Unto Others Frontman Delivers Definitive Interview: ‘The Answer That I’ve Reached as I Get Older Is There Is No Answer. And if There Is No Answer, Then You Are God.’
“I don’t like not being able to control my destiny.”
-Unto Others frontman Gabriel Franco
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Portland, Oregon’s Unto Others are no strangers to Boise, having graced stages in this city in November 2021, May 2022 and November 2024. Tonight marked the retro rock band’s fourth performance in the City of Trees and its first time playing at the Shrine Social Club. Unto Others set the table for Castle Rat‘s rousing, hallucinatory, medieval-fantasy performance – while simultaneously erasing all memory of superfluous opening act Wraith Knight, which refers to itself as “dungeon synth,” whatever the hell that is.
One of the many reasons Unto Others were the band that should’ve drawn the biggest crowd in Boise this evening – even with Iron and Wine playing at the Knitting Factory and lovable death-metal goofballs Nekrogoblikon hunkering down at the Shredder – is that Unto Others are a truly one-of-a-kind band in a music climate that seems to subsist on copycats. Unto Others’ sound is a blast from the past; no other band is busting out throwback dark rock with the acumen and authenticity that frontman Gabriel Franco and his pals are producing.
Last year, this writer penned a story about Unto Others for New Noise in which Franco rejected the lazy and inaccurate labeling of Unto Others as a “goth” band. While the article possibly helped deflate the erroneous pigeonholing, it presented just a small fraction of the extensive conversation Franco granted to yours truly. In honor of Unto Others’ fourth performance this evening in Boise, The Bad Penny now brings you the entire – dare we say definitive – conversation that Franco graciously granted to us on November 8, 2024.
Part I: “I Just Focused on Being Myself”
Hey, how’s it going, Kurt?
Good, Gabe. How are you?
Oh, I’m doing alright. A little tired. I saw Blood Incantation last night, so…
Oh, wow, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But it was awesome, man. They got these huge obelisks with purple lights going up in the middle of them. It was pretty awesome. And the set itself, of course, was just insane. We weren’t playing with them, though; I was just watching. Brandon [Hill], our bassist, actually grew up with the singer/guitarist of Blood Incantation [Paul Riedl]. So they go way back. I don’t see a tour with us and them happening, because we’re pretty different.
Nevertheless, you’ve gotten picked for some particularly prized tour packages in the last couple of years [Carcass, Arch Enemy, Behemoth, Napalm Death].
Yeah, and now [we’re going out with] W.A.S.P. [That tour never happened, and Unto Others candidly addressed the reason why in this Facebook post.]
Are you in any music circles? Do you hang out with any other musicians?
That’s a question with a million answers. [We have] tons of friends. Going back to childhood? No, not really. Brandon has a few of those, but I don’t.
So, I think I’ve seen you three times now, at Psycho Las Vegas and then in Boise twice. One of the main topics I want to address in this conversation is that you guys are something of a singular band. When you formed Unto Others, did you at all have it in your minds that there was a void of a certain kind of hard rock music that you liked and wanted to provide for other people?
Yes and no. I went into it just wanting to write a song. That was it. It was step one. I need[ed] to write a [first] song because I had been in other bands my entire career up to that point. And what I found was, when I’m in a democratic band, I’m not in control of my life. And I don’t like not being able to control my destiny. You know what I mean? Or at least have a bit more of a say in how it turns out. I just focused on being myself. If you truly be yourself when writing music, your band is by default unique and original because no one can emulate who you are, right?
In that kind of situation, if everybody’s being true to themselves, do you feel like that cultivates a democratic environment where everybody has a say?
Yeah. I meant personally. But yeah, our band is unique in the way we write. I write most of the stuff and just bring it to the band. Of course, I don’t play the drums or anything like that. So I can’t take credit for that. We have an interesting dynamic where we’re all very different people and very [much] ourselves. There’s no follow-the-leader going on in this band. We all get along really, really well. [Unto Others’ additional members are guitarist Sebastian Silva, bassist Brandon Hill and drummer Colin Vranizan.]
Do you share a hobby, a sensibility, something along those lines? What do you share in common that makes the configuration work?
They’re just nice people. That was my main focus when hiring musicians: hiring people with good hearts. The most frustrating thing for me is when I meet cocky fuckers on tour – people backstage, crew, whatever, people with egos. When I was hiring my bandmates, I made sure nobody had any egos. If you have an ego, you’re out. I mean, it’s OK to have some ego. But no assholes, man.
Was it difficult to land on this configuration? Did you wind up trying out a lot of different people who didn’t pan out?
Oh, no, actually. I kind of lucked out. I was very selective about who I asked and chose. There really wasn’t a lot of choosing to be done, actually, because I had already been in a band with Sebastian [Spellcaster]. And I was like, “This guy is great at guitar, and he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” So I already had him on board. That was two guitars out of the way. Me and him. Great. It was the same thing with Colin. He was a drummer for my old band. And I was tapping him, like, “Hey, are you in?”
We had one bassist previously: David Kimbro. He was a really good guy. But I kept trying to work with him on the bass, building technical proficiency, but he just wasn’t getting there. And it sucked. I had to be like, “Hey, man, I’ve given you a couple chances, and you haven’t improved. We need someone who’s able to perform these things.” So that sucked.
Brandon came in as a last-minute replacement. I didn’t even know him personally. He was just a friend of a friend. And he’s turned out to be … we’ve been great friends for the past seven years. It worked out perfectly. And on top of him being a good person, he’s an even better musician. He’s a great singer, a great guitarist, great banjo player, acoustic guitarist, all these things. So we really lucked out in a sense.
Part II: “I Swear to God, We Weren’t Trying to Be a Goth Band.”
Given the fact that you tapped a couple of musicians from your previous band, did that make it easier to get everyone on the same page in terms of what you wanted Unto Others’ sound to be like?
No, because it was my band. So when I started it, it was just like, “Hey, here’s the song I wrote.” And when they joined, I said, “Do you agree to join my band?” I’m not going to be a fucking asshole. If someone said, “I really think that’s dumb and really stupid, I would reconsider it and take a look at it,” well, tough shit, dude.
So tell me, when you wrote that first song, what did it feel like? Did you have a sense of relief that maybe you hadn’t felt before? Or did you have to rework the song a lot of times to get it right?
It’s like any fledgling artist. I wanted to show the world. Now I hide all my work from everyone. I don’t want anyone to fucking hear it. But back then, I was so beamingly proud of the fact that I had written one simple song that I had to tell all my friends and show everybody, even though there weren’t [even any] vocals over it. It’s because I had a vision. But when I showed people, they don’t know my vision, so they were just hearing a demo.
It reminds me a little bit of when Dave Grohl‘s “Marigold,” one of the first songs he had written, appeared as a B-side on Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” single. Are you able to articulate the vision you’re talking about, or is it something that has to be witnessed, seen or felt?
Usually, a vision comes from some thought. Back then, it was just like, OK, I have this idea of how it could be, how wild it could be. While I was writing, I was like, “I really like black metal. I want to incorporate some of that style.” I wanted to put some black-metal elements into the first song. And so that’s why we ended up with the arpeggiated clean guitar chords.
But that was not because I wanted [Unto Others] to be a goth band. I didn’t listen to goth music or New Wave or any shit like that. I listened to trad metal, black metal, stuff like that when this band was starting. I wanted to use black-metal chords, but clean. What a novel idea. That’s where all the chords and shimmery shit came from. I swear to God, we weren’t trying to be a goth band.
The only band that I knew at that point that played like goth music was [The] Sisters of Mercy. And I loved them because they have a huge crossover appeal to the metal community – I think just from the sheer, utter bleakness of the lyrics. When people ask us what goth bands influenced us, we were never after that.
Part III: Mana Versus Strength
How quickly or slowly did the recording of your first record, Mana [released under the band’s previous moniker, Idle Hands, in 2019], go compared to its follow-up, 2021’s Strength?
Oh, man, I spent a lot of time on the first record. It was, like, eight months from start to finish, just pounding it out. Whereas Strength was a bit more drawn out. And then [2024’s] Never, Neverland was even more drawn out. I do my best work in short creative bursts. I don’t like drawing things out. I’m not saying there’s not good songs on this record, but I prefer not to take that long, just because you feel like it’s kind of beating a dead horse. It’s frustrating as an artist to write 40 songs and then they just sit there and they’re in a folder. I want to put them out. I want people to listen to them.
Have you noticed your fan base growing in the last few years?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, our growth is slow. But it’s there, and our fans are really diehard. Like, when we play a gig to our crowd, it’s wild. When we’re opening up for other bands, it’s quiet. After each song, people yell. But when it’s our crowd, they’ll be moshing and crowdsurfing to “Can You Hear the Rain.” They circle-pit to “Jackie.”
It’s wild. We’ve drawn in this weird sect of metalheads who want to mosh at the concerts. But they also like softer music. Some of the most deafening shows I’ve ever played were to just like 100 or 200 people, not a couple thousand. Denver was one of the loudest cities ever. They were only beaten by Munich recently. Our fans are fanatical and so loud that it gets to the point where I can hear the crackling in my ears, because my eardrums are reaching their limit.
Part IV: “I Would Love for This Band to Be Remembered … as Honest [and] True to Ourselves.”
Also, we’re not a trendy band at all. We don’t just jump onto any kind of trend or whatnot. We’re always going to be ourselves. Another band like that is Suicidal Tendencies. One of my heroes is [vocalist] Mike Muir. He’s one of my favorite lyricists ever. I would love for this band to be remembered in the same kind of way: Honest, true to ourselves. That we did it our own way, and with truly next-level lyrics.
Did you ever consider being a poet, perhaps in your youth?
It’s funny you ask. because I have a bunch of poetry. When I was in high school, I did write a ton of poetry. And I did want to be a poet. Nowadays, I’ll still just … when I feel like it, yeah, I’ll pull up a Word document and write out whatever comes to my head. I love poetry. I love the word craft. I love the way you can make sentences flow and create something beautiful out of the way something is said.
Cradle of Filth was my favorite band in high school for that exact reason. Now I go back and I read all the lyrics I love and I’m like, “These don’t make any fucking sense.” But they sound cool. My favorite thing about Dani Filth is he’s a person who breaks the rules. [I gravitate toward] people who don’t subscribe to, “Oh, this is the way it’s supposed to be.” Dani Filth will just make up words. In some of his songs there’s chimericals.
One word he made up is “pentaholocaust.” It’s not a real word; he just made it up, and it sounds cool. My [writing] is not nearly as cool as that. But I’ve always said: “At the end of a book, there shouldn’t be a period.” It’s over. I’ve gotten into hard-core arguments with people like, no, there has to be a period there. I’m like, “Why? I don’t need to signify that it’s the end. You need them in between, but not at the very end.”
But you do do encores when you perform, right?
Yeah, sure. Maybe that’s sort of like an epilogue or a coda or something like that.
Part V: The Darkness, the Light, Death and Purpose
What I find to be very affecting about your lyrics is your unique ability to find the light in the darkness and the darkness in the light. As a listener, that brings to me a fundamental shift in how I think about things like love or existence or pain. Is that something that you consciously do or am I off base with that?
No, no, you’re right in some respects. I’m always obsessed with life and death and time. And you can tell it in the lyrics. As I get older, I’m starting to give a shit a little bit less. But I think I had a severe existential dread of aging, getting older and not having control over when and where I’m going to die and how. I must face death at some point. We all must. And when I do, I have to do it alone. No one can come with me. It’s very frightening.
I’ve been pondering that crap during my entire life. The answer that I’ve reached as I get older is there is no answer. And if there is no answer, then you are God. You can create your own purpose on the planet here. So you decide what’s important to you. And there you go: You have purpose. So you’re going to get stuff like that, a few of my own thoughts, parsed around the lyrics.
In some of your songs, like “Heroin,” you seem remarkably candid – and that you’re not playing a character. Was that important to you when you started the band to – I guess it goes back to the topic of honesty that you mentioned earlier – just tell it like it is and be transparent and upfront with people?
Oh, no. I’ve never done heroin. I do, in fact, play a character in a lot of my songs. Like, in “When Will God’s Work Be Done,” I’m inhabiting the role of a military commander in Vietnam on heroin. I draw from real-life things that I’ve been near or around. [For example,] I’m a war buff. I like learning about history and wars and whatnot.
“Heroin,” that came from a bunch of my buddies from high school going down that path. And I was always fascinated with how horrible you can make your life on Earth. And hell is a place on Earth. Which means heaven can be one as well. There are many things that are worse than death. Becoming a completely helpless drug addict, you alienate yourself from society so much so that people don’t even want to look at you when they pass you on the street. It’s like you’re living on an alien planet.
That level of loneliness … I can’t even imagine what it feels like to walk into a business and there’s humans and then there’s you, and they’re like, “You smell. Can you get out of here?” I have characters in a lot of songs, just to tell stories.
I’m not suicidal by any means, but I am fascinated with suicide. I always have been. It’s just the extremes in life. I wonder how people can get to that point. When I was a teenager, I would see a homeless person and wonder how you get that far down or hopeless. How do you get to the point where you’re waking up in the middle of the night to chug vodka so that you don’t have a seizure? How do you get that low? And as you get older and you learn more, you start to understand the ways these things can happen. So I try not to fuck up as often as I can.
Remaining tour dates with Castle Rat and Wraith Knight:
10.12.26: Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre.
10.14.26: Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater
10.15.26: Chicago, IL @ Concord Music Hall
10.16.26: Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
10.17.26: Toronto, ON @ Opera House
10.19.26: Montreal, QC @ Théâtre Beanfield}
10.20.26: Worcester, MA @ Palladium
10.21.26: New York, NY @ Webster Hall
European Borderlands Tour with Amorphis and Insomnium:
1.22.27: Hamburg, Germany @ Große Freiheit 36
1.23.27: Leipzig, Germany @ Haus Auensee
1.24.27: Berlin, Germany @ Huxleys Neue Welt
1.25.27: Warsaw, Poland @ Klub Progresja
1.27.27: Budapest, Hungary @ Barba Negra
1.30.27: Wiesbaden, Germany @ Schlachthof Wiesbaden
1,31.27: Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix Antwerpen
2.2.27: Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz Manchester
2.3.27: London, UK @ O2 Forum Kentish Town
2.6.27: Pratteln, Switzerland @ Z7 Konzertfabrik
2.9.27: Barcelona, Spain @ Sala Apolo
2.10.27: Madrid, Spain @ La Riviera
2.12.27: Paris, France @ L’Élysée Montmartre
2.14.27: Tilburg, Netherlands @ 013 Poppodium
For more info and to buy Unto Others music and merch, go to their Bandcamp page.
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