radionotes podcast episodes

040 Jaymee Franchina

by | Oct 6, 2019 | episodes | 0 comments

040 Jaymee Franchina

Perth DJ and Producer Jaymee Franchina is know for doing mash-ups and their audio-visual shows, though as they shared with radionotes another passion of theirs has four wheels. Previous releases – mash-up style – have included blending Taylor Swift with Hottest 100 countdown tracks as well as B.I.G. with Flume. In 2020, they’ll be releasing their own all original debut album with the first taste a Single – Next To Mine – that features Chicago’s Alina Renae.

Franchina called in from Perth Australia, during a break from their teaching duties…

To listen, click the green ‘play’ triangle… [note: may take few seconds to load] 

(Transcript of Jaymee Franchina chat below, check to delivery in audio)

IMAGE CREDIT: Supplied – wearing ALREIS Clothing a label based out of Perth, Australia

Note there are some issues with sound quality of the line for the chat, apologies and thanks for enduring with it.

SHOW NOTES: Jaymee Franchina episode

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In The Box:

Feature Guest: Jaymee Franchina

Music Mentions:

Next Episode: ORCHA

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More details on playpodcast here, thanks to Matt from them.

[Radio Production – notes: Jaymee Franchina is the feature guest and the Single the best tune to play with it]

CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

You can make direct contact with the podcast – on the Contact Page

TRANSCRIPT

For direct quotes check to audio, first version of transcript by Pounamu R at REV

NOTE: Transcript only allows for so many ‘characters’ in name section – Jaymee’s full name in Franchina

John Murch: Jaymee, welcome to radionotes.

Jaymee Franchin: Thank you very much.

John Murch: Let’s start with Taylor Swift. Are you a fan in the ironic sense or in the genuine sense?

Jaymee Franchin: To be honest, it’s a bit of both. It’s crazy. I never really was a big fan of Taylor Swift and then what happened was my brother got free tickets, he won a competition through The Hit radio station, and he’s like, “I don’t want to go. Do you want to go?” And I’m like, “Yeah, give me the tickets. I’ll go.” Went and watched her live show and I was like, “Damn, this girl is an awesome performer.” And I was legit blown away by it. And then, I was just like, “You know what, she’s actually got not bad tunes.” That’s how I do enjoy a bit of T Swift, and yeah, I don’t deny it.

John Murch: You did a mash-up of Taylor Swift and the Hottest 100, I’ll put that in the show notes for people who haven’t already checked that out. A bit more about you though. Are you a junior black belt?

Jaymee Franchin: No.

John Murch: A photo wearing a sort of Judo, or a Karate outfit with a black belt on. Now I was intrigued.

Jaymee Franchin: Oh my gosh. Is that with my father?

John Murch: Yes it is.

Jaymee Franchin: Wow. Where’d you guys get that?

John Murch: It’s called research. Have you ever done a bit of Judo or Karate in your time?

Jaymee Franchin: Yeah, I did it for about 12 years. When I was really young, my father was an instructor and I used to go to the class. I used to just stand on the side and just try and copy everything my father did. I just got older and I was more in love with playing soccer, so I stopped doing Karate and then I just went into soccer and stuff like that.

John Murch: And it’s such a lovely image as well. If you don’t mind me asking, do you do a lot with your father? I’m wondering in terms of the ’78 Cobra that you’ve been working on, what, for eight years?

Jaymee Franchin: Yeah, Dad’s one of my best friends. If Myspace was still around, he’d be number one. My dad and I, when we grew up, we were close and then my parents divorced, and then I didn’t talk to my father for three years, and then we started talking again after three years, and then we just have a massive passion for cars together. We started getting to realistically really know each other as adults because I didn’t talk to him from the age of 13 to 16, and then it was kind of that important time in a teenager’s life where I didn’t have my father. Then I started to get to know him more as an adult when I started talking to him again when I was 16.

Jaymee Franchin: Dad and I absolutely love cars. Over the past 12 years between us, we’ve had about 25 to 30 cars that we’ve built and we’ve enjoyed. We’ve sold, we bought, we just absolutely loved it. At the moment, we’re currently building two separate Cobras, a 1978 TE Cortina Cobra, and a 1978 XC Cobra. So it’s like a father, son project.

John Murch: You’ve also worked on a ’71 XY GT. I don’t know much about cars, but all these seem to be back from the ’70s

Jaymee Franchin: Seventies was the best in cars. Love them, massive car enthusiast. So much so that, yeah, Dad and I have had the same cars and was doing them side by side, taking them to shows, and we just absolutely loved it. It’s a big passion, so I’ve learnt how to build engines off my father and I’ve just been able to incorporate that in a lot of my, I guess, social media presence, so a lot of my Instagram followers are people that follow car stuff.

John Murch: What else do you get from the tactile fixing up of cars?

Jaymee Franchin: I get everything out of it. It’s just so good, so fun. One day I love my dad and the other days I hate him, because something’s gone wrong, but it’s just the relationship you have with your parents. We have good banter between us, literally like it brings our relationship together, but everyone’s like, “If you didn’t have cars, would you guys even get along?” And I’m like, “Yeah, of course we would. But it’s just that cars amplify the relationship between the both of us.”

John Murch: Jeremy Smith, are you still working with him, because you guys have had over 5 million listens.

Jaymee Franchin: Jeremy is one of my real close friends. We have known each other since the young days of all the body boarding crews here at Western Australia. We still maintain a close relationship. He now runs a DJ school called Lab Six and it’s actually teaching all young people in Perth, how to DJ, how to produce and absolutely doing a fantastic job over here. What we went through together was absolutely awesome.

John Murch: Terms of the mashups, the mixes, the DJing work that’s been happening between you two. What was that projection like?

Jaymee Franchin: I went to him and I said, “Hey mate, I got an idea, when Flume releases his album,” I was like, “I want to put Notorious B.I.G. on Flume. What do you think?” He goes, “Oh yeah, that sounds cool.” I go, “I know nothing about producing. I know a little bit. I’ll try draft some tracks up and then let’s do it together.” We ended up smashing it out in four weeks and then we posted it up as a thing that we didn’t expect to go the way it did.

Jaymee Franchin: Posted it up, got some massive, awesome reviews on places that I didn’t even know existed but with big music networks and then our biggest and most accomplished thing that happened for that was three days later, on Valentine’s day in 2013, I’ll never forget the day, Flume posted it up and it just went wild. We got over 200,000 or 300,000 streams that one day. All these people downloaded it, it was absolutely phenomenal. I’m still riding that wave because I’ve just went to a thing called Your Shot when I was speaking to people and when I introduce myself and they’re like, “Oh, you did the Biggie/Flume mash up.” I was like, “Yeah.” So it’s kind of cool that I still get recognized for that. It’s one of the first projects I ever did, which got me into producing.

John Murch: Somewhere along that line between then and now, the Drake on The Weeknd, there was a mashup mix that happened there that came across my desk.

Jaymee Franchin: I did that. I think I’ve done really literal kind of mashups across the years.

John Murch: The new album is on its way. We call it the debut official release because this is completely your work.

Jaymee Franchin: Completely my work. Now, on that, I have obviously worked with a lot of people because there’s a lot of things on these days, especially like current producers and that. But I don’t know how to do 110 percent. So I’m always calling people into the studio. I’m always going to them like, “Hey man can you help me with this or can you help me with that?” Like yeah, it is a debut album by me but I’ve had help and I don’t deny it and even on one of the tracks I reference how I’ve had help.

John Murch: On this debut that we speak of, you have actually featured 13 artists. It’s marked to be released in the later part of 2019.

Jaymee Franchin: I have worked with the 13 artists across the world. They start off with one of my first tracks. It’s called Three, Two, One, Zero by [Mary Ami 00:00:06:56]. She’s actually Italian. On my second track called, Don’t Thunk Twice it’s a bit of a drum and bass track, but her name is Bailey Jehl and she got a shout out by Halsey, and she’s had millions of streams online and then it just keeps going on all these different artists. I’ve got a girl called Ashes, I’ve got a rap artist called Skam Artist. I’ve got on one of my tracks, I’ve featured two German vocalists, which are absolutely amazing. They did Germany’s Got Talent and they made it through to the top 10. They’re called Joseph Feinstein and Darley and it’s the only track on the album that it’s purely piano with a little bit of drum hitting base on it and it’s like none of the other tracks. So I’ve got all these different ones, but the only Australian artists I’ve collaborated with, her name’s Veronica Bravo and she has been one of my friends growing up throughout my life.

John Murch: I’m wondering how you choose which vocals you want for your cuts.

Jaymee Franchin: I do research, so basically I’ve had a massive secret weapon. It’s a website called SoundBetter. It’s basically like the E-bay for music producers. You can go in, you can find what you want, the artist you want, an artist that’s rated, that’s valued and an artist that has, they’re promoting work on the actual website, send them a proposal. Be like, “Hey, I’ve got this track. Can you come and sing on this one for me?” I met these artists all through there.

John Murch: The first single from it will be called Next To Mine, which has just dropped, Alina Renae.

Jaymee Franchin: She comes from Chicago. She’s worked with Armand Van Helden and she’s worked with Tiesto. She features on some of their tracks, a track each. She’s fantastic. A lot of my stream through Spotify has been through the U.S. and I believe I owe her, that part definitely to her.

John Murch: Speaking about collaborations, what’s your partnership with clothing brand Alreis?

Jaymee Franchin: A clothing brand that I have been with since 2014. They are a fantastic brand name Alreis comes from ‘all races’ and just to promote all that love between no matter who you are and what you do, the fashion can bring you first. They’ve supported me all these years and that’s why I haven’t gone a day where I don’t wear their gear. It’s run by a guy called Eddie and he is absolutely legend.

John Murch: I want to ask regarding the audio visual DJ sets. That’s what I think you’ve been doing of late. What do they involve and how are they different from an ordinary DJ set?

Jaymee Franchin: If anyone’s ever seen Hot Dub Time Machine, cause that’s one of the biggest names in audio visual partying in Australia. I basically am that kind of person but I do my own background screen on it and I’ve been doing that ever since 2014 as well. It’s basically we can move it. In my case it’s mashup and having a visual aspect to the set. I’m able to play on a massive screen behind me in front of the audience. One of my best little visual edits is actually I’ve done Harry Potter one with the Sorting hat, if anyone’s watched Harry Potter when they do the sorting hat and when the sorting hat’s talking I’ve actually done that to backseat freestyle by Kendrick Lamar and just that video alone took three weeks.

John Murch: What genre you believe is best to mash?

Jaymee Franchin: Best thing about mashes, is you can take two totally different abstract artists that are on the other spectrum of genres and you can mash them together and that’s the beauty of mashups. My go to is party stuff in the fact of lyrics that people know mashing it with a totally different riff or a different beat. And I love doing that.

John Murch: There appears Only Way, I’m just saying are from 2016. Are they going to make it on this album in any form?

Jaymee Franchin: Nope. Nope. They are not. They’re just old tracks that I just released at the time. I loved them at the time, but then I was like, you know what Jaymee, go back in your bedroom, work, learn more and then come out with something much better. I mean, those ones I have, I learnt from, it was an artist cause I was like, aw man, some of my old stuff, I’m not really liking it compared to my new stuff. And I saw the future me and it was like, make sure you never delete that stuff. Make sure it’s always there because you know where you’ve come from and how far you’ve progressed. And not only that, but showing your… the people that listened to your music, they kind of said gone on through that music journey.

John Murch: September 2017 you stated the track that’s the current single was from an up and coming EP. Now it’s going to be part of an LP. What changed and the thought process for that change?

Jaymee Franchin: I just was like, you know what, I’m just going to lock myself in a room and I’m just going to make tracks and see how that goes. Well halfway through I was like, I’m just going to go full bore on this and create an album because, at least that way I’ve got all these tracks that I can choose from to choose my defined singles and post those out. So I ended up doing that and then I was listening to it and then other friends were listening to it, cause I’m always showing stuff to my mates and they’re like, “Man, this could be an album.” And I was like, “Why do you think that?” And they’re like, “This is just a massive Jaymee sound,” But it’s all differentiating in all the tracks and none of my tracks sound alike. I know some artists you play and you’re like, “Oh, this sounds like this or this is an easier version of that.” But all my tracks are different.

Jaymee Franchin: So I’ve got like a drum and bass song. I’ve got a Drum N Bass song. I’ve got a house song. I’ve got all different styles. I’ve got Hip-Hop tracks, all the different styles and heaps of people are saying you should do this as an album, should release it.

John Murch: Jamie, you’re currently a teacher. What are you currently teaching and what is it bringing you?

Jaymee Franchin: Doing relief teaching at the moment, because of my situation with my music. I also run my own business. I’m currently also building an app. I’m doing relief teaching at the moment. So whenever I get asked to go into a particular school, I just go in and I do the relief teaching.

John Murch: And are you getting inspired by the future generations and what kind of music they could be enjoying?

Jaymee Franchin: 110,000% But I must say some of this new music that comes out from some artists, I’m like, yeah, I’m doing the thing where I’m educating them. They’re like, “Listen to this artist, you should listen to that artist and then that kind of opens up their eyes so, “Oh wow, this is what music was,” and then that’s when I realized, damn, I think I’m starting to get a little bit older in this industry but it’s great because being a teacher I can what the young kids are liking and then I can take my inspiration there and I can bring that to my new DJ sets and everything.

John Murch: Has learning how to produce music given you your voice that you may not have had when you were younger?

Jaymee Franchin: 110%. 110%. Especially with some of the lyrical content that I’ve gotten. This has some real subtle messages that I’ve put in. I’ve embedded it to the music. I’ve then spoke to the artist that I featured and I’m like, “I want this in this track,” and they’ve been able to incorporate it in such a beautiful way, which is awesome.

John Murch: When do you do your songwriting best?

Jaymee Franchin: That’s a great question. Honestly, when I’m either driving home in the car on the way home from my DJ gigs at 5:00 A.M. because sometimes you’re out all night. I’m sure all DJs will understand if they’re out all night deejaying for let’s say six hours and I’ve got the music blasting.

Jaymee Franchin: When you go to your car, you really don’t want to put that music up loud. Sometimes you drive home and you don’t listen to anything and then that’s when a kind of inspiration hits me. But in doing so I’m working with and artist and they’ve written a track for me. I’ll listen to their top lines over and over and I’ll be like okay, I want to incorporate this lyrical verse in it or this lyrical sentence and sometimes I pull over on the side of the road and I write that down. Sometimes I just wake up in the morning and I was just like go on my notes and I started writing stuff. Never been a big vocalist and I’m not really good at lyrical writing, but I believe I’m impassioned enough to write my own way and get that incorporated into my track.

John Murch: Taking you back to earlier in that night or earlier in that morning as I’m sure the case often is, what are you seeing when you’re DJing, looking out at the audience, at the crowd?

Jaymee Franchin: I’m seeing a lot of energy. I start at nine o’clock and I bounce from one place to another. One place is hip-hop and R and B and then the other place you party and when I’m playing out early in the morning and seeing all this energy, I thrive off it. I absolutely strive with, even when I’m having a night where I’m tired and I see the crowd loving it and someone’s like, “Man, look at what you’re doing.” I’m like, “Yeah, true,” and it gives me that buzz. If I don’t get that buzz, what am I doing the job for? I love everything I do and I’ll put 110% in and that energy is the thing that keeps me going all the way to 5:00 A.M.

John Murch: Endorphins and Red Bull. Hey,

Jaymee Franchin: Used to drink 12 Red Bulls a week at least. And I’ve got Type One diabetes. It’s so bad for me. But this year I have been drinking coffee and I hate coffee. I’ve been drinking coffee, don’t for the taste. Just for the rough.

John Murch: Can I ask you about Taylor Swift? Have you had a chance to get into the new music? Are you still with her?

Jaymee Franchin: One of the girls I follow on social media, she was saying how awesome her new album is and how it relates to her and her life. And I started listening to Taylor’s stuff, which, to me feels like her old stuff. I don’t like it in comparison to her old stuff. Her old stuff was better.

John Murch: Do you reckon you could do something good with the re-recording of 1989 and the other albums that she’s rerecording?

Jaymee Franchin: As in mashup-wise?

John Murch: Mashup or even maybe something a little bit more subtle, maybe some sort of remix or lyrical Co lab?

Jaymee Franchin: What I try to do in my projects, that’s really try not to jump on something I’ve done before. The only thing I’ve ever done that I’ve jumped on is Flume’s second album, Skin, cause everyone was like, “Man, you should do another mashup album with Flume’s new stuff.” And I always had that in back of my head when Jeremy and I did the B.I.G. Flume album, I always said that when another album was released, I’d jump and put another artist on it and I was like, you know what? I’m just going to do Biggie’s opposite.

Jaymee Franchin: In the original B.I.G. Flume Album, I actually did Tupac track. We’re going to do it as Biggie and Tupac, but we ended up just seeing Biggie, but in one of the tracks on the first B.I.G. Flume album, it had Tupac in it and that was the Deadly Combination track. It was always meant to be that I did Tupac in my other one, which, on that I incorporated one of the songs I originally did for the first one. That was the only one I’ll I ever jump back on. I really try not to jump back on old stuff that I’ve already done.

John Murch: What’s the connection with the likes of B.I.G. as well as Tupac? They seem to be more from coming from an American type culture and of course Drake, closely related to that. Is there a connection between your own experience in WA and that of theirs?

Jaymee Franchin: Not really. My cousins, growing up, got me into Biggie and Tupac, me so being more of a Biggie fan. I just loved the music. The rapping was just, in comparison to these days. They just told stories and you were able just to picture in your head of the way life was for them and back then I used to listen to them on a tape deck, Walkman, Sony. I remember I had the cringe Walkman and I used to listen to it. Especially like going into ’99 and listening to Eminem, Marshall Mathers LP and all that stuff.

Jaymee Franchin: All that generation. I just loved it and I’d love to be covered with them again actually.

John Murch: What has life experience brought you over those extra years in the DJ music scene and now the producing of your own debut original album?

Jaymee Franchin: Sometimes I’m like, you know what? I’m getting a little bit older cause it’s always like, “Oh this young person’s really into this album and this young person’s really into that.” I’m not so young anymore. And then I’ve watched an interview with Diplo and he actually started his whole music career when he was 27. What he spoke about was he lived a life of DJing and everything and because he started at 27, a bit of a later age he’s able be able to extend his career.

Jaymee Franchin: He’s now 40, I believe he was born in ’79 and he’s been able to extend his career to 40 so being a bit of a mature person and being able to see life the way it is and to be able to go through life instead of starting being, I guess, famous at the age of 18 you haven’t really been able to experience, you know, life, life issues, life struggles or what a normal life is being about, so I’ll always take my experiences of these past nine years. If anything does end up eventuating, then yeah being a mature person is not bad. In doing that, I’m just going to take everything as it comes.

John Murch: Do you get a sense that people are still listening to music and I hope they are in the same way that you would have back in the 90s?

Jaymee Franchin: I’d hope that people are going out and buying records and everything that, which, I know places over here and between all my friends and I, if we ever go into stores, record themselves by artists, I believe it’s coming back and it’s fantastic to do so because just to have that hard copy of an artist you like and appreciate, it’s fantastic. I believe we have, it’s been a rice bowl, let’s say the past years where it hasn’t really been a big thing to go out and go to a CD or anything, but it’s now coming back. I think it’s cool. It’s cool to have a record collection and it’s fantastic. So in comparison to when in the 90s all I think about is, man, how many artists were out there that didn’t get a glance.

John Murch: We started the conversation by speaking about your father. What are you doing for father’s day in 2019?

Jaymee Franchin: We’ll do the same thing we’ve been doing for the past six years. Myself, my younger brother and my father, we take three of our muscle cars out, we all drive them.

Jaymee Franchin: I pay for Petrol, brother pays for lunch and we just go cruising along the coast. Western Australia’s absolutely beautiful to go cruising along and we’ve been blessed that it’s been a fantastic weather for Father’s Day over the past five years and we’ll continued that tradition until we all die.

John Murch: Do you have a feeling you could be a father yourself one day?

Jaymee Franchin: Of course, hundred percent. I’d love to have a family. I’m looking forward to it. Don’t need to get married tomorrow, but I am looking forward to being a father and being a really good father. It doesn’t need to happen tomorrow, but yes, I’m definitely going to be a father and I’m going to have a beautiful wife. Can’t wait.

John Murch: You’ve got your own baby on the way, which is this debut original album. I’m really excited because it’s an original work and I know you’re collaborating with other people. That’s fantastic as well, but a chance for you to actually put some of your lyrical and songwriting content in there as well. Jaymee, best of wishes for the up and coming album and thanks for doing radionotes.

Jaymee Franchin: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

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