Kam Franklin can’t be sure you’ll see her in a different light once you hear her debut solo album, Land of the Neon Sun. But a half-hour chat with the powerful front woman for the iconic Houston band The Suffers suggests the album has clearly changed the way she views herself as an artist and a person.
“I’m looking at all of this just as an opportunity to re-emerge in my own way. I turn 40 next year and the fact that I’m just now releasing this record that I’ve been talking about wanting to release for at least the last 10 years, it feels kind of overwhelming to be in a reality where it’s no longer just a dream to me,” Franklin said. “It’s tangible and I’m here doing interviews and I’m about to get ready to go take the songs on the road.”
Those songs – 12 in all – will be released to listeners Friday, August 28. Cactus Records will host a release celebration for the album that evening, with Franklin and her full band performing selections from the record, which was co-executive produced by Margo Price, with additional production by Bhi Bhiman. Years in the making, it was funded by more than 200 Kickstarter supporters and will be available on CD and vinyl at the release party.
Any album release day is special for an artist, someone who has put in the work and is excited to know how that art might impact others. As a member of one of the city’s most acclaimed acts of recent years, Franklin’s not a stranger to that feeling. But, she admits, it’s a bit different this time around.
“I think ‘humble’ is a word that I really, really try to keep as a part of my daily life. You know, I’m independent, but also I live in reality and I know how hard it is to get a record like this out,” she said. “I know that I’ve only been able to achieve all of this because of years of hard work and support, right? To now be able to talk about it all, it feels very surreal.”
Franklin is humble, but also proud of the work. With release day only hours away, she’s eager to discuss a few of the songs on the record.
“I’d love to just start with the title track, which is ‘Land of the Neon Sun.’ That was one of the earliest co-writes to appear on the record. It was written by Margo Price and her partner, Jeremy Ivey, and it basically kind of set me on this journey of what that title meant to me. And to me, ‘Land of the Neon Sun’ is all the things we think we have to do to get to the top. In actuality, it’s about hard work, a little bit of luck, a whole lot of money – other people’s money if you could do it,” she said with a laugh. “And, you know, trying and trying and trying, over and over again.
“I have done a lot of stuff on my way to this point in my career and I’m now looking at it with a fresh set of eyes and realizing that it’s all so much bigger than me. It’s more so about the support system I have around me and the overall love I have for myself and respect I have for myself. That particular song was also the type of sound that I initially thought I wanted for the entire record. I thought I was going to make this complete, classic country record and spent many years just polishing what country meant and sounded like to me. But as I continued to just lean into the authenticity of the record, I had to own up to the fact that I’m making an Americana record. And when I think of Americana, I really don’t think of genre at all. I think of the roots.
“I think of the sound of music as a whole and music as a foundation and real instruments and just full, boom blasting rock and roll and gospel and folk and everything in between and without limitation. And so, with that as my driver, I started the car,” she said. “And on the way to where I was going, COVID-19 happened and I was forced to get really fucking real about whether or not I wanted to do this, whether or not I wanted to be a touring musician at all, you know, just what type of life I really wanted to live. And I realized like, oh shit, I got a lot more living that I want to do and I need to do it a little differently than how I’ve been doing it.
“I had spent a very hard 10 years touring around the world with The Suffers and they were the first people I told that I wanted to do this, and they were like, ‘Sick, awesome, how do you want to do it, when you want to do it,’ you know? They’re like the biggest group of supporters and I love them but also, we all know and have studied this industry at this point enough to know that me going out and doing my thing on my own will only lead people back to our music and our catalog. Also, my other bandmates have been making albums galore in the meantime. So, I’m kind of slow-poking my way to the finish line, but I’m getting there, right?”
Part of Franklin’s “slow-poking” had to do with perfecting the songs. Some were harder to bring to life than others. She said half the record was recorded in Nashville and half in Houston, in sessions that stretched over two years. “A Heathen’s Hymn,” is one of the last songs recorded but the first of the batch she’d worked on, going back almost seven years. She kept working on the song, feeling it “was never brave enough” until now. The result is a soulful litany of questions about whether putting trauma “on the record” will help one heal. She answers those questions with a commanding, life-changing edict – “If trauma were a person, I would beat they ass.”
“It’s the heaviest song I’ve ever released, but it’s also, I would think, one of the most lyrically authentic and honest songs I’ve ever written and ever hoped to write. It just released something in me. It started conversations that I had not been able to have with a few people in my life. It just healed a little bit of a hole that was caused by someone else’s disrespect of me and my body and my existence, and it’s been very rewarding to be able to take my power back,” Franklin said. “A song that I was told was too much for public consumption, it’s now looking like it’s going to be one of the most publicly consumed songs I’ve ever created. But, to add onto that, it’s also 100 percent mine.
“With this record, I’ve gotten an insane amount of help from people that do believe in me. My friend Tobe Mokolo, who is an amazing local director here and storyteller, helped me do the music video for ‘A Heathens Hymn,’ and my friends at Dirt Bar helped make it possible by lending their bar, which I think is just such a perfect venue for the story that we’re trying to tell with that particular song.
“With ‘A Heathen’s Hymn,’ this was the first time I wrote a beat by myself. This is the first time I wrote a song as an adult, that I didn’t ask for the opinion of anybody else. I just had a real opportunity to feel what steering the ship felt like for myself,” Franklin said, noting that with The Suffers, “It’s always been some form of democracy in the band and it’s a beautiful part of what makes us sound the way we sound and exist how we exist.
“But for this project, I wanted something else. I wanted a project where I didn’t have to listen to the opinion of not just any other man, but anybody. And by the time I decided to link up with Margo Price to help me co-produce it, it wasn’t necessarily about having Margo treat me like a doll or baby me. It was more so about having someone that spoke my language that could push me if I needed to be pushed a little bit more.
“I also had never been in a studio situation for an entire album where I got to work with another woman the entire time from front to back on something that was my own. So, it was just very different and lovely and Margo is such a great multi-instrumentalist and producer, she just made it all really easy and made it so welcoming for me and helped me think about the type of producer that I wanted to be going forward, and songwriter as well.”
“The other song that took the longest time on the record to bring to life was ‘We Ain’t Going,’ which is the only other song co-produced by anyone else on the record, which is Bhi Bhiman, who, again -incredible artist based in California who I met on The Suffers’ very first tour out on the east coast and we just kept in touch.”
Good thing. “We Ain’t Going” is a funky jam that adopts a 1970s Marvin Gaye vibe, with Franklin singing in high registers and giving listeners something to feel from head to toe. It’ll move feet to the dance floor but make listeners think about how we might combat the hate and injustice we’re subjected to today, 55 years removed from “What’s Going On.”
“I wanted to make something that felt like an anthem,” Franklin said of the song. “I didn’t want to shame you. I didn’t want to make you feel bad. I wanted to give you a solution. I wanted you to be aware of what’s about to happen if you want to go protest, you want to go do something – great, it’s necessary. But, you know, be aware that there’s no if-ands about this. Every right we have is because we fought for it.”
Franklin is aware that the songs we’re discussing tackle heady material. Because she’s not trying to be the next Beyonce or Garth Brooks, she’s fine with that.
“I mean, sometimes songs scare people. I would send previews out and, you know, some of the folks that love me dearly would be like, ‘Kam, this is a lot. This is a lot, you know? For the first record? This might be on the radio,’ and I’m like, maybe it should be on the radio. Maybe it should be talked about. We’re all dealing with this shit.
“And as many songs as there are out there about shaking ass and getting money and just how deeply in love or how fucked up we all are, there’s not as many songs talking about everyday issues that are affecting us all, whether it’s public violence or seeing our brothers and sisters get scooped up by masked people or the collective assumption that these people that are in positions of elected power are the end all-be all, as if the people aren’t still in charge.
“I’m not telling people what to do. I already went through my shut up and sing era. I’m not really trying to argue with people like that. But I am in the business of putting the message into the music, letting people that want to hear what I’m saying hear what I’m saying. And staying true to that and myself. That’s how I’m living right now.”
Going solo doesn’t mean going it alone, in Franklin’s estimation. She’s grateful for everyone who stood by her while the album was created, from The Suffers to her solo band to the supporters who funded the album and more, too many people to count. But, she also feels a sense of ownership in this music that has her pushing hard.
“I do a lot. I do a lot of work. However, even I’m not delusional. I made a joke earlier saying that my usual laptop curfew, which would be around like 10 or 11, doesn’t exist until after this album comes out. I’m doing just a different type of work right now. But after the 28th, I also have to go back to acknowledging that I’m still a human being and there’s also only one of me and I’m independent. And people will find the record.
“I can’t go crazy or kill myself chasing a dream that I love, so I’m doing it my way and I’ve tried the other ways and I don’t want to. I’m doing it this way and it involves me acting like a real person. It involves me, you know, not necessarily being happy go lucky – I don’t work for fucking Disney. I’m a real person and I don’t look at anything that I do as impossible. Like, yes, I have a talent and I work hard, but also, I think people forget what they’re capable of when they really focus on something, when they decide to actually put their all into rehearsal.
“Does that mean you’re going to be the next Garth Brooks or Beyonce? Who knows? Probably not. Because there’s only one of them, and there’s only one of you. So, with that in mind, I’m like, man, how can I be the best version of myself in this lifetime that I can be and be proud of what I’m putting out with what I have.”
Kam Franklin’s debut solo album, Land of the Neon Sun, releases everywhere Friday, August 28. Franklin and her band will perform songs from the record at a release day celebration, 5:30 p.m. at Cactus Records, 2110 Portsmouth. This is a wristband event. Space is limited. Priority attendance with purchase of Land of the Neon Sun. Additional attendance available as space allows.
