Biography
Born in 1968 in Essex, England, Adam Franklin accumulated experience across multiple bands yet earned his widest recognition as frontman and guitarist of Swervedriver, the foundational shoegaze act whose sound blended raw edges with a mystical rock approach. Before that group existed, he performed in the Oxford-based Shake Appeal, a band that saluted the Stooges and Sonic Youth; after repeated lineup shifts, Shake Appeal transformed into Swervedriver. The latter outfit issued four albums during the 1990s while keeping its core style largely intact. When Swervedriver entered a hiatus at the decade’s close, Franklin promptly assembled the modestly experimental and understated Toshack Highway, which produced a limited series of recordings. He simultaneously launched a solo trajectory by releasing Bolts of Melody under his own name in 2007 and promoting it via an American tour. That same year he co-founded the collaborative outfit Magnetic Morning—first called the Setting Suns—with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino; the pair generated several releases, among them the debut album A.M. Franklin nevertheless carved out space for further activity, including a Swervedriver reunion tour in 2008 and the preparation of his second solo album, Spent Bullets, which appeared in 2009. The follow-up I Could Sleep for a Thousand Years surfaced in 2010 under the name Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody. After another Swervedriver tour in 2011, Franklin & Bolts of Melody returned in 2013 with Black Horses, an album shaped by soundtrack-music influences.
Albums
