Former
Trooper keyboardist Frank Ludwig says he started singing in church choirs when
he was a mere toddler. He discovered the piano when he was about nine, and as a
teenager he was the organist for several churches. By grade 12, he was
conducting choirs for both children and adults, and had started his first band.
�When I started my first band it was �cause I got excited about the Beatles and it was like, �wow, there�s music like that out there!��
A year
later, he headed to the University of British Columbia where he spent the next 4
years earning his Bachelor of Music degree. Throughout university, Frank became
increasingly involved with the rock music scene and, after earning his degree,
he jumped into the career full-time.
By the mid
70�s, Frank was in Toronto where he says things were coming to a dead end for
him. He left the band Brutus and returned to Vancouver with plans to join a new
group, which ultimately never materialized. Then he heard that Trooper was
looking for a guitar player. Frank knew Brian and Ra from early years, when he
toured with his band, Self Portrait, and often shared a bus with Winters Green,
Brian and Ra�s early group.
�I went into the office and talked with [Trooper manager] Sam, and Smitty happened to be flown in from somewhere on tour. I said, �Sure I play guitar but you could probably use a keyboard player better.� The next thing I know, I was on a plane trip to New York, �cause they were on tour backing up BTO.�
That was
in February 1976. By March, he was back in Toronto at Phase One Studios,
recording the Trooper album �Two For The Show.�
Frank left
Trooper in August of 1979, just weeks before the release of �Flying Colors.�
He worked on a solo project at Randy
Bachman�s studio and joined Bachman�s group Ironhorse, recording on their
1980 album �Everything Is Grey.� Shortly after, that band broke up and Randy
formed a new band, Union, with Frank and Ironhorse drummer, Chris Leighton. They
released several singles in 1981 and the album �On Strike�.
�Fame never meant anything to me,� he claims. �The ego thing of being a rock star never meant anything to me. It was kinda like a thorn in the side and it was just so hard on your family. Ultimately I made the decision that family was more important.�
Frank put
his education to use and became a high school music teacher. During the summer
break in 1986, Trooper found themselves at the last minute without a
keyboardist, so Frank happily returned to work with the group for a few weeks as
a temporary replacement on their summer tour. The Anniversary Show on November
4, 2000 in Vancouver will be the first time he�s played with Trooper since,
and the first time in over 20 years that the original band will be together.
Nowadays,
Frank continues to teach and he also conducts a full-string orchestra as well as
a community band. The rest of the time, he runs his own recording studio called
Quantum Sound, and co-produces a wide variety of artists, including some former
students. Jazz, rock, Cuban, beat poetry� it�s a pretty eclectic mix of
stuff.
�I love it all. Well, I love everything in small doses� can get bored really easily. I�m still basically a rock �n� roller, kinda pop guy. So what I do, I�ve got a couple of artists where, as a songwriter, I will steer them in a slightly more commercial vein. I don�t think that�s a negative word. �Commercial� just means somebody else might like it.�
And he has
experience with �commercial� ventures. He says that he�s writing a lot,
for different venues, including co-authoring a whole series of method books for
young string players.
Other than
Trooper, his most famous work is the theme for the TV show �The Urban
Peasant.� I asked him how that happened.
�I had been recording out of a place called Studio 1200
where we did a lot of the music for political parties, and did commercials, and
we did TV� where we�d do the music and record the dialogue and everything
for a documentary or something. And I was doing music for Sesame Street New
York� smaller private projects. And I had a friend who happened to be putting
together this cooking show with James Barber and, he had known me for years, so
he asked me to do the music.�
�I just wanted to make music and I liked recording and
I always hoped that throughout the rest of my life that I would always be able
to be creative in writing and recording.�
�I�m probably not terribly a people person that much,
but I love performing. I become a different person when I perform. All that
aggression��
Frank is no
stranger to strong emotions. �I love gospel. As a singer, I
like stuff that�s got feel.� Well,
there�s plenty of �feel� in the songs he recorded with Trooper. He talked
candidly about the many angry songs he�s written including Mr.
Big, which he explains is �sort of� about Bruce Allen.
�I had been a very good friend of his and I saw him
getting more power and becoming sort of more arrogant. It wasn�t just about
him. It was a little bit about how success can go to your head and you can be
pretty ruthless. I don�t think of that as an emotional song though, maybe just
because I�m angry all the time.�
He says that
he feels the more poignant ones are:
Quiet
Desperation
- �That�s a neat song because� when I wrote it, there�s an
implied conversation there�
and
Back To You � �That�s
a funny one. I always liked the thing from �My Fair Lady� of �the rain in
Spain falls mainly on the plane,� and Round, Round
had been a hit at that time.�
So with all
that appealing alliteration in mind, he penned the lyrics �Going
[Ground] round and round, I'm down in downtown nowhere. No planes, no
trains, it's plain small change, ain�t carfare.�
��Ground round� was like a joke, because we would
call Round, Round the hamburger song. It was like a little in-joke, and
it was also just that whole thing of playing with words and sounds and internal
rhymes. To me, that�s the fun of it.�
He says that
when he writes, he tries to be honest and catch a feeling. Years ago, he heard
an interview of The Eagles about song writing, where they said that they used to
create a postcard in their minds for every song.
�I think if you have a picture in your head like that,
then your song is connected to reality and imagery at the same time.�
So is song
writing easy for Frank?
September 2000
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