An Interview with Frankie Cosmos

As we entered the dark, crowded bar, we squinted through the well dressed audience to look for the telltale features of Greta Kline, better known as Frankie Cosmos: dark brown hair, doe eyes, and a big t-shirt. The only problem was, everyone looked the same. After a few false alarms, we finally spotted her at the merch table, hugging each of her fans and taking selfies with them. We introduced ourselves and she apologized for being so busy; she told us to meet her outside after she had talked to all her fans.

After a few songs from Yours Are the Only Ears, we all went outside around the corner and settled down on the sidewalk. “Sorry about the green room!” she said. “They used to have one, but not anymore. I think we should be able to record out here, though.”

21 year old Greta is the singer-songwriter behind Frankie Cosmos, and most of her fans endearingly refer to her as “Frankie.” Born and raised in New York, Greta first started playing guitar in the seventh grade and later played bass guitar in the band Porches. On the surface, her music is bubbly and charming, but beyond the melodies lie deeper meanings; profound observations about school, death, and life in general. She has over forty albums on her Bandcamp, and her one official release, “Zentropy,” (2014) is on Spotify and iTunes. We sat down with the down-to-earth musician to learn about her thoughts on touring, popularity, and overthinking.

MDO: What are you feeling pre-show?

FC: Honestly, I’m not nervous, but a little bit stressed, because I’m a little sick and my voice is a little funny. But I think it should be fun! It’s a great bunch of bands playing, so I’m excited.

MDO: Who is the dog on the cover of Zentropy?

FC: It’s my dog, JoJo. Is your next question “Who’s JoJo?”

MDO: Yeah, we’ve heard you reference him in some songs. It that the dog that you refer to in “Sad 2?” (This song includes lyrics about the yearning for a dog who has passed away).

FC: Yes (sigh). Only one dog in most of my songs.

MDO: Were you formally musically trained?

FC: Not in guitar, but I took piano for, like, ten years, -ish.

MDO: Do you think that’s important in becoming successful?

FC: I really don’t. It almost makes it harder to be classically trained. I appreciate not having classical guitar training, because I feel like it makes it easier to just mess around and make up new things.

MDO: So, you study poetry at NYU?

FC: (laughs) I actually don’t. That’s just a weird made up lie. I took a poetry class at NYU, once. Every publication thinks I’m a poetry student at NYU. I’m just a student of the world!

MDO: Where does your music come from? What’s your purpose?

We pause for a few seconds to wait for a train to pass.

FC: It comes from just being a person and being emotional and having friendships and being interested in the way the world works. I try to make sense of it through writing something.

MDO: Are there any songs you’ve written that you don’t like relistening to?

FC: Probably most of them; I don’t listen to most of them back, unless I really like it. I feel like for every ten songs I write, there’s gonna be two that I wanna listen to again and eight of them are meaningless afterwards. I’m just kind of getting rid of them.

MDO: How does the desire for popularity, or lack thereof, influence how you approach Frankie Cosmos?

FC: I don’t have really a desire… I don’t think any of my music stuff is driven by a desire for my music to popular. But as you can tell, I need to work on not being so nice to everyone; I just let everyone take all of my emotional energy. I feel like that desire to be popular is more of a problem for me — like if I’m at a show and I really shouldn’t be talking, I should be saving my voice, you know, to sing or whatever. But every person wants to buy something at the merch table, but I also just really like being social. The music thing is just like, it’s really really nice that people are listening, and it definitely makes it worthwhile when I’m lugging equipment on the train. Earlier today, I was on the train, sweating my ass off, and just being so miserable and carrying all the merch and my guitar. The first thing I was thinking was, “There is no amount of money you could pay me that would make this worth it.” And then I was calming myself, thinking, “Wait. I get to play a f**king sold out show tonight (you can bleep out my curses for the high school paper) and I get to play for people who want to hear my songs! That’s so cool. That definitely drives me to keep doing it even when it’s difficult.

MDO: Would you say that that’s the hardest aspect of being a musician, how tiring it is?

FC: Yeah, I think that touring is really tiring, especially emotionally, because you are with the same three people every day for however long, and it’s really hard to be in touch with other friends and family. It’s very isolating, so that’s really exhausting, but very worth it. It feels really fulfilling while it’s going on. But it definitely makes you reevaluate what you’re doing.

MDO: Speaking to an aspiring musician, what aspect of your career would you recommend doing the same or differently?

FC: I recommend just accepting yourself and being excited about playing music and releasing it, and not overthinking anything, and not focusing on success. Just being a person and making what you make and letting the world react how it wants. That’s what I would recommend.

MDO: What it is like navigating the music industry?

FC: It’s really confusing, and I don’t understand a lot of it. The more that I have to deal with it, the more weird I feel about it. I can see how it’s really important to learn how to navigate those things and to be educated about the way the music industry works. But I definitely want to remain as DIY as possible as I continue. At least right now, I’m happy with the way things have worked out. I think it’s good for me to remember that everything is kind of meaningless. If you mess something up, it’s just a learning experience.

MDO: Did your parents’ involvement in the film industry influence you?

FC: I think it influenced me in a subconscious way; they were very encouraging of me and my brother being artists. We didn’t feel the pressure to figure out something else more serious to wanna be from a young age, which a lot of people do feel. Or also just having role models who are successful artists is lucky.

MDO: If you weren’t a musician, what career would you want to pursue?

FC: Probably childhood education.

Suddenly holds up peace signs to a distant stranger, who she introduced as her “sexy bassist” and brother-in-law.

FC: Sorry, was I in the middle of a question? Oh, childhood education. I would open a school, that’s like, special.

MDO: What are your plans for the future?
FC: Just more of this, trying to see where it takes me. I think I’m on a good path. I don’t want to plan too far ahead.