Franc Moody: “We don’t wait hours for the perfect take; we catch a vibe and move on”Performing at Glastonbury is a career highlight for any artist, whether it’s headlining the Pyramid stage or holding it down with an ambient set at Strummerville. But for Franc Moody, their 2023 appearance at Glastonbury didn’t go exactly as planned.
While Elton John was making history over at the Pyramid, Ned Franc and Jon Moody were playing on the Silver Hayes stage, having an epiphany about the direction of their project.

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“The show got to a point where it was stagnating. We’d come to the end of a cycle,” says Ned Franc. The duo felt fatigued from playing the same song in the same way. Something had to change — and fast. Franc and Moody sat down, chewed the fat, and mapped out where they were going next.
“We knew we wanted to do something different, and so, by a process of conversing and going through various iterations of what finally became the album, it felt quite apt. Chewing The Fat,” Moody says of their new album title, set for release on 7 March. After those conversations, they decided their new direction would take them even deeper into the synthesizer world.
In their early years, before Franc Moody came together in 2016, the two multi-instrumentalists had started “many, many” bands. Their goal was to capture the sound of the 50s and 60s “Americana swamp pop soul,” as they describe it, but of all the people they worked with throughout that time, they were the only two who were equally committed to their vision.
Image: Press
They opted to go their own way as partners, but their studio couldn’t fit a drum set, so they started working with drum machines and began collecting synths, starting with Moody’s Juno 60. This genesis established the foundation for their electronic-meets-instrumental sound. Heavy on the tech, but fueled by styles with deep, live grooves.
“We spent so long desperately trying to make a record that sounded like it was cut in 1952,” says Jon, “but I bought my first synthesizer, a Juno 60, and that led [us down] a slightly more interesting path.”
“That mix of a kick that’s quantised, or an arp that’s quantised with Jon and my natural feel and phrasing behind it,” Franc adds of their sound.
The metronomic foundation is so essential to their music, that when they’ve tried to bring in their touring drummer Dan Hale to record, his natural feel creates a separate energy from Franc Moody. They know some producers who bring in drummers and then quantise the recordings, but they’d rather build from a less manipulated rhythm section.
“I’m an analogue purist at heart, but [software emulation] is definitely getting better” – Jon Moody
“We layer up natural percussion fills and hi-hats so it doesn’t sound like a techno record. Obviously, it sounds far from it,” Moody says. Then when they record bass, guitar, keys, and other live instruments, that dichotomy creates a level of human error they hear in their original influences.
“We don’t sit there for hours getting the perfect take. We catch a vibe and then move on,” continues Moody. “These rhythm and blues tunes and swamp pop tunes become this subconscious layer. Whatever we do now with different tools, those bits of music that have seeped into your subconscious always find a way out in melody or in the way you arrange a song or the groove. The fundamental songwriting of those references is just so bulletproof.”
With those fundamentals inseparable from Franc Moody, the biggest change on Chewing The Fat came one layer up. They used tech they had never touched before making the album, most of which was in the new London studio they rent from Damon Albarn, the legendary frontman of Blur and Gorillaz.
“It’s insane. [The equipment] is all in weird languages or one-of-one collections of really obscure things,” Moody says of Albarn’s gear arsenal, remarking that when they hit the presets on the machines they would often stumble upon sounds from one of Albarn’s many hits over the last 30 years. “They’re iconic sounds that he’s got in this closet of joy.”
Image: Press
Said closet includes classic analog gear such as the ARP 2600, the Roland SH-101, and the Hohner String Performer. There are also historic organs and keyboards including the Orla Tiffany 4 organ, a Clavinet D6, and a “really early” Hammond C3 organ. The Hammond was key to producing the bass line on Pressure Makes Diamonds.
“It’s got buttons on the side like an accordion to play a bass line,” says Moody. “We realised if you rag it through enough compression it turns into the heaviest bassline.”
Of the synths in different languages, one they knew was the Soviet PIF (which was designed as a children’s toy). Some of the other Russian instruments they can’t name because there is no English on them, but after fiddling with one, they discerned it was a string machine.
“The Russians do amazing string machines. They have amazing high-end and are really good for lead lines,” Moody says.
One of these lead lines takes centre stage on the album’s closing track: The Light You Bring. The buoyant, glittery melody that launches the song comes from the Russian string machine, which took a bit of getting used to.
Image: Press
“It’s so weird. You turn it on, and the tuning goes mental. There’s a sweet spot; you have to quickly record when it’s settled,” Moody says.
“It has a 12-pin power chord. It’s mental,” Franc adds.
“It’s the most beautiful-sounding synth. It’s polyphonic with four oscillators, really warm and rich,” Moody continues.
However, because they couldn’t read the labels, they had to balance their longstanding knowledge of tech with their intuition (a process they liken to their foundational combination of instrumental and synthetic styles).
“You just have to learn it, which is quite cool. This one has a woodwind patch, an organ patch, and a string patch, but they’re all similar. There’s a resonance dial, a cutoff, and a tuner. It’s quite simple. It’s not like looking at the face of an Arturia MatrixBrute when there are three million knobs,” Moody says. But as quickly as they were able to adjust, the language barrier still created a deeper sense of experimentation. “It makes you use your ears. It makes you really tune in.”
For Chewing The Fat, Franc Moody had a second closet of joy to explore: 64Sound in Los Angeles. One of LA’s most classic studios, the website lists not only the clients who have recorded there (St. Vincent, Maroon 5, Vampire Weekend) but also guest producers and engineers including Danger Mouse, John Congleton, and Rob Schnapf.

“We found [this studio] years ago and it looked like we wanted our music to sound,” Moody says. As much as they loved the look, they also loved the hundreds of instruments, microphones, synths, and other gear the studio made available to them. Their favourite piece was the coveted Yamaha CS-60 analogue synth, which was a core piece of the single, Driving On The Wrong Side Of The Road.
“We went into those [sessions] being like ‘Let’s turn everything on and fuck about with it’,” Moody continues.
Unfortunately, as much as they revelled in playing around with uber-rare vintage synths to make Chewing The Fat, as they prepare for their upcoming tour, there is no way they can bring the Yamaha CS-60, the Hammond C3, or that obscure Russian string machine with them on flight after flight.
Instead, they’re now in “intensive” live rehearsals with a completely different live setup. They’ve changed the size of the band from six members to four, and they are also, much to their dismay, trading out analogue gear for digital hardware and software.
Moody swapped his beloved Juno 60 with a new Juno X and, while he has a deep love for analogue, he appreciates the 60 and 106 emulations within the X. Plus, the MIDI capabilities of the X will allow him to sample some of those relic synths to play during the show (“I’ll be sampling the synths and playing them straight there. I don’t even have to get another keyboard, which is fantastic.”)
“The Russians do amazing string machines. They got amazing high-end” – Jon Moody
“I’m an analogue purist at heart. I’m happiest when I’m sat on my C3 Hammond with the 147 and playing my Clavinet D6. But you just can’t fly it everywhere,” Moody says. “But [emulation] is getting better, and as long as I’ve got enough analogue juice on stage somewhere — I tour my SH-101, which is just amazingly horrible in analogue, in a good way. Filthy. [And the] Arp 2600; There’s enough analogue grit going on amongst the emulation stuff.”
Relying more on digital gear for the live show channels the same spirit of experimentation as diving into their various analogue treasure troves when they were making the album. Their intention was to take Franc Moody in a new direction, and now that they have done that to satisfying results, they have a template of where to go for the next few albums.
“This thing that we’ve stumbled on has loads of room to explore in itself. This first record being done this way is really exciting, but it’s got way more legs in it,” says Franc.
Change is rarely easy and it’s often intimidating. But, for Franc Moody, forcing themselves to evaluate their music and how they create it opened up myriad opportunities. Now, with new gear, new outlooks and a keen eye on the influences that shape them, they’re ready to wow crowds at any stage they play on. And, if they need to, they know how to evolve themselves again — it just takes some chewing of the fat.
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