I can't wrap my head around the fact that frank doesn't consider himself very attractive. It enrages me that he doesn't. The mf is a fucking italian punk rock boyfriend fantasy with the most gorgeous puppy eyes and lips and face and dilfy body and bro thinks he's not that attractive. Is he mocking me?!?!?!!?! I feel mocked. HOW doesn't he realize how fucking unbelievably hot he is does he just act the way he does cause he's just naturally a slut or is he lying out of his ass pretending he isn't confident. Like is he just acting like a pathetic slutty puppy on stage cause that's just how he is or is he AWARE... hoe.
THIS VALENTINE'S DAY, FRANK IERO RETURNS TO THE EMBRACE OF UK FANS WHO ADORE HIM LIKE NO OTHER. HAVING SURVIVED A HORRIFIC BUS CRASH LAST OCTOBER, THAT HE'S COMING AT ALL IS REALLY NOTHING SHORT OF A MIRACLE. FOR THE FIRST TIME, FRANK TELLS THE FULL STORY OF THAT DAY, AND TALKS LOVE, LIFE AND DEATH, EXCLUSIVELY WITH HANNAH EWENS..
PHOTOS: ANDREW LUPOVSKY
Since the accident four months ago, Frank lero's thoughts often stray back to that day. The vehicle that hit them, the sequence of events, the fact that everyone made it out alive. "It's funny, the things that will trigger it" he says today. from his home in New Jersey. "Early on, it was hard for me to even be in a parking lot. Or be surrounded by the sounds of a motor vehicle. Even just looking at a car, it was in the forefront of my mind. Now I'm strong enough to be able to drive, but every now and again, you have those clase
calls. They're still hard. They were. I had a really hard time sleeping for a while. It's always there, you know? I'm trying not to dwell on it, but some days are better than others, and there are times when you have to catch yourself a bit."
On October 13 last year, Frank was in Australia with his band, The Patience, unloading their touring van when he, his bandmates and crew were hit by a city bus Reports were frustratingly minimal over the following days-all fans knew was that it was a serious accident that left people injured but stable. The next piece of news was that the band would be cancelling all of their remaining 2016 tour commitments. Their new album, Parachutes, arrived later that month, and while Frank and his band should have been celebrating its release by playing its songs live onstage, instead they were consigned to the privacy of a long, painful recovery. Part of that was physical, fixing what had become damaged in hospital and physiotherapy, but a significant part of the recovery was emotional; making sense of what had happened and what it meant to him.
"It's a strange thing to have to experience and then have to be okay with," Frank explains. "My psyche has gone through these weird stages and split off into these factions. The first part is that there's anger involved, because it's senseless. There's definitely a part of you that almost feels bad that you didn't get as hurt [as other people]. Then there's this overwhelming feeling that we weren't supposed to survive that. No-one who saw that accident thought that we would walk or even come away from it. The doctors in Australia literally said to us, "Never buy another lottery ticket, because you've already won. You go through this feeling of. This is our new birthday, this is our new lease of life. We shouldn't be here and we need to do things and experience things and make a difference, because we got this amazing gift I've realised that's what people want to hear from you. It means that you're alright for getting through it. There is a part of you that feels that."
Everything happens for a reason, or so they say. Frank buys into that philosophy and with the conditions of the crash, it's impossible to see otherwise. "The way every little split second happened led to us surviving it," he remembers. "Opening the back of our trunk protected our heads, me bending down to get my pedalboard lodged me underneath the van's bumper in such a way that I didn't get caught between [the van and the bus]."
It was, in short, a miracle. There is a but. These thoughts didn't swirl around without stranger and darker ones playing on Frank's mind - a third metaphysical "stage". "There's a part of you that wonders: 'Did we actually make it through? Is this what happens after you die?" Frank explains. "Maybe your brain keeps moving and you invent this other reality. Maybe this isn't real and your brain is keeping going in a lifeless body. Then you think, Well it's been however long now, regardless of whether this is real or not, it's real for me. I'm here: So you have to do something with it."
Simply put, what Frank lero went through that day was a near-death experience. Frank asks Kerrang! tτο think about his house. Despite never having stepped foot in it (Frank has moved since our 2013 cover feature found us in his living room), we have a vague idea of what it might look like-doors, windows, walls. We can imagine Frank's house as we imagine death, he sxplains-"We can think we know what to expect" - but our impression of it is so nebulous. The vast majority of us who, unlike Frank, have never nearly tasted death, are so wrong.
"It's incredible to me how apparent and clear things got in that moment. I've realised a lot of things, some of which I've yet to even put to words. The frailty of life and of a human being, of a body, is incredible. You realise in a split second, it becomes so 20/20 how fragile and how special life is. How in a blink of an eye, it can be ripped from you in a very, very brutal way. It's eye-opening. To have met death and to have shaken its hand, and know that eventually I'll have to do it again is so terrifying, and dare I say, disappointing," he says slowly, his words considered. "Some people just do it once and you're gone. I'm going to have to do that again, and that's weird. It's something that you have to work through. It's like seeing the future and experiencing the inevitable."
It's still not long ago that Frank lost his much-loved grandfather to the inevitable, a man he described as "everything", a huge inspiration for Parachutes. "It's knowing that the people you love will go through that at some point. There's part of you that's thankful that you are still here. But there's definitely a part that kind of wishes that it was over so that I don't have to do it again. I don't mean that in a sad, depressing way. It's the reality of it."
"There are certain experiences that should be once in a lifetime," he says, decidedly. "I feel like that's one of them. I don't feel like the same person as I was before. I know I'm not"
Halfway through Parachutes, just as you've settled into Frank's latest sound, a quiet hum explodes into him screaming, wailing 'Just let me go' All raging licks and distortion, Dear Percocet, I Don't Think We Should See Each Other Anymore is two-and-a-bit minutes of howling anxiety. 7 don't wanna die yet, just wish that I could be remembered /Don't wanna watch my life pass me by, with eyes of longing Frank agonises.
This-like the rest of the album is Frank obsessing over life and death wanting to "live in the now" but also considering his legacy. It ends with 9-6-15, a song for his grandfather and a reminder that one day, we all run out of time. It seems inconceivable that this was the album Frank wrote just before this crash, one that he was prevented from performing because of a close shave with his own mortality, and that would leave him having to reaffirm these debates and life lessons the album offers. The strangest of coincidences.
"Isn't that just fucking bizarre?" he replies, when K! puts that synchronicity to him. "There was a sense when I was waiting for the bus's tire to come, that at least I knew my last statement was one that I've always wanted to make. That felt kind of peaceful"
Last time Kerrang! spoke to Frank back in September, before the crash, he explained what the parachutes of the album title were all about: "The things that we love, and the things that bring us joy and happiness, are the things that save us." So what are Frank's parachutes! On one level, those have been his wife, Jamia, and three children - twin daughters Cherry and Lily, and son Miles. Going through this crash has changed how he thinks of being a father and husband, among other things. "What you viewed as important before maybe isn't, when you realize what is truly important, and what really means a lot. The recovery process is a strange beast, because there are times where you have to be-dare I say-selfish. You have to worry about yourself a bit, because you know if you don't recover fully and get your time to do that then you won't be the father and husband that you want to be, and you won't get back fully. But as far as relationships go. (the change] is something that's hard to put into words but you feel on a second to second basis." He hasn't yet explained to his children what happened in Australia- they're too young, Part of thinking about what is important to him post-crash means it won't be as easy to leave them all behind when touring - and there's a UK/Europe tour fast approaching. "All telling them would do is scare them"
The Darkest DAY
FRANK OPENS UP LIKE NEVER BEFORE ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN BUS CRASH OF OCTOBER 2016
HOW DID THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT START?
Frank: "We were outside the Twitter offices on Park Street in Sydney. We were gonna play a couple of songs acoustic, do a live Q&A and head to the venue. My brother, Evan [Nestor, guitar]. my manager, Paul [Clegg], and drummer, Matt [Olason], all got out and opened the hatchback trunk to unload. I had this pedalboard case made of metal and the funny thing about it is, that trip ww did 11 flights in five days or something ridiculous like that, and every flight I was very paranoid that this case - which had all my pedals which are important to me had to come on with me, and not be checked in. Flash forward, and it actually ended up being run over by the bus but everything in it survived, it was kinda weird. Anyway, I put the case down on the carb and opened it up. I was crouched down and what I wanted to say to the guys was. 'I think I'm just going to take out my taner and leave the rest here, but I got as far as, 'I think I'm just gonna… and at that moment, this thing just hit us."
WHAT WENT THROUGH YOUR MIND AT THAT POINT?
"It was one of those flash moments, like getting tackled. I got hit under my arm and somehow ended up underneath the bumper of this double-decker city bus. I remember from my vantage point I could see Evan, his legs pinned between that bumper and the steel bumper of our passenger van. I just hear screams coming from what I could tell was Paul and then just smashing. remember trying to watch to see what was going to happen but I kept having to turn my head because the glass was just hitting me in the face. It was just raining sharda. I knew that at some point the tyre had to be coming."
HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?
"I had this hage military-grade backpack, like those Desert Storm ones. Everyone makes fan of me because I overpack and over-prepare for everything. I had this thing on and somehow that ended up in between the curb, and with my arm hooked on underneath the bumper, I slid along the gater. When the bus hit us it didn't stop it pushed through us and dragged us for about 10 feet. I still see it all the time. It's one of those things that gets burned into your memory, along with the sounds. I'm sure the accident only lasted a matter of seconds, but it felt like 20 minutes. I remember every moment that went by: what I felt, what I thought. I remember thinking. He has to know that he's hit us. why isn't the bus stopping and the tires are coming and are they going to hit my legs first or is it going to go over me completely? This is it."
WHAT HAPPENED ONCE THE BUS STOPPED?
"The glass was still raining down even when it stopped. I had no idea where Matt was. I heard Paul yell to our publicist in Australia, who was driving the passenger van, to pull the van forward, and when she did that she released Paul and Evan. When she did that, Paul kinda fell down into the back of our van and Evan crumpled out and fell down to the pavement in front of me. I remember him saying, 1 can feel my legs. At that point I knew he was alive but I thought he'd been paralyzed or something. I was able to crawl out from underneath the bus and over to him. That's when I saw Paul and started to see this growing paddle of the brightest red I'd ever soon. I cradled Evan's head and got that knapsack off somehow and I put a jacket underneath his head. That's when I saw Matt come over and knew he was alive."
"From that point, that's when the crowd starts to form. I heard someone say that there were helicopters coming. They flew in a doctor. I remember the cope coming over and one cop was
"BREAKING NEWS: BUS SLAMMED INTO VAN ON PARK STREET GE POCK STAR FRANK IERO AND BANDMATES CAUGHT UP IN CRASH"
tending to Paul. He'd cut his pants where the wounds were and I'd never seen anything as brutal. It made sense to me because when you see something like that, it feels like there's this force of nature and you realize how powerless you are to this brutality. I've never been attacked by a shark but I imagine it's probably the same thing, these blank eyes of a bus or blank eyes of a shark tearing through you and there's literally nothing you can do; you're just at the mercy of this force. The cop tied a tourniquet around his leg
and therels no doubt in my mind that either saved Paullis lide or saved his leg. From thers paramedics came and worked on Evan as well, put us into ambalances and shot us full of drugs and took as to the hospital"
HOW LONG WAS THE IMMEDIATE RECOVERY PROCESS?
"Paul and Evan had surgeries and we were there for close to two weeks. We started some physiotherapy in Australia so we could get to the point where they could release us to fly. Sometimes the biggest concern with that kind of stuff is blood clotting. They want to get you mobile enough to fit in the seat or just be able to travel. Funny enough, our visas for Australia were running out the next day, so I had to petition for medical visas and they denied it. We didn't have a permanent residence in Australia and I said, 'Well, our residence is the hospital. So I had to resubmit, and I got a letter maybe two days after we'd got home that they'd denied our visas again."
HOW'S THE RECOVERY BEEN GOING BACK IN AMERICA?
"So we started minimal physical therapy there but the intense stuff started back in America with physio three days a week. 1 got a couple of ligaments torn in my foot
and tendonitis and torn muscles in my arm and my shoulder. My shoulder isn't working great. The strength training is definitely helping hold the ball joint in place a little bit and I'm definitely feeling a difference. I've been getting these steroid shots in my shoulder and I'm liking that. (Laughs) But the size of the needle is fucking intimidating - I've never seen a needle so big. I have a really good doctor now. Hopefully they're shooting me with something that's helping so I'm glad my kids aren't worried about me leaving" Frank says. "But for me, it's something that I need to find out if I can still do. This is all I've ever known, all I've ever done, it partially defines the person that I am. I do love it so. At least 55 per cent more than I hate it," he adds, laughing. "To allow it to be taken from me without a fight is not something I'm prepared to let happen. This is also the record I'm the most proud of and I put so much of myself into it that to never play guitar on those songs live is something I know I would regret forever"
The tour is supporting Taking Back Sunday and the UK leg. in front of the fars with whom Frank has shared the longest and deepest love affair, begins on the most romantic day of the year: Valentine's Day. Not, however, that Frank is bothered by being away from home on such a day-"Putting a lot of stock in the one day of showing love is not my thing-show it every other day" Instead, support in the form of romantic love for him is "going out of your way to show that person that they're cared for and loved at all times. We all want to be loved whether we admit it or not. The striving of having someone care about you and accept you for the person that you are unconditionally"
Frank's had that reciprocal acceptance from an early age. "For myself and my wife in our relationship, we knew very early on that we were right for each other. We were young, knew we had to grow and we weren't going to get married at, like, 19. But we also knew that with little things that might normally annoy someone, we were going to have a lot of these throughout our life. We'd ask, 'Is this something that is worth not ending up together over! And if it's not, then just fucking let it go. That was a big thing for us. Of course, we've had our moments, all people do, we're human beings. There was definitely an understanding early on that this was it, this was real special. It's a cliché, but people say it because it's true: when you do meet that really special person that was made for you and you for them, it's like an explosion goes off and you know it." Frank smiles. "Sometimes that doesn't happen for everybody. sometimes it doesn't happen at the right time in your life. But if you're lucky enough to hold onto it and make it work then you can have a really rewarding and beautiful life together."
"It's unlike anything else." Does he think he needs both to be happy? "Yes" comes the reply. "I don't think I'd be fully fulfilled without a family by any means. I also don't know if I'd be fully fulfilled as a person without creating."
There's equilibrium for Frank. Yet, the obstacles are there. It's not just leaving his family. It's playing. In physio he is relearning how to do basic things, even actions he's been doing his whole life. "I feel like I've begun to play differently guitar-wise and I hold the guitar in a different way," he admits. "You're trying to maximise the amount of things you can do and counterbalance the amount of pain you're feeling when you're doing it." There have been practices. There has been frustration and progress. But he has to wait until The Patience's first show playing together live to really know.
t's Saturday night at Starland Ballroom, New Jersey and Circa Survive are readying themselves to play a show. Before them, though, an unknown band called Aerosniff are supporting. Worst case scenario: a crappy local emo band. Best case: Aerosmith with a cold. After blazing through some punk rock, Aerosniff announce they're actually Frank lero And The Patience, and better yet, some people aren't bothered. The band are, though - it's the first time they've played a show since the accident.
The following day, 48 hours after our initial interview, Frank is in good spirits. "All those demons and gremlins are going to show up, so it's better to get them out when you're not actually supposed to be playing" he chuckles. The following weckend was what everyone thought would be the first show they'd play the big return at the small Monty Hall in New Jersey. Frank had wanted a warm-up show, small and sweaty with all the fans who love him, but he'd needed an anonymous ane, for better or worse, good or bad, where whatever happened could happen. "It was a very selfish experience for me. Sometimes you play shows and it's give and take, and you get as much out of it as the crowd does. But last night, no offense, I didn't care about the crowd-it was just about the four of us onstage. And it was exhilarating."
"The whole day was very strange," he recalls. "Until yesterday, I didn't know how much emotion and feelings I had about the whole ordeal were tied into playing. I didn't realise how much it would affect me to know that that day had finally come and I'd get up onstage again; how much getting up onstage was tied into the accident and all the feelings | had surrounding the accident. It was closing the door on this chapter of recovery and downtime. It was rough, emotional, but by the end of the day, it felt like a triumph."
"WE ALL
WANT TO BELOVED,
There was also the matter of the physical pain to consider
Frank didn't know if he could play properly, in a way that was satisfactory for him. "It was a little rough, but I feel like it was manageable," he says of the pain. "There were definitely things that I found out that I can't really do anymore. We'll see what happens with that. The scary thing is that going on tour will mean having to play every night and III only find out how I feel two or three days in. But, as of right now, I'm feeling kinda awesome just thinking about it. Hey man, maybe it
Then, of course, there's that other love that doesn't come from human beings. It's for music, and it's a very different drug altogether. "Ahhh," he laughs. "It is a love that will very rarely love you back when you want it to. The love for music is more of an addiction type of love than a romantic, unconditional love. You taste the highs and you despise the lows, but you keep coming back. Sometimes it makes you feel like a god and sometimes it destroys you. Some people can make it work and they can do it as a career and that's an amazing feat. Some people will throw their entire lives into keeping that addiction"
Finally, too, it meant playing those songs live. "Many, many nights I imagined starting a set with World Destroyer [Parachutes' opening track] and how it would translate to a live audience, so that was incredible. A wonderful feeling to actually have that come to fruition."
What 2017 will hold, however, is currently unwritten. "I wasn't able to play and when I did it hurt and I didn't think I'd be able to. When we finally got home it seemed like this world seemed so far away again, so we'll see."
Although he's been writing, as ever, it doesn't feel right to write about the accident or its aftermath. "When you make an art piece, a record, you finish it and you relinquish control of it," Frank explains. "It grows and becomes its own thing, it lives and breathes out in the world. Right now, granted I've talked about it a little bit, but it's still just locked in my head. It's mine completely and I'm in control of it. But in writing a song about it or a record about it or singing about it, and giving up that control over it, that's scary to me."
For now, Kerrang! are just pleased that first secret show was everything he could hope it'd be. "Me too," Frank laughs "It would've been real depressing [otherwise). It would have been a real shit end to the story. Guess what-it was horrible. I never wanna do this again!"
After Parachutes was released, Frank wrote on his blog, "Such as with life, we are all just falling or plunging to an eventual end, but the love of my family and my ability to create art and music has always been my parachute. Before he signs off, he finishes: "This album is one of my parachutes." Playing it as he was so excited to do, sharing it as it was meant to be shared, exorcising its demons feels like the final parachute he needs now to land safely.
FRANK IERO AND THE PATIENCE TOUR THE UK THIS WEEK WITH TAKING BACK SUNDAY - SEE THE GIG GUIDE FOR INFORMATION
FRANK'S ANTI-VALENTINE'S MIXTAPE
FRANK HATES VALENTINE'S ALMOST AS MUCH AS HE LOVES THESE SONGS…
JOY DIVISION LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
"It might be the most brutally honest song about a failing relationship ever written."
FIND IT: Substance (1988)
BLACK FLAG JEALOUS AGAIN
"Jealousy breeds sentiment… and Black Flag rules." FIND IT: Jealous Again EP (1980)
THE CURE PICTURES OF YOU
"If you never got choked up while betening to this song… well, you're a liar."
FIND IT: Disintegration (1909)
ALKALINE TRIO RADIO
"Scorn at its finest. If you've ever been fucked over, this is your anthem." FIND IT: Maybe I'll Catch Fire (2000)
JOHNNY CASH YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE
"A lot of us grew up singing the chorus as kids but never knowing whust extreme somow the song was about. It's been covered by many artists, but Cash can do no wrong"
FIND IT: Land Of The Free Home Of The Brave (1969)
"THE DOCTORS TOLD US, 'NEVER BUY A LOTTERY TICKET -YOU'VE ALREADY WON" -- FRANK IERO"
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