From co-writing “Closer” in the back of the tour bus with The Chainsmokers to performing on the main stage at Electric Zoo: The 6th Boro, Shaun Frank is one to watch.
The Knockturnal sat down with Canadian born DJ, singer/songwriter and producer Shuan Frank after a great set up on the main stage Saturday.
Shuan Frank grew up always knowing he wanted to be an artist, he was the lead singer for the band The Envy that was eventually signed by the Simmons Records. But after a few turns, he sought out EDM. We spoke with him about his love for this genre and on his upcoming song ‘Addicted.’
Is this your first time at Electric Zoo?
Actually this is my second year, I played a smaller stage last year and they were nice to have me back on the main stage.
You have your tour “No Future,” but what is your dream festival to perform at?
Oh, I would like to play at Coachella. I’ve been once, it’s such a vibe.
How did you get into becoming an artist/DJ?
I used to play in bands and near the end of my career with the band I was getting a lot of requests to sing. I was a singer in the band. I was getting a lot of requests to sing on dance records. I ended up singing on this one dance record that became this weird hit in Spain, I ended up going on tour over there and I discovered all this music that I missed while I was in the band. I fell in love with Deadmau5 and I just became addicted to it and learning how to do it. I took a whole year off and learned how to produce electronic music and then I started collaborating with really cool DJ’s.
Can you talk more about your hit in Spain?
It was called “Unbreakable.” It’s actually a record that I am that proud of, to be completely honest. I did it for the money, I was totally broke and I had nothing. My band had broken up and I did that record. I didn’t think anything was going to happen, I was literally just doing it for that and it just blew up. Then I went on to collaborating with Oliver Heldens for “Shades of Grey” and KSHMR on the record “Heaven.”
How do you feel now finally having your vocals on your own track?
It’s really exciting that I got to sing my own song, that’s something not a lot of Dj’s can do since I was always a singer. I’ve been performing at a few shows, it’s (“Upsidedown”) been more of a relaxed song so I didn’t sing it on the main stage today. I have a live video of it coming out in a few weeks. I play piano, keyboard, drum pads, guitar, xylophone, acoustic drums and sing, all in the same video.
Do you think you are a one-man band now?
It’s a funny video, it’s me going around playing all these different parts of the song. I guess a DJ is kind of a one-man band, but I plan to do some more live stuff.
Do you have any collaborations you wish to do?
There are a few artists that I love. I love Halsey, I would love to write a song with her. I wrote a song called “Closer” with the Chainsmokers that she was on, I thought her vocals were amazing on that. I would love to write with her one day. Just some throwbacks too, it would be sick to do something with Thom Yorke from Radiohead or Emily Haines from Metric, I’m a big fan of Metric, that would be a cool collab.
Do you have anything new coming out?
Yeah I have a couple of new songs coming out. One of them that I am really excited about is called “Addicted.” I actually originally wrote it with The Chainsmokers, it was going to be a collab like two years ago, but we never finished it and it kind of just ended up on the back burner. A couple of weeks ago I heard the vocal again and I said, “I really like this vocal, I want to remake the whole thing.” So I remade the whole song last weekend.