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Interview
44 ~ FireFlyz
The Wolf Sings
Musician, author and shop owner.
Francis Wolf
is a man of
many talents who is constantly on-the-go. Fireflyz manages
to catch him during one of his rare downtimes and has a
chat with him over a
teh-tarik
.
Tellme about yourself.
My name is FrancisWolf and in almost
every sense of theword I ama small town
boy. I run a game shop that is now 13 years
old, I amaworkingmusicianwho releases
original music, I writewhen I can and day
dreamwithout trying.
Whatwas your childhood like?
I come fromaworking class family.My
father was a staff sergeant in the army
andwhen he retired after 25 years of
service, and even after he got his pension,
heworked every day till the day he died.
Mymother was a homemaker and she
made surewewere taken care of. Despite
all the odds being stacked against her, she
made it work.
We did not havemuch. But, because of
the circumstances, we all ate together,
were not allowed to leave the table till
everythingwas eaten, shared everything
(yes, we even shared one burger patty
equally) and understood that sometimes
we just could not afford certain things.
Despite all this, however, wewerewell
behaved.
My childhoodwas pretty awesome, we
rode bicycles around Kapar, we’d visit the
quarry to swim, tookwalks in the oil palm
plantation to get fromone side of town to
another and climb trees formangoes. On
days whenwewere not playingmarbles
by the side of the housing area or hanging
out at the playground, wewould cycle
around collecting bottles to sell sowe
could get somemoney for a bag of toy
soldiers or an afternoon sugar cane drink.
We did not havemuch but wemade the
most of it.
Whendidyoudecide tobe a
musician?What nudgedyou
towards it?
I do not think that I ever consciously
decided to be amusician.My friends
used to to head to the jamming studio
to playmusic and I followed. Apart
fromthe snooker center, the cafeteria
or your friend’s house, therewas not
much else to entertain us.
So it became a routine to head to
BlackWidow (music studio) in Asia
Jaya every fewdays to kill some time.
When therewas no one to play the
guitar, I would pick it up and barre
chordmy way through songs. It was
horrible, we did not knowhow to tune
up but wanted to play Led Zepplin’s
Whole Lotta Love
andMetallica’s
Sanitarium
. Truth be told, I started
writingmy ownmusic because that
was the only way we could start a
song, play all the parts and finish.
Tellme about yourmusical
journey.
My first ever guitar was something
mymother bought forme onmy 18th
birthday. To be honest, I could not play
the thing very well.My grandfather’s
ukulelewas left all over the house and
I used that to play.
My friend taughtme how to read
music tablatures and hewas nice
enough to photocopy some sheets. I
would use the ukulele to “practice”. I
just sight read patterns, not knowing
what they were. Sowhen I finally got
my acoustic guitar all I didwas bang
out barre chords for days. Even then,
Wolf ... “My name is FrancisWolf and
in almost every sense of theword I am
a small town boy.”