe, have you ever actually been to Europe before?

Nope. No, no, no, I’ve only been to Canada just because of the tour we did, for like, one day. That’s it. I only know the US and Argentina. I would love to go to Europe. Looks fun!

Is there anywhere here that you’d been particularly excited to come see?

I would like to go to France, for sure. Some of the museums and all that. And Italy maybe, because I’m half-Italian. I want to see where my dad grew up. Or where he was born, actually. And, probably Germany. I’m sure they have great beer over there.

Naturally! I hear Belgium is also the place to go if you want… Germany is the place for traditional beer and Belgium is the place for weird* beer.

I’m a more traditional guy. [laughter] But I’m down to try everything.

Well, to wrap things up, I’ve been asking everyone, if you could pass on some message to make the world a better place, to just make things a little bit better for everyone, what would that be?

I don’t know if I am qualified to answer that question, [laughs] but I don’t know, just people should we more honest, you know? I think that would solve a lot of problems. That’s how I like to lead my life and it seems to be working so far.

Well, I’m about out of time now, so thank you so much for doing this. It’s awesome to get to talk to you guys one-on-one and best of luck getting over here!

Thank you very much, thanks for having me. It was a great interview.

*ed: I’m a little sorry about how I worded this in the moment, as I was trying to refer to how Germany has a stricter recipe for drinks that they’re allowed to label as “beer,” while Belgian rules are far more lax, thus allowing for more experimentation with flavors, etc. Alas… maybe next time we can chat about beers a bit more.