Those who know, know Frans Karoo from bands such as Jet Black Camaro and Gunshot Blue - a poet, musician, singer, writer, wanderer, photographer, filmmaker, thinker and a bonafide rock star. He's cool without trying to be cool, can pull off a hat and a suit like no one else. He has a tattoo on his face.
O God is Frans Karoo's debut single in Afrikaans. It's hard not to fall in love with it. Karoo’s voice is lazy, as if he doesn't want to sing but rather wants to talk, almost as if he's channelling Bob Dylan and music that makes me think of Mott The Hoople (there I lose the millennials now). But it's not old school.
O God is hot ‘mieliepap’ with chakalaka – simple but with an edge, as good rock 'n roll is, and always has been. It's music for road trips. It's music that forces you to listen to the lyrics while your foot keeps the beat on the carpet. But you have to listen carefully. Even if the song sounds entirely innocent at first, itself upbeat, you soon find that it actually has a dark soul.
I caught up with Karoo last week…
Storyteller (I shoot and edit videos)
Music is medicine. Music is language. Music is touch. Music is fire. Music is a door. Music is home. Music is a river. Music is a passport. Music is the ocean.
Ordinary people with extraordinary tales.
Whether you wine and dine. Whether you dress or mess. Whether you walk or talk. One thing matters. Authenticity.
Seasons
My last breath leaves this mortal coil.
Roads not less travelled.
Arno Carstens, Hunter Kennedy or Peach Van Pletzen.
Within
Creating something out of nothing and then seeing or hearing how it resonates with another.
In Die Son
Every time they don’t laugh at my jokes in between songs
Karl Jung, Hiroshi Musashia and Lao Tzu.
Throw James Dean, Jimmy Hendrix and Johnny Cash in a potjie.
Eckard Tolle. He’s funny and serious at the same time. Wise without trying to be.
It’s a tie between my trucker cap, headphones and incense.
Whiskey.
I’d love to do a gig inside a cave with an underground lake.
My laugh.
My dad used to call my younger brother and I “Doppie and Proppie”. Then there was Rambo at this one veldskool.
Make perfume.
Creative, sensitive, adventurous, free and complex.
Any good action/crime/spy thriller or murder mystery I can find.
The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Deur Die Donker Drif by Deon Meyer.
Release the Pressure by Leftfield.
My mother. Animals and plants. Nature. My close friends.
Beautiful
Writing a book and/or directing a feature film.
Getting a face tattoo
Relationships
AI taking over
This moment
Zone in. Zone out.
Be like Bruce Lee. I mean water.
Every time I drive down to the Cape, I try to take different routes and/or stay in different towns.
It begins at home. And then it follows me on my way to work. And then at work…
To stay: somewhere by the coast, then the mountains, then the woods, then the city. And repeat, and breath of fresh air.
