FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES continue their exploration of silliness, self-critique and identity with their new album, ‘Dark Rainbow’. Check out our latest Upset cover story.

Words: Jack Press.
Photos: Brian Rankin.

"This is where I’m doing my healing; if I see something, I’m trying not to be reactionary,” says Frank Carter. On a miserably wet Monday, the frontman of The Rattlesnakes is practising blue sky thinking and turning over a new leaf. “If after 10 minutes I still wanna call someone a cunt, then I will, because at least then it’s 10 minutes, and that’s still a shitty thing they’ve done, and I fancy getting into it.”

Scrap that; we haven’t lost the punk rock renegade just yet. ‘Dark Rainbow’ ushers in a new era for Frank Carter and Dean Richardson, aka Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes. Whereas 2020’s ‘Sticky’ poured pop hooks into post-punk, ‘Dark Rainbow’ languishes in the lounge-pop multiverse Arctic Monkeys made a reality on ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’.

Since sharing singles ‘Man Of The Hour’ and ‘Brambles’, the duo have gone toe-to-toe with the internet trolls. “I’m defending it now because it’s fun. It’s not fire with fire, it’s silliness with silliness, cause all I’m getting online is ‘What is this shite’, and I’m like, ‘It’s just a song, it’s not complex’.”

“I could sit there and explain to them what it means to me and why I wrote it, but they don’t give a shit,” proclaims Frank, who’s felt like he’s been hit by a tonne of bricks daily by fans. “What they want is rage, not because they’re angry with me, but because they’re frustrated with themselves, and I was an integral part of their process in the way that they dealt with life, and now I’m gone, and they don’t know what the fuck to do.”

Trading in the type of dramatic irony only music can conjure, ‘Dark Rainbow’ mirrors the mental warfare Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes are constantly fighting. As their fans nosedive into nostalgia, searching for the star they idolise, Frank’s flirting with the way we present ourselves. “That became a theme throughout the record, of the avatars of people, how we wear our skin and how we look and present ourselves and the way that influences people.”

While that theme flows through ‘Dark Rainbow’ as subtly as blood trickles through our veins, it becomes a flash flood of nosebleeds on ‘Queen of Hearts’. A dark and brooding number, Frank likens it to “some bleak British drama movie”, a “war of attrition; the whole point of that is that both sides lose so much, like no one ever actually wins in the end.”

On the flip side, for his songwriting partner in crime, Dean Richardson, ‘Queen of Hearts’ was anything but a war. “We both won that day; there was no wrestling with each other,” he says, constantly swishing his pen as he considers every word and gesture. “We’re at the point now where you don’t overthink that; you don’t need to question whether it needs more. It came together in one session, in one day, almost exactly the first way Frank sang it, and it stayed. You can’t have it all like that, some of them take fucking ages, but that was a beautiful song in the formation.”

Like the butterflies that fly through Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes’ back catalogue, many of these songs were caterpillars in chrysalis. Much of the album predates 2020’s ‘Sticky’, so while “everything is linked”, according to Frank, the two records “couldn’t be further apart, they couldn’t be from more distant places”.

“’Dark Rainbow’ was made with such clarity of mind,” Frank says with a sigh of relief. “My intent in the writing and the lyrics, the self-critique and analysis of what I was trying to do, was the clearest it’d been for many, many years, and ‘Sticky’ was the opposite of that; I was languishing in myself for a few years, I was very stuck.”

By coming unstuck, Frank and Dean could dig through the rubble and unearth the gems they had buried in the chaos of ‘Sticky’. “Nothing is ever dead to us, so when you hatch a moment like that and have the confidence and the bravery to say this isn’t for now, that’s an amazing moment; I always look forward to the album that ends up uncovering itself, and these songs end up being a foundation stone of this new sound.”

New sound is an understatement. Frank and Dean are no strangers to interpolating the meaning of punk into pop culture movements, and ‘Dark Rainbow’ does away with ‘Sticky’’s explosions of spontaneity in favour of toppling dominoes to strip their sound back to the way they like making music best — ultimately, it’s an identity-discovering album.

“When you look at ‘Sticky’, it’s a caricature record of us,” laughs Frank. “It’s the most out there, wildest, funnest, fucking life of the party, rock star versions of us, and that whole period of time for me is so fear and loathing; there’s always someone close up to the fucking camera breathing in your ear.”

“That was three years of our fucking lives just being paranoid, and now you get into this time of ‘Dark Rainbow’, and it feels like an identity record. It’s a real clear, considered ‘This is who I feel I am’ moment, and that’s beautiful,” says Frank, whose path of thought is tread instantaneously by Dean. “We were not consciously driving. ‘Sticky’ is the sound of no one at the wheel; we worked really fucking hard on that record, but it was a very unusual circumstance, whereas this record is much more conscious, this is what we wanted to make.”

‘Dark Rainbow’ is a delicate album. It spends much of its time languishing in lavish space, letting individual instruments breathe as if living organisms occupying a soundscape of worlds. Whether it is restraining drumbeats until the right moment or holding notes a second longer, everything is meticulously thought out and a world away from what’s come before. Just don’t call it a departure.

“The thing I find interesting is the word departure because it’s definitely getting closer to an accurate portrayal of who we are as artists and musicians,” admits Dean, aware of the self-discovery they’ve done since ‘Sticky’. “What we’re trying to do is find something else out about ourselves, and that’s why audiences enjoy it, but that will mean that we keep changing because that’s the goal, to learn something and get closer to what it is that speaks to us, but it can be really jarring for people.”

Like everything in Frank and Dean’s lives, it always comes back to what came before. The spectre of Gallows and of the Rattlesnakes’ first record, ‘Blossom’, watches over their quest for creative freedom, haunting their every step. “It’s interesting for them to know our goal is the same goal it was on the record they loved. We’ve not changed; we’re just getting better at it. It’s like a weird, flawed irony where if that’s not what they want, it is what they wanted.”

“’Blossom’ was the closest thing to what they’ve been missing from me,” adds Frank solemnly. “They really wanted this return to Gallows, and ‘Blossom’ came, and it was like, ‘Fuck, is it going to happen?’, and very slowly they realised, ‘Maybe not’.” For Frank, it’s become a sticking point.

“I’ve never understood why they can’t just champion it. It happened, we made ‘Blossom’, and it was beautiful, and those shows were fucking carnage and as pure, unfiltered rage as they could be,” he admits before revealing the plot twist that’ll put a few feathers out of place. “But that is just unsustainable. I’m not willing to do something like that for long periods of time because I wouldn’t survive it; I wouldn’t be here still”.

‘Blossom’ era Rattlesnakes was a ticking time bomb effortlessly exploding and being rebuilt to relive that experience night after night. It had its place, it had its time, but for Frank, it’s not who he is now, nor who he wants to be. “If I ever was to write anything that heavy again, I would have more control of it now than I have had in the past, but the reality is I enjoy the music we’re making now so much, there just isn’t time. We try our best to pull this tune into something that’s got more kick, but if we had our way, I think we’d just write 50 ballads every week.”

‘Dark Rainbow’, then, unlike those four albums that came before it, is “one step closer to being the band we want to be”, as they’re just “not happy being fully spontaneous, reactive people”. For Frank, you “lose a lot in those moments; those moments of clarity and taking the time to think and process the emotions and feelings you’re having is where the real magic happens when you make really bold choices.”

For the two Rattlesnakes, ‘Dark Rainbow’ does different things. For Dean, he likens it to “an empty arena; there’s a grandeur to it, but there’s still a tension”, whereas for Frank, when listening back, he finds himself “sitting on top of a mountain”. Ultimately, it comes back to why he’s set on defending ‘Dark Rainbow’ so valiantly.

“When I listen to this record, what I feel is comfortable; I feel I’m taking steps closer to a space in myself that I want to occupy, and I haven’t allowed myself the time or room to occupy that space yet,” says Frank, showing flashes of uncharacteristic, yet welcomed, vulnerability. “I get a very calm feeling from listening to it. It’s just really hopeful and very serene. It’s outside, like fresh air, and I’ve been battling for that a long time.” ■